Ghost Machine (company)

Ghost Machine (founded and previously known as Mad Ghost Productions) is an American cooperative media company founded in October 2023, which publishes creator-owned comics through Image Comics, and was founded to help the participating creators to benefit from the development of its intellectual properties. The company was announced on October 12, 2023 at the New York Comic Con. Its founding writers and artists, who are exclusive to the company, are Brad Meltzer, Jason Fabok, Gary Frank, Bryan Hitch, Geoff Johns, Francis Manapul, Peter J. Tomasi, Lamont Magee, Maytal Zchut, Brad Anderson and Rob Leigh.

At its launch, the creators stressed that unlike the work they had done in the past for publishers such as DC Comics, the books of the four shared universes established by the company's first official release in January 2024, Ghost Machine #1, would not be set in the superhero genre, but in other genres such as science fiction, historical fantasy, post-apocalyptic fiction, and horror.

The launch of Ghost Machine was announced on October 12, 2023 at the New York Comic Con. It was touted as a cooperative media company that would publish creator-owned comics through Image Comics. The company made the announcement at the convention's the Lunar retailer breakfast, with its first convention panel held on October 13, and produced a Ghost Machine #1 ashcan comic, as a giveway to visitors to the company's booth.

The company's founding writers and artists are: Brad Meltzer, Jason Fabok, Gary Frank, Bryan Hitch, Geoff Johns, Lamont Magee, Francis Manapul, Peter J. Tomasi, Maytal Zchut and Brad Anderson. It was also indicated that other creators would be joining the company after they completed their prior commitments to other publishers. Ghost Machine was conceived with the idea that its founding creators would be exclusive to the company and would jointly own, operate and profit from their creations. The group ownership of the imprint's properties is reflected in the editorial page of its inaugural publication, Ghost Machine #1, under the headline "Welcome to the First Fully Shared Creator-Owned Universes!" In the accompanying text, the creators state, "We completely co-own our company, characters, and universes together, sharing in publishing, but also in media, merchandise, and beyond." Novelist/television writer Brad Meltzer explained the rationale for the company, pointing to how in the American comics history, historically, writers and artists were not able to control or earn considerable profit from creations that went on to become highly lucrative for publishers, like Superman, saying, "The entertainment industry is an ecosystem, and it is ever changing...When you tell the stories of comics themselves, the creator doesn't always come first."

Pointing to the 2023 Writer's Guild and SAG-AFTRA strikes (the latter of which was still ongoing at the time of Ghost Machine's launch), the company further explained in a press release:

"As the recent Hollywood strikes have shown, creatives are disenfranchised with the traditional industry model – creators seek increased empowerment as a natural progression to an ever-changing entertainment landscape. Ghost Machine's enterprising business model is at the forefront of this evolution with the characters and full company ownership shared by its creators in every way."

"Our ambition for Ghost Machine is to push beyond superheroes, introducing new genres, characters and shared universes, completely co-owned by all the creators involved. We see this as the future of how creatives will work and retain creative control and meaningfully participate in success like never before. Our passion is for the magic of graphic storytelling and the emotional resonance of compelling characters. But we are not just a comic book company – we are the first wholly creator-owned and operated media company of its kind, born out of a desire to create and succeed together."

This was interpreted by Russ Burlingame of ComicBook.com to mean that Ghost Machine would not restrict itself to publishing screen-friendly intellectual properties, but a media company that would facilitate development of those properties into media adaptations, and Burligame noted that several of the company's founding creators had experience producing work for film and television. It was not clear, however, whether all of the founders would have an equal stake in all of the properties, or if each individual creator owned their individual properties, which had been the standard arrangement at Image Comics since its founding.