Top Cow

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Move over, Mickey Mouse comics aren’t for kids anymore.

Top Cow Productions Inc. has in the six years of its existence grown into the third-biggest comic-book publisher in the nation. And its success is largely driven by themes and drawings that are targeted at grown-ups.

“The audience today is a lot more sophisticated,” said Marc Silvestri, the company’s founder and chief executive. The shift in comic-book audiences, he said, occurred about six years ago.

“Kids began drifting off to video games and animation for their fantasy,” he said. “But our story lines are much more literate and we found a niche, and it worked well.”

Top Cow, which aims at a largely male audience between 15 and 35, publishes such graphically intense titles as “Cyberforce,” “Ripclaw,” “Ascension” and “The Darkness,” 1997’s top-selling comic. Another of the company’s most popular books is “Witchblade,” the exotic tale of a New York City policewoman with super powers. All of them feature relatively sophisticated plots and statuesque characters wearing clothing that leaves little to the imagination.

“We’re not ‘Archie,’ ” said Brad Foxhoven, Tow Cow’s president. “We’re PG-13.”

But selling comic books is only part of the story for Top Cow, which has grown from $900,000 in revenues in its first year in 1992 to $13.1 million in 1997. This year, Silvestri anticipates revenues of $18 million. Like other big players in the comics industry, Top Cow uses its characters as a launching pad for toy manufacturing deals, movies and television shows.

Top Cow has recently signed licensing deals with Mattel Inc., Eidos Interactive, DreamWorks Music and Moore Action Collectibles Inc.

Silvestri, a former comic artist who no longer draws, also has entered into a deal with Oliver Stone’s Illusion Entertainment and Warner Bros. to develop a one-hour live-action series based on “Witchblade” for the TNT cable network. The project is scheduled for the fall.

Silvestri founded Top Cow in 1994 in Los Angeles. He had spent a dozen years as an artist at Marvel Comics in New York, but became annoyed when his bosses didn’t share their wealth.

Nearly all of Top Cow’s titles rank in the top 25 for total U.S. sales, in a marketplace jammed with over 400 titles each month. The company operates out of a 10,000-square-foot studio in the Century City area, complete with pool and ping-pong tables.

Top Cow publishes five to six titles a month, compared with more than 100 titles a month for Marvel and about 60 by D.C. Comics., the No. 1 and No. 2 comics publishers, respectively.

The reason for Top Cow’s success is that it pays attention to the interests of its readers, according to Douglas Goldstein, editor of Wizard, a magazine that covers the $750 million comic-book industry.

“The early titles were the normal superheroes, but when they changed to fantasy, they really took off,” Goldstein said.

A major part of that fantasy is sexual. The full-figured female characters are idealized versions of the human body.

“They have artists who know how to draw the human form,” Goldstein said.

While this clearly appeals to teenage boys, Silvestri said young women respond to his comics because of strong role models his female characters portray. “(Girls) are into role playing,” he said. “They are strong images; look at the success ‘Xena’ has had on television.”

More importantly, he said, his characters are not cartoon-like, but often are faced with moral dilemmas. “They are not, ‘Hi, I am a superhero with a cape,’ ” Silvestri said.

Silvestri said he has been reluctant to become involved with the film industry because too many producers have seen his comics as merely “campy” and not three-dimensional.

“Comics are my business,” he said. “It is how I pay my bills. I don’t want to just toss out a property and see if it works out. I take pride in what we do. Oliver Stone was the first one who understood and took us seriously.”

Dan Halsted, president of Illusion Entertainment, agreed that he takes Top Cow very seriously indeed.

“We think Marc Silvestri is a singular talent who combines an incredible business sense with artistic integrity, and seemed like a perfect match for our company,” Halsted said.

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