Was a reader of 2000ad in the 90's for about 1.5-2yrs, it was easy to read as Dredd was always straight forward, not many crossovers, everything was cannon, no reboots, if you wanted to read old stories you could grab a Grahphic Novel and have the jist of it, without needing to buy others to line up to read. Its even easier to read Dredd these days as everything's collected in the Case Files collection and works chronologically and you can see Dredd age over time as as time passes in real time so does a year in Dredd. In1977, it was set in 2099, whilst stories published in 2017 are set in 2139.
I stopped because when I turned 15yrs old I thought I was too old for Comics (pushy parents) plus I discovered Music so all my money was being put towards CD's, something I could keep that wouldnt get thrown out (again my parents kept making a fuss, that I had stacks of comics and magazines and was tood I needed to bin them, so I did)
Later in my mid Twenties, I'd buy a random graphic Novel here and there usually related to a Movie (Jay & Silent Bob etc) and then in my Thirties I thought to hell I'll try to start reading some, lets try some Marvel
My problem was, Holy shit too many Multiverses/Takes on the characters, where do I start? Oh shit this criss crosses with this other thing how do I keep up?, Do I have acess to all these books somewhere, plus I have a Job now , not much time, then Marvel Unlimited came along and I tried it for a bit reading just ransom stuff from first issue available. Now I'm 35yrs old, by asking here on Gaf or elsewhere online I pick up something thats self contained or a little run that I can get into and thanks to the sale on amazon recently, picked up a ton of stuff, I Just got to make my way through it all now.
Tldr - So it had nothing to do with image Comics and just it was kind of felt I was to old for comics, or didnt know how or where to start, as for outside of Marvel/D.C/2000ad and Darkhorse I barely knew others existed, or I never took notice.