Image Comics workers union: Unionizing is "so much more than making an announcement and calling it a day"

Image Comics staffers' collective Comic Book Workers United made headlines when the group announced its formation in late 2021, becoming the first union in the comic book industry. Since then, progress has been incremental and slower than many would like — but, importantly, progress has been made: the group announced the ratification of its first union contract earlier this year, after all.

As Popverse considers the need for collective action in the comic book industry, we reached out to CBWU for an update on where things currently stand, the group's current relationship with Image Comics, and it’s feelings on its journey to date. The following Q&A was conducted via email, with the group speaking as one unified collective unit at their request.

(Note: Comic Book Workers United is made up of the staff of Image Comics, not its creators. Instead, it is a group of production artists and workers, editors, and other individuals employed as staff by Image Comics to package the books for publication. As the group points out in the below, under U.S. labor law, only staff is allowed to unionize.)

Popverse: The last anyone heard anything publicly was back at the end of May, when CBWU filed new complaints with the National Labor Relations Board over what was described as “increasingly hostile” behavior in terms of the wider work environment at Image. Can you offer any update as to the outcome of these complaints?

Comic Book Workers United: We do not have any new updates on our pending unfair labor practice charges at this time, as it is still in the investigation phase.

Overall, how would you characterize the work environment at Image right now, with regards to the issues that were related to the complaints?

As we anticipated, there was a period of growing pains for both staffers and management as we adapted to a new structure of work rules. As a whole, we believe we are all settling into a new normal that, with transparency and communication, can continue to improve over time – which is largely what we set out to do. We have also recently elected two shop stewards within the CBWU to act as union representatives in discussions with Image management. We are optimistic that this will help facilitate more frequent and productive interactions between Image and the union.

Has there been one obvious takeaway from the experience of forming the union and the long road to ratification and beyond? It’s clearly been a difficult process to where things currently stand, but would the group describe it as a positive one, overall?

Organizing a union is so much more than making an announcement on social media and calling it a day, it takes an enormous amount of time, energy, research, dedication, support, and even courage to maintain that momentum. As difficult as it was to