I guess in my mind, I tend to think of all comic publishers except DC Comics and Marvel as being independents, but that's just an assumption I've been making. I don't really know what the definition is of a major publisher versus an independent.
I noticed that there is this separate Image/Top Cow forum rather than just having those publishers put in there with the independent comics. I'm curious about what the thinking is. Are Image and Top Cow owned by one of the big two publishers and just imprints rather than being independently owned? Are they bigger than what we think of as independents? Or are they independents that just happen to have their own forum because more people want to talk about them and they can get enough traffic to justify their own forum?
Also, what's the connection between Image and Top Cow, if any? Are they owned by the same person or persons? Are they the same corporate entity? Is there some stylistic similarity?