File:Whilce Portacio on with Starting Image Comics

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Whilce Portacio on with starting Image Omar: Just tell me the story of how you got involved with Image?

Whilce: Oh, it's so boring. It’s so boring and I have nothing to do with anything. At that time, every year around Christmas, for months I would go home to the Philippines, okay? That was my roots period. I was raised here in the States, so I didn't know the language and know anything about the culture or anything, but here I have the means, and now, because of comics, and so, I'm going to go every year. Plus, there was someone special that I met, so that’s the real reason that anybody travels far.

Omar: Yeah.

Whilce: But anyway, so I started going back to the Philippines, and so, right before I left that year, Jim calls me up and he goes, “Hey Whilce, we're going to do something that’s going to be something that’s real big, there's a couple of big people to do it and it's going to be pretty cool”. I go, “what is it?”. “Oh, I can't tell you it, but when you come back, I’ll tell you”. I go, “okay, I'm going on vacation, I don’t have to think about this, okay, there’s nothing to think about any of this”. So, I go off for a month and I come back, Jim calls me up again and goes, “hey, we did it”. What? And then, he tells me, and then I go, “that’s something that’s kind of interesting”. I’m young and dumb and we’ve already done the exploit, so we were already at that point top…

Omar: Top of the food chain.

Whilce: And again, I keep saying it, we were young and dumb so that if it fails, who cares?

Omar: You can always get a back to being a top creator...

Whilce: And at the time, animation was really starting up; special effects, concept design, and so, even if Marvel or DC didn't want us, I was so young that and I wasn’t attached in any way, so I could move. So, I go, “okay, it might be exciting”. And I said, “okay, let's go onboard”. And then, I met everybody.

Omar: That's cool. And so, the seven of you met and where did you guy meet for the first time?

Whilce: I think it was, again, it’s so long ago, I think it was in Seattle. Todd was in Seattle, I forget if it was his cousin or something, but he had a comic book store. And so, we all went up; it seemed like the place to meet, everybody meets up, because some of us were in LA, some of us in San Diego. And so, we all went up there to Todd’s house and spent the weekend with him and stuff.

Omar: That's awesome. And then, after that you started working for a lot of different Image books over the years?

Whilce: Yeah. That was one of the, see, that was back then, it was like, “Hey Todd, I got to launch my book, I need something”. And it was that simple, it was that easy. I mean, a lot of people don't know also is that we have a lot to credit Wizard magazine for because they became our de facto voice. People didn't know that we weekly called each other up; they needed content, we needed pump, we needed advertising. And In between books, I mean, the kids were more used to it back and the 30 days in-between.

Omar: Yeah.

Whilce: But by having Wizard,

Omar: In the middle so they can get pumped up for the stuff that's coming out.

Whilce: Right. And If we know we're going to have some roadblocks; hey, let's do a contest to visit the studio.

Omar: And then, people are going to be super excited and they can't wait for the next one and the, “oh, I get a chance to visit the studio”.

Whilce: Yeah. And we can now launch everything through there, everybody will be ready when the product is ready. So, there was a lot of interaction between everybody back then. Now again, because everything is worth so much potentially, everybody, you know, and it's human nature wants to have most of that to themselves. But I grew up reading, stand in Jack's comics in the 60s and Stand Soapbox of talking about the Mary Marvel book that never existed, but I imagined this big room with Jack and Big John and JR, everybody, you know, all the big guys drawing together and laughing and teasing each other and coming to the industry and Carl tells me; sorry…

Omar: That's not really how it works.

Whilce: You know, [unintelligible 00:04:37] General Media seniors' over there, but he's out directing the interns and stuff. And so, my first chance to get in to see the situation, when Carl asked me to call up Jim, and then, Scott was already with me. And then, to hear that Rob was doing the same thing and Todd was going to do the same thing and Mark, and then, and that was actually what led to the then, (Image).