Platinum Studios was co-founded in January 1997 by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg and European rights agent Ervin Rustemagić. As the former head of Malibu Comics, Rosenberg led comic spin-offs into toys, television, and feature films, including the 1.65 billion-dollar film and television franchise "Men in Black", based on the Marvel/Malibu comic "The Men in Black" by Lowell Cunningham. In 1992, Rosenberg brokered a deal in which seven top-selling artists defected from Marvel Comics to form Image Comics. Rosenberg signed the artists to a label deal which made Malibu the publisher of record for the first comics from Image, which gave the upstart creator-run publisher access to the distribution channels. This subsequently led to Malibu breaking all sales records for independent comics. In 1992, Malibu grabbed almost 10% of the American comics market share, temporarily moving ahead of industry giant DC Comics.