Spawn: Book of the Dead Rewrites History

Let’s skip the fact that Spawn: Book Of The Dead* was published years after it was first announced. I can’t remember exactly when this book by Steve Niles and Ashley Wood was first announced, but it was back in 2001 or 2002. This review at horrornews.net describes the time between the announcement and actual publication as:

I don’t actually remember the official date I caught wind of it, but it was definitely a different time, a different era and most of all Ashley Wood was still creating killer illustrations for the Mcfarlane team.

That sounds like a great way of describing the era to me. It was back when we were getting amazing Sam & Twitch covers from Ashley Wood and the beautiful Hellspawn series. The art was some of Wood’s best work, deeply rooted in the painting + illustration + digital work that he seems to no longer really practice today. (His work is still great, but has a different feel than the work he was doing at the time Book of the Dead was first announced.)

But we’re not here to look at the book or its artwork. No, what I’m here to discuss is McFarlane’s bio at the end of the book in which one sentence caught my attention. It’s in this paragraph:

In 1992, the group formed Image Comics, the parent corporation and publisher of each artist’s individual comic book company. Although the partners publish together, they each control the destiny of their own characters and reap the rewards individually, including all licensing and merchandising decisions. The company’s first published comic book was Todd McFarlane’s Spawn.

Can you spot the sentence that had me raising an eyebrow and searching the web? Yeah, that’s right. “The company’s first published comic book was Todd McFarlane’s Spawn.” Really? That doesn’t match my memory of 1992. I seem to remember Youngblood coming first, and a few others out there agree with me.

• The Image Comics Wiki shows Youngblood released in April, 1992 and Spawn released in May.
  
• This post at NotBlogX says: “Youngblood was released in April 1992 (two months late), making it the first Image Comic ever.”
  
• Wikipedia’s Youngblood entry says: “Rob Liefeld joined with other Marvel artists to form Image Comics, and the first comic Image produced was Youngblood #1.”
  
• Wikipedia’s entry on Liefeld says: “Liefeld’s superhero team series Youngblood, which is loosely based on a 1991 Teen Titans series Liefeld had proposed to DC Comics, was the first comic Image published.”

I know that there have been some people extremely unhappy with Liefeld’s actions in the nineties, but to see Spawn: Book Of The Dead* make an attempt at rewriting history makes me question the thought process behind that one sentence. Was it truly a mistake, or was this a subtle attempt to rewrite the past and erase Youngblood from the Image history?

Or was it something more involved and complicated? I don’t have access to records, but it is possible that “Image Comics” was officially and legally formed between the publication of Youngblood and Spawn, which would make the McFarlane bio in the book questionable but not dishonest.

I don’t know the story, but I’d love to find out what’s going on here. I searched a little and didn’t find anyone else bringing up this tiny bit of info locked away inside Spawn: Book Of The Dead* so have I encountered an issue that has already been resolved? Does anyone have any info on this subject? I’d love to know what’s already been discussed about that one line: “The company’s first published comic book was Todd McFarlane’s Spawn.”