Comic Book Artists, Writers Launch Creator-Owned Media Company ‘Ghost Machine’

Best-Selling author Brad Meltzer has joined forces with a group of writers and artists aiming to shake up the comic book industry and send more of its profits to the creators behind the characters.

The former host of History Channel’s “Decoded” has formed Ghost Machine, a media company being unveiled Thursday at New York Comic Con. The unique venture is jointly owned by the founding writers and artists, who will also operate it, and hopefully, profit from it, the company said in a 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,” the statement said. “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.”

“When you tell the stories of comics themselves, the creator doesn’t always come first,” Meltzer told The New York Times. “The tension goes back to the earliest days of comics: In 1938, the creators of Superman sold their rights to the character for $130, with no inkling of how valuable the hero would become.”

Meltzer is joined by Jason Fabok, an artist for many of the Batman titles; veteran D.C. artists and writers Gary Frank, Geoff Johns, Peter J. Tomasi and Francis Manapul; “The Authority” co-creator Bryan Hitch; “Young Jedi Adventures” developer and writer Lamont Magee and writer Maytal Zchut.

The company said it plans to announce additional talent in coming months, “including one major superstar creator.” All of the talen will be exclusive to Ghost Machine for their comics work once they’ve completed projects they’ve already committed to, the company said..

“Everybody in the business wants to see comics thrive and continue to be an important part of pop culture,” Johns, who is known for his work on DC characters like Flash, Green Lantern and the Teen Titans, told The Times. “But the business model shifts so rapidly, we wanted to evolve with it.”

Ghost Machine will publish through Image Comics, itself the brainchild of top-selling artists who grew frustrated with their lack of editorial control and the limited earnings from working on characters owned by major media companies — D.C. is part of Warner Bros. Discovery and Marvel is a subsidiary of Disney.

Johns and Frank produced their own creator-owned work in 2021, “Geiger,” a six-issue comic about a man living in a post-nuclear-war world published by Image Comics. The critical and commercial success is under development by Paramount Television Studios, The Times reported, with Johns writing the pilot.

Because it was a creator-owned title, the profit “Geiger” generated went to the team and they control the media rights. Both Johns and Frank will be the showrunners for the Paramount project.

“Geiger: Ground Zero,” a two-part prequel series, will be Ghost Machine’s first launch, coming in November. “Ghost Machine” No. 2, a 64-page comic that The Times said will introduce four shared universes, will debut in January. It will feature First Ghost, who is part of a supernatural story written by Meltzer set in the White House, and the time-traveling Rocketfellers created by Tomasi and Manapul.

“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,” the company said. “We see this as the future of how creatives will work and retain creative control and meaningfully participate in success like never before.”

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