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#1230272 2019-11-22 4:04 AM
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https://www.worldcomicbookreview.com/2019/11/07/a-eulogy-for-vertigo-comics/

I posted a link to this article on Twitter and Karen Berger gave it a "like". No comment, through. :D

Berger now runs Berger Books, an imprint of Dark Horse Comics. I don't recall reading any of their books. On the other hand, Shelley bond is at black Crown. I've read Euthanauts, published by Black Crown, and it was pretty good and could easily have been published by Vertigo during its time in the sun.


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I didn't realize until poking around the article source that you're the editor/publisher. Did you retire from practicing law?

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A nice eulogy to the Vertigo imprint, Dave. One part that wasn't covered, (or possibly you covered it in another article) is that Karen Berger's reign as editor of SWAMP THING was kind of the beginning of Vertigo (before there was a Vertigo), when she opened the fountain and recruited Alan Moore from the U.K., and that led to the vast movement of British talent from the U.K. to DC over the 1984-1990 period. Including Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Jamie Delano, Neil Gaiman, Garth Ennis and many other writers and artists.

Honestly, I didn't like Vertigo all that much, it wasn't my cup of tea. I found its titles dark, overly cynical, trendy, and ultimately, pretentious. And as Vertigo evolved into the early/mid 1990's, vulgar and profane.

But I still recognized in those years (1988-1997 or so) that Vertigo was expanding comics readership, bringing in readers from other subcultures and literary circles who normally would never give a second look to the episodic superhero genre that has existed for decades.

I mostly agree with your points about Vertigo opening up the field to new kinds of storytelling, in stories that are less episodic, and more focused on stories with a beginning, middle and an end, as compared to what DC and Marvel overwhelmingly offer.
But I do think you overstate Vertigo as uniquely doing that. Vertigo was one publishing outlet that did push in new directions, yes.
But it was preceded by many other comics publishing ventures, such as the SABRE graphic novel, that evolved into Eclipse Comics, and Dave Sim's CEREBUS, and EPIC ILLUSTRATED and the Epic comics line, and Pacific Comics, and First Comics. And Dark Horse. And Frank Miller's RONIN and DARK KNIGHT RETURNS that opened new outlets. And Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer-winning MAUS.

All of which preceded Vertigo.

I also think that Vertigo, while different from Superman and Batman and the DC establishment mindset, also to some degree is a franchise as well, such as the many spin-off Sandman titles, or similarly FABLES, and others.

But hey, I agree that Vertigo is an innovative outlet that expanded comics storytelling in new directions. And as you say in your article, while Vertigo is dead, it has spawned children in other publishing ventures that would not exist if not for Vertigo, and will carry the creative torch in new directions, on past Vertigo's demise.

Maybe you covered this in another article, but since you mentioned Jim Lee, DC also used to have a Wildstorm imprint, and I never quite understood why it existed or why it was ended. I guess it obviously ended for the same reason Vertigo was ended, to reign in all the imprints, and the creative control, under the one DC umbrella. But I wasn't sure why it ever began or existed in the first place.

I was also surprised, with DC's other imprints you listed, that you didn't mention Piranha Press.
https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?pl=Piranha
The best of that line for me was the two EPICURUS THE SAGE graphic novels. The rest, similar to Vertigo, just wasn't my cup of tea.



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 Quote:
Honestly, I didn't like Vertigo all that much, it wasn't my cup of tea. I found its titles dark, overly cynical, trendy, and ultimately, pretentious. And as Vertigo evolved into the early/mid 1990's, vulgar and profane.

But I still recognized in those years (1988-1997 or so) that Vertigo was expanding comics readership, bringing in readers from other subcultures and literary circles who normally would never give a second look to the episodic superhero genre that has existed for decades.


I liked a lot of the titles. But I also liked the fact that for the most part it was a standalone universe.

The problem with both Marvel and DC these days is everything has to be so interconnected.

I’m not talking “we know Spidey exists in the same universe as X-Men” interconnected. I’m talking “every issue of every book has to be part of a months’ long intercompany crossover team up” interconnected.

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Thanks gents. Its true that there were other publishers. Even First comics with American Flagg! and Grimjack were forerunners to Vertigo. but Vertigo was the publisher which cracked the big audience.

I did know Karen Berger relied very much on British talent - in fact I think there is even a note about this on the Wikipedia entry for Vertigo. She was the entry point for people like Grant Morrison, Frank Quietley, Jock, and others.

 Originally Posted By: the G-man
I didn't realize until poking around the article source that you're the editor/publisher. Did you retire from practicing law?


Ha! I wish. No, this is a hobby.


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An odd thing I noticed looking at SANDMAN back issues...
https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=109581

SANDMAN is the quintessential Vertigo title. But it had the DC logo for most of its 75-issue run. It wasn't until issue 47 (March 1993)that the Vertigo label began appearing on its covers.

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I wasn't a huge Vertigo fan myself but recognize that it was hugely successful. I didn't like DC migrating titles like Swamp Thing & Doom Patrol to a separate universe. It took away from the main dcu. I did enjoy titles even after they became a Vertigo titles but it wasn't the same. A little surprised that it's gone away.


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Yeah, taking regular DC titles and turning them into Vertigo titles was morphing titles I liked into a subculture or genre I generally didn't like. I guess what annoyed me most in Vertigo titles was that all the characters, even eternal mythological gods, had a trendy 1990's look, and looked like the people you'd see in a rock band of the period, or a trendy night club.

In some ways Vertigo was innovative and had good storytelling and new talent, but mostly I saw it as a way to re-package stuff and market it to a new audience. I'll never understand why people rave about the alleged brilliance and literary transcendance of SANDMAN. It had a degree of quality and I generally liked it, but I felt it was made out to be so much more than it actually was, and that made me less receptive to it.
Likewise a series like PREACHER, that while powerfullly impactful at times in Ennis' writing, was a truly ugly story with characters I didn't like, and went out of its way to be as profanity-laden and blasphemous and as unbelievably foul as they could possibly be.

Likewise Grant Morrison's 3-issue KID ETERNITY series.

Likewise Y THE LAST MAN, which was briskly written and fast-moving, and often very funny, but overall had a lot of dark and cynical elements that kind of ruined and overshadowed the more enjoyable elements of the series for me.
I was repelled from the outset by titles like TRANSMETROPOLITAN and THE INVISIBLES.

Even of the Vertigo series I enjoyed, none of these are titles with great concepts or beautiful prose and art I enjoyed to the point that I would like to re-read them multiple times, such as O'Neil/Adams BATMAN and DETECTIVE, Wein/Wrightson SWAMP THING, Moore/Bissette/Tottleben SWAMP THING, Goodwin/Simonson MANHUNTER, Dave Sim's CEREBUS and so forth. I think Gaiman's SANDMAN is the only Vertigo title I've re-read.

But I can't deny there's an audience for this stuff, and that Vertigo opened that market. I see Vertigo as more of a packaging and marketing tool, and Vertigo-izations of titles like SWAMP THING and DOOM PATROL are examples making that point.

Even titles like SANDMAN and PREACHER and FABLES weren't lacking in episodic franchise exploitability, and have been the jumping point for many spin-offs and limited series. As opposed to, say, WATCHMEN or V FOR VENDETTA or MAUS or FROM HELL, that were novels in comic book form with a clear beginning, middle and end.


To my knowledge, Art Spiegelman's MAUS (which won a Pulitzer Prize and was marketed almost exclusively through mainstreaam book publishing and only slightly after the fact through comic book distributors) and Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN (which won a World Fantasy Award for best short story, and then World Fantasy members changed the rules so that a comic book could never win the award again!) have truly broken through into mainstream publishing.

I do see reviews and cover blurbs from a lot of mainstream sources on Vertigo collected books. But that's also true for a lot of non-Vertigo books, such as Alan Moore's works, and Frank Miller's DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, Frank Miller's 300, and one of my favorites, ENEMY ACE:WAR IDYLL by George Pratt, or Rick Veitch's ABRAXAS AND THE EARTH MAN, to name a few.

So I'm not 100% clear on what it is that Vertigo did that no other publisher has.

Australia-Dave has talked about how many Vertigo titles have broken through into movies or TV series, but again, I don't see how that's unique to Vertigo. Marvel and DC have broken through for decades into box-office topping movies and TV series and animated series.
And in the acclaim department, Dark Horse has also done that for close to 30 years with movies like The Mask, Sin City, Men In Black, 300, Mystery Men, Hellboy, Hellboy II, Golden Army and others.

So while I'd agree that Vertigo has opened up another avenue for these kind of cross-cultural influences, I again don't see where Vertigo has uniquely and singularly done so.



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 Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
I wasn't a huge Vertigo fan myself but recognize that it was hugely successful. I didn't like DC migrating titles like Swamp Thing & Doom Patrol to a separate universe. It took away from the main dcu. I did enjoy titles even after they became a Vertigo titles but it wasn't the same. A little surprised that it's gone away.


For me, it depended on the book. Swamp Thing and Doom Patrol seemed to work in that universe. kid eternity, with it’s ties to Shazam, didn’t.

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 Quote:
Australia-Dave has talked about how many Vertigo titles have broken through into movies or TV series, but again, I don't see how that's unique to Vertigo. Marvel and DC have broken through for decades into box-office topping movies and TV series and animated series. And in the acclaim department, Dark Horse has also done that for close to 30 years with movies like The Mask, Sin City, Men In Black, 300, Mystery Men, Hellboy, Hellboy II, Golden Army and others.


It might be a percentage game. Out of hundreds, if not thousands, of characters DC and Marvel had a half dozen or a dozen turn into hit movies. Whereas, vertigo may have had a half dozen or a dozen characters turned into hit movies but that was a huge percentage of their overall output.

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We might have been the wrong age for Vertigo when it debuted WB. I could see if it had hit when I was 14 being more into it than say 21. It was selling itself as being more hip and mature to the underage in part I think. Reading comics wasn't really socially acceptable when and where I went to school but I did see Vertigo probably changing that somewhat.


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 Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
We might have been the wrong age for Vertigo when it debuted WB. I could see if it had hit when I was 14 being more into it than say 21. It was selling itself as being more hip and mature to the underage in part I think. Reading comics wasn't really socially acceptable when and where I went to school but I did see Vertigo probably changing that somewhat.


I don’t know. I’m the same age as you guys, more or less. And like I said I enjoyed a good percentage of their output and

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 Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
We might have been the wrong age for Vertigo when it debuted WB. I could see if it had hit when I was 14 being more into it than say 21. It was selling itself as being more hip and mature to the underage in part I think. Reading comics wasn't really socially acceptable when and where I went to school but I did see Vertigo probably changing that somewhat.


Yeah, I recognize that to a large extent it's a generational thing, and the Vertigo line is aimed at a more Generation X and Millennial audience, that doesn't resonate for me.

I'll say this for the Vertigo line, it was the first time I saw hot looking women visiting a comic store. One time this amazing looking brunette came in the store I frequented at the time in Boca, and after she left, the comic shop guy at the counter said he loved when the new SANDMAN issue came out every month and he knew she'd be in to pick it up.
Although across the board, comics have become more hip, and at every convention I've been to in the last 15 years there's gorgeous girls walking around the dealer room in ssuper sexy cosplay costumes. That definitely wasn't the case in the 1970's and 1980's.




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I can remember only seeing one female pre-Vertigo at the place I picked up my comics and she would be reading a Wonder Woman comic at the end of the aisle. If you got to close to that end she would start making noises and slapping herself. She was overweight and at best plain looking. She was somebody I worried about and felt bad for. Life couldn't have been kind for her. After Vertigo I not only saw other women in the comic shop but even ran into coworkers that were regular comics buyers.

As to G-man's comment, despite my bitching I did enjoy Sandman and many other titles too but I suspect I would have been more into it if I had been younger. Than again I was pretty much a lost cause when it came to being "hip" at any age.


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 Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
I can remember only seeing one female pre-Vertigo at the place I picked up my comics and she would be reading a Wonder Woman comic at the end of the aisle. If you got to close to that end she would start making noises and slapping herself. She was overweight and at best plain looking. She was somebody I worried about and felt bad for. Life couldn't have been kind for her. After Vertigo I not only saw other women in the comic shop but even ran into coworkers that were regular comics buyers.

As to G-man's comment, despite my bitching I did enjoy Sandman and many other titles too but I suspect I would have been more into it if I had been younger. Than again I was pretty much a lost cause when it came to being "hip" at any age.



In high school I felt like an outsider, but I was kind of one of the somewhat cool kids without really knowing it. I got along with everyone at school, but had few friends that I socialized with outside of school. I didn't make the effort because I didn't feel like I was part of the clicque, that they'd want me around outside of school. But in the years after we were out of high school, they were glad to see me, and feeling welcome, I made more of an effort to socialize with them. They'd be like, "Hey it's Dave!", and I'd think to myself, wow, I didn't know they had such enthusiasm for my company. So when I realized this, things improved for me.

Mostly in high school I went to school and worked in a restaurant, and in between worked out and read and listened to music.
Up until I was 15, I was always a small and skinny kid, one of the smallest in my class. One of the last kids picked in P.E. when they were selecting players for teams. And then I worked out with weights all summer and grew several inches in height, and came back for 10th grade almost another person, and was much more athletic. There were many who didn't recognize me when I came back to school after summer break. But I never forgot what it was like to be one of the smaller kids, and always at school, work or wherever, have made an effort to include people who don't seem to feel as welcome. I remember what it was like to be on that side of things.

I saw that happen for girls too. Girls you thought were doomed to the social trashbin, would come back beautiful and wonderful girls, maybe more so for the isolation and rejection that other always-popular girls never had to deal with.

That said, God bless the hot SANDMAN-reading women, whichever side of the tracks they came from!



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