The Sneaky History of Eternity Comics Rise and Fall
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ส.ค. 2024
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Eternity Comics was the most visible imprint of Malibu Comics and it had a dramatic up and down history from the 1980s into the 1990s. Books like Robotech, Ex-Mutants, Cat Claw, Men in Black, Subspecies, Planet of the Apes and more came through Eternity and the labels owned by the founder of Malibu Comics, Scott Mitchell Rosenberg. This video looks at the lawsuits with Disney and Toei, the introduction of new talent like Evan Dorkin, Rob Liefeld, Ron Lim, Jimmy Palmiotti and many more.
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I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THREE YEARS SINCE DISCOVERING YOUR CHANNEL TO HEAR DINOSAURS FOR HIRE MENTIONED
LOL. Maybe he'll do some tropes on this series one. It's not one of my favorites but it was still an entertaining read.
“What if our post-apocalyptic humans are former mutants” is a great take!
Weirdly reminds me of the Daleks in Dr. Who before they were written as Davros's creation
Given the thumbnail, it's funny that Chris dropped this on the same day Cartoonist Kayfabe covered an infamous Wolverine/Deadpool comic comprised almost entirely of blatant swipes. Even funnier is that Dave Campiti figures into that story as well.
Scott Rosenberg seems like a very interesting figure in comics during this era of comics.
To say Rosemberg had a knack for "curious" business practices, is an understatement.
incredibly shady! you would think comics would be too small of a pond for the kind of corporate shenanigans he got up too.
@@erikwirfs-brock2432To be fair, indie comics were getting hot and the entire medium was just a few years from the ridiculous speculator boom, so there was a lot of upside and no meaningful oversight to prevent an, um... let's say *enterprising* distributor, from taking advantage of their position. But eh, at least we got some fresh talent and fun stories out of the deal.
that was cool. great that you gave a mention to evan dorkin. I loved milk and cheese
"Let's get boozed up and riot! Whiskey makes a man mean!"
Loved your take on the history of Eternity. I remember one of my editors told me the sales of Ninja High School paid their electric bill. They also produced a Project A-ko comic based on the anime.
About 90% of this story is new to me and I love it. Whether you're showcasing some insane golden age hero or giving a comic book history lesson, you always make great videos, Chris!
"Wondering whether his character Shatterstar was inspired by the Eternity book the White Devil..."
"NO BUT MY GUY'S ONE SWORD IS TWO"
Rob’s online saying that Shatterstar came out a month earlier and showing art that predates White Devil
there's goes ding ding ding di di ding ding, ding ding ding di di ding ding
our's goes ding ding ding di di ding ding, da ding ding ding di di ding ding
I just gotta say that one pinup he did for Ex-Mutants is honestly the sexiest he's ever done, not a hint of his usual unnatural anatomy he was so set into drawing through the 90s (I E freakishly long legs and abdomen) yeah yeah no visible feet still. LOL
@@ErikonPaper Rob might be right but there were ads for White Devil that predated his pinup. Even Rob did ad art for issues like Ex-Mutants that came out before the published issues. I'll probably never know but it is possible.
Liefeld is the most notorious “rip off artist” ever, his piss poor imagination & creativity along with his forever amateur artwork are his earmarks. Of course he stole the design aspects from White Devil.
His entire career shows all he does is lift from other creators & characters.
"The Trouble with Girls" was a fun title that my bro and i used to collect. Those were the days. Thanks for the nostlgia, Chris!
Loved that series. It drifted to 2 or 3 other companies before it ended. And the spin-offs were just as fun. Apache Dick!
Being a webcomic creator, Scott Rosenberg and Platinum comics shafted me a few times by buying out my hosting sites then gutting them when they couldn't make any money.
😮😮😮😮
Capitalism sure is fun
you always find some really interesting comics trivia for us, thanks Chris! another great presentation :)
I used to read Eternity Comics as a kid in the 80's. First with Ex-Mutants, then Robotech II: The Sentinels. Good memories.
Oh man I haven't thought about Ex-Mutants in years. The local discount store when I was a kid would have these 4 for a dollar random comic grab bags that almost always had an issue or two of Ex-Mutants in them, and they were always my favorites. Sooo many bike rides there with just a buck or two in the pocket and the hope that there was something interesting in the comic bin.
I wonder if there is a collected omnibus of all the stories out there so I don't have to go tracking down individual issues. Honestly I hope some studio buys the license/rights to make an animated mini-series just to compete with X-Men 97', and since it's not a high profile property it won't attract anyone woke to come taint its story.
My goodness... leather and lace. When I was a teen, I became good friends with a local comic shop owner and sometimes he would let me do the ordering because I knew what the kids at school were into. He would let get Leather and Lace but I had to promise not to let my parents see it. First threesome I ever saw was a female villan and two clones within those pages 😂
Eternity folded shortly after I started reading comics but when I discovered the Ex-Mutants universe a decade ago, I went hunting for all the series: Wild Knights, Shattered Earth, New Humans. They were fun comics to read.
To this day, the Marvel purchase of the Ultraverse still hurts. The creators said it needed to happen but I can't help but think things would have been better if DC had bought them.
On a different note: Looking good, Chris. Hope everything is going well. Thank you for another awesome episode.
After how DC treats the Wildstorm line and the others they bought, Ultraverse would probably still be a thing instead of being shelved.
@@ivanagustinortiz5237 See also, Crossgen 😞 I think they made like one new Mystic comic years after absorbing Crossgen (looking nowhere near as sexy as the original comic in her design) and just abandoned it.
These are my favorite videos you make!!! Don't get me wrong, I like your Monday night live podcasts, and I do enjoy SOME of your reviews, but in my opinion you're the best at this facet of comic book content.
One advantage that Eternity Comics seems to have had in responding to lawsuits was that they stopped when asked to stop, instead of being arrogant or stupid about it. I'm not a lawyer, but from what I recall, if you stop right after getting a Cease and Desist letter, or only delay long enough for your legal department to confirm that 'Yeah, we dropped the ball on that one,' the process of the lawsuit generally stops also (or perhaps is required to stop).
A Cease and Desist letter is a warning shot, if you stop doing what you're doing then there's no lawsuit.
I was an avid fan of Ninja High School, I still have many of the Eternity Robotech comics as well.
Remember getting a couple issues of NHS from a corner store.
Excellent job saying so much about Rob Liefeld in so few words.
Well this is a pleasant surprise, early in the morning. I was waiting for you to cover Eternity Comics, and a little bit of Malibu.
On your video about the Mickey Mouse comic strips, I commented that I was disappointed that you hadn't mentioned The Uncensored Mouse, and you made a whole video about Eternity Comics. You did not disappoint. 😁
Wow definitely filled in gaps in my knowledge. I loved malibu more when they were publishing the badger and those books.
Thanks for the insightful and entertaining feature on a comic line I had little interest at the time and couldn't even remember until you started talking about them.
Man you have the best comics show on youtube. Thank you for being such a great historian of the medium. I knew nothing of this story. I wonder why Marvel never used the malibu characters when ultraforce and the exiles were so popular in the mid 90s.
I couldn’t confirm but the original creators may be entitled to 6% of profits on their creations and if that’s true, Marvel would probably rather not deal with it.
I wanted to thank you for your channel. I would draw comics in middle school, but later chose music and had not drawn or made comics in many years. Your channel started a revived obsession, and your explaining and listing the different tropes has helped me create a golden age style, Superman-esque universe. I realized, thanks to your help, that certain tropes act like cogs in a machine, and with the right cogs in place, you can make a storytelling machine that virtually writes itself. I won't go on, but you helped me create some of my best comics work, and I'm very grateful to you for that, thank you.
Ahhh Lady Death and Ninja high school good memories.
NHS is still going! I'm working on two spin-offs for Ben Dunn as we speak. 😁
I appreciate that you went through the effort of choosing a period appropriate hoodie.
I loved the cleverness of the titles "Ex-Mutants" and "New Humans," and how they subtly referred to "New Mutants" and "X-Men.'
The whole Eternity, Wonder, Amazing-thing has always confused me and frankly, I'm still a little confused. Anyway, as a Lady Death fan, I'll always be thankful for Eternity, even if there were some shady aspects to it.
Now this is actually fun. I'm actually bored to tears of Ghost Machine's Gas Mask Guy and Civil War Guy, Bee Boy, Boy Boy, Doctor Bee Boy Man...
But things like Ex-Mutants, Palworld and Kemono Friends, that I can roll with.
Those old comic houses will always live in our old and fading memories...😔
Whether it's about a former company or a creator, I really love your comics history videos, Chris! They're so interesting! =)
God, I love this. I bought The Verdict AND White Devil and loved those books! I still have them. I freakin' love Eternity and Malibu!
I hate that Marvel has done NOTHING with the Ultraverse at all!! I wanna see Prime!!
Fond memories of ex mutants and new humans. Thanks for covering em
I remember NOW Comics for somehow snagging the Ghostbusters license and Continuity's Bucky O'Hare. They all seemingly came out of nowhere but maybe/likely more subsidiaries of larger companies?
They also did the very first Terminator comic before Dark Horse got hold of the license.
@@carlgibson285 oh right! I guess they weren't as in demand at the time
I read their The Real Ghostbusters comics. At some point the owners stopped paying the artists and writers, but I don't remember all the details.
You should do an episode on the demise of Dreamwave next
I was a kid fresh out of college in Manila when I met David Campiti during one of his Glasshouse Graphics comics creation seminars back in 2000. 24 years later and I'm still working with him, he's such a great guy who knows how to work with artists and writers. He changed my life forever as I got to see my art in the shelves of comic book stores on books like Tomb Raider and Battle of the Planets worked with people like Alex Ross and earned enough to buy a house for my parents. =)
I loved the Eternity Robotech and Harlock back in the day.
Did the Eternity and Malibu writers retain creator rights that let them move to or rebrand at other publishers? In this era that's always a key detail. It's a crying shame First Comics are nearly forgotten and so few experience Grimjack, Nexus, or Badger.
Some did some didnt. Many were let go but top sellers like the Ex Mutants had their rights stolen from them.
And Dynamo Joe!
9:16 - LMAO, nice ZZ Gundam costume, lady.
Fantastic episode as always Chris! super informative and well researched
I so look forward to new episodes. I wish there were more but I appreciate the time you put into your videos.
lol...I work on colors for the rebooted/updated White Devil which is in the hands of Silverline Comics, now. Seeing the similarities it's pretty hard to deny that Rob at the least, got inspiration from WD. Although slightly less now, just because I was given carte blanche to redesign the color scheme. It's a trip seeing that you were talking about an IP I work on. Keep up the good work. Love the vids.
I’d love a retrospective of on things like Gorilla press, Black Bull, and some of those other mini imprints around at the turn of the century.
I have some Eternity comics in my collection. The one I can remember most that I have in there is Zen: The Intergalactic Ninja #0, with a chromium cover. Of course, with it being the 90s when that came out, maybe every other book had a chromium cover.
It would be interesting to hear about some of the other short-run publishers out there. Me mentioning chromium makes me think of the publisher of the Chromium Man (of which I also have an issue 0--this one ironically not with a chromium cover), Triumphant Comics. But another one I'd be interested to hear about is the 90s Lightning Comics. I have some of their stuff.
But when it comes to Malibu, I often look at their fate as a sad one, as Marvel bought the company, retooled the books into inferior versions than they were, the whole line ended quite quickly, and Marvel has proceeded to do next to nothing with them ever since. And this isn't the only time they did exactly that same thing, as it later happened with CrossGen. Doofenschmirtz meme about two nickels can be inserted here.
Malibu, though, had elements that make me wish it had kept going. Particularly, they were pushing the boundary in LGBT representation. One of the main characters in the Strangers being a gay man is part of that, but there's also how close they hewed toward having a main character be trans that's interesting, with the character of Mantra (of course, the fact the animated Ultraforce show never included the character is telling as to how far things could be pushed at the time). Though I should say: I know it wasn't all sunshine and roses. Considering what came out about one of the writers for Prime, I'm glad to know at least that character didn't stay relevant for long.
And another failed publisher I wanted to mention, who might have an interesting story: Broadway Comics. Considering that was a Jim Shooter project, I'm sure there's some interesting stuff to talk about.
Zen was published Entity, not Eternity. I used to think both companies were the same until I noticed that they had different logs then looked closer at the spelling. BTW, I believe Rosenberg owns the characters from Triumphant comics now. I've always wanted someone to publish Chromium Man again, that was an interesting character.
@@vivalarazausarmyvet4453 My mistake about Entity vs. Eternity, then. I looked through a list I made of all my comics (I make pointless lists for fun, never have known why), and turns out I don't see anything listed from Eternity. Looks like I really was conflating the two companies.
I've worked with some of the oldguard from Malibu, recently over at Silverline on the White Devil title...I had always heard the tale that Marvel bought Malibu because of their pioneering of digital coloring...but I was told that wasn't really the case. It was because Marvel saw them as a threat, so like with vulture capitalists, they bought the company and dismantled all of it.
excellent retrospective - forgot how many Eternity comics I had in my collection def all the Evil Ernie and Robotech ones!
Ninja High School by Ben Dunn was my introduction to Manga! Since it was my first, it's jokes referencing well-known anime at the time, the jokes flew right over my head until a few years later. I just loved the art style & different story telling.
It's still going! I did the coloring for the cover of NHS #193 and the Inks & colors of the #195 cover!
This is a great little retrospective. Rob Liefeld JUST defended his shatterstar design on Twitter. He claims it was influenced by a discarded longshot design....
Thanks for this video. It really took me back because I remember getting Eternity and Malibu comics back in the day. I think they were a bit less expensive, so I could afford to pick up a few more of them.
This was very informative and slightly hilarious because I'd just finished sorting through some old Malibu and Eternity comics the other day. Didn't know they had such a complicated history. But your right about them having a fun selection.
Man I thought Dinosaurs For Hire was something I fever dreamed as a kid
Well Chris, you've done it again, sir!
Great job... keep it up.
Also, I enjoy sharing your most informative and entertaining videos on Quora!
Another really interesting video Chris! Hope you and yours are all doing good take care
Love to see a Pirate Corp$ mention
I'll thumbs-up any video that unexpectedly reminds me of Full Moon Pictures.
Ex-Mutants sounds like an X-Men knock-off The Asylum would have put out around 2002. Eternity Comics was before my time but I remember a review of the Ex-Mutants videogame which pointed out the suspicious similarities!
Ultraverse was super weird. Would love to see an episode on that someday - fantastic episode!!
I liked aircel comics !
Great subject! I bought some Eternity Comics but knew little of the publisher
You have an amazing knack for finding interesting, non-obvious topics to cover. Thanks again!
I seem to recall Malibu started with Color Reprints on Ninja Highschool, I don't think they ever published the black and white Ninja Highschool comics.
It's always interesting to hear about this comic book industry trivia from you
Great video Chris. This was a gap in my indie comic knowledge that you caulked up nicely.
I remember most of the companies he bankrolled but I'm so happy to see Amazing Comics mentioned. I remember Ex-Mutants fondly.
Malibu also had Rune with Barry Windsor Smith
Excellent video, Chris (as always)! This is one of my favorite eras in comics history . . . the Rosenberg hand in all this is crazy wild! Thanks for all your research and pulling it all together!
FINALLY! Someone gets it right about Malibu's coloring department! Nicely done! Nice to see some of my work in this video! :)
I absolutely love these publisher graveyard videos. Keep 'em comin'!
The thing I remember Eternity most for was the adaptations of Full Moon movies like Demonic Toys and Puppet Master. They were a lot of fun if you’re into schlock horror.
Fun fact. Ron lim's very first comic was with a company owned by Dan Vado (may have been slg at that point) and was in collaboration with my college Adobe Illustrator instructor. I got a copy of the comic from my teacher and eventually gave it to Ron at a comic con. He had forgotten about doing the comic, lol.
Holy Plagiarism Batman! This was a fun ride into the late 80s/early 90s.
The wildest part is that I remember CatClaw! And I had no notion that this was originally a Yugoslavian comic (as the country was known then). I think it was re-printed in one of the anthology magazines in my country.
Never heard of them. This was a very cool informative episode.
I did not realize there was an English Version of Cat Claw. Gotta track that down now hahaha
The very best comic book channel on TH-cam.
Interesting video Chris. I will have to read the Robotech comics i have collected.
Omg! I had completely forgotten about Pirate Corp$! I really liked that comic!
I loved the Ex-Mutants books, a real discovery when I found it, Lim's work was as good as any of the best of Marvel or DC. Thanks for mentioning it!
Watched your excellent video and coincidentally found a copy of Ex-Mutants #1 @ a comic show this weekend! Good first issue.
I literally just picked up Ex-Mutants 1 and 2 this week.
Awesome vid 😊 😬 May I request more eps about the other 80s publishers? For example, pacific, comico, caliber
Finally some good fucking content
18:43 GOOD GAWD, I had that video! Thankfully, Crunchyroll has the original Capt. Harlock series subtitled.
5:50
>something shady about it.
Here, I'll sum it up for you. (Scott Mitchell Rosenberg).
Ninja high school was my favorite comic as a kid. It was the start of my Manga reading.
Good job. U need to do something about heavy metal and wizard magazine ❤😂
Dude I literally thought you stopped uploading, so I double checked to make sure I’m still subbed and I am. I talked to you on live streams all the way back in 2019 so idk why TH-cam would assume I no longer want to view your content. Anyways good luck 🎉
Another banger Chris!
We love you dude!! Your channel is very in depth creative entertaining and informative. ❤
Thanks for another informative video!
Thank you for the support.
Thanks again Chris!
Excellent! This was super interesting. My favorite of your videos.
Cool video, thanks!
I worked with Platinum for a few years. This explains a lot.
A right distribute that involved Harmony Gold!? Well I never :).
Seriously the Harmony Gold Robotech drama is insane and has been going on for four decades at this point.
Super interesting episode, Chris.
Thx for ur show now I know the name of the character on my shirt is captain Harlock.
Scott Rosenberg who published the comic Cowboys And Aliens, and while he was on the set of the film being made from it, he admitted to the director that he'd never read the comic, not even on the plane flight to the location. People who worked for him had many tales to tell about the guy.
Love this channel. Favorite comics commentator.
They also did a cool comic called the Trouble With Girls
i actually had an issue of 'Dinosaurs 4 Hire' just a few years ago;unfortunately, i lost it but still it was a fun read.
...as always, GREAT episode Chris 😊