Work-for-hire in the context of "Mediatonic"

Image Comics is an American independent comic book publisher and is the third largest direct market comic book and graphic novel publisher in the industry by market share. Its best-known publications include Spawn, The Walking Dead, Kick-Ass, Invincible, Jupiter's Legacy, Witchblade, The Maxx, Savage Dragon, Descender, Saga, East of West, Monstress, Radiant Black, and Stray Dogs.

It was founded in 1992 by several high-profile illustrators as a venue for creator-owned properties, in which comics creators could publish material of their own creation without giving up the copyrights to those properties. Normally this is not the case in the work-for-hire-dominated American comics industry, where the legal author is a publisher, such as Marvel Comics or DC Comics, and the creator is an employee of that publisher. Its output was originally dominated by superhero and fantasy titles from the studios of the founding Image partners, but now includes comics in many genres by numerous independent creators.