The Vertigo Thread

Wouldn't it be much, much more artificial if you had a guy named Yorick running around and no one ever commented on it?

Vertigo can do no wrong in my eyes because it birthed the Sandman. Do you think it would be fair to say that Vertigo is the house that Sandman built?

I get lots of Vertigo titles: Y, Fables, The Witching (and I'm trying to ignore the "They really seem pretty solid these days, despite the token goth-kid comics like that new witch series." comment that Jordan made...), We3, the new Books of Magick and...

I think that's it.

What does "SEEKERS: INTO THE MYSTERY" refer to? I don't get it... What was it about?

It was about hippie bullshit.

Several more blasts from the past.

Keep in mind it's not like I've actually read it or anything. :>

Vermont Girl OTM about Sandman's place. It's been directly responsible for a boggling number of titles as well: Lucifer, The Dreaming, two Thessaliad series, the Mervin one-shot, the Corinthian miniseries, The Witching, the Prez one-shot and two (three?) gallerys. Add in two series of The Books of Magic, The Trenchcoat Brigade and Black Orchid to assess the lengths Karen Berger will go to in order to keep making money out of suckers the breadth and depth of his contribution to adult edgy comics.

Yes, okay, The Craft is one of those movies I can watch over and over again, but there are some pretty cool parts in the most recent Witching (#3?). The story still feels a little unfocused but once the three get together, I think some cool shit might go down.

I don't know, the three and the maiden, mother and crone thing will never go out of style for me. I loved it in Sandman and, [I'm revealing an embarrassing secret here, which leaves me open to ridicule and therefore vulnerable, so don't be too mean] a total cheese romance trilogy. Agghh! I'm so embarrassed!

[And thanks for the fake-out Jocelyn. I read your first comment and literally went, "Whew! Tee hee. I guess I'm not the only-" and then your next comment, "- WHAT?! Arrrggggh..." It's all good, though. It's all good... I mean, hah, I was just kidding about all witch stuff, hah ha... ha.]

Moving it over from the "what are you reading" thread:

I really liked Kiernan's Dreaming for the most part (I don't think she did much else for Vertigo outside of the rare Sandman-related miniseries). I mean, she's pretty goth-y, but you have to have a tolerance for that sort of thing if you're delving very deeply into that era of Vertigo.

I'm generally fond of the Vertigo/pre-Vertigo titles that got all of the accolades (Sandman, Swamp Thing, Morrison's Animal Man and Doom Patrol, etc.), but I have a special place in my heart for a lot of stuff that went under the radar.

I've said as much on the board at least a half dozen times by now, but the simultaneous runs of Veitch's Swamp Thing and Delano's Hellblazer comprise some of my favorite comics of all time. Mine is not the most widely-held opinion, I know, but I think that's the apex of those characters and their respective titles.

Rachel Pollack's Doom Patrol is a hot, hot mess, but it is decidedly its own thing. Weird and inscrutable in a different way than Morrison's run. I don't think it's very popular, but I dug it.

Mark Millar's Swamp Thing run (which is rumored to have been ghost co-written by Grant Morrison for more than just the initial four issues for which he was credited) is quite good. It feels icky like a horror book should (Phil Hester's art helps greatly). Some clever conceits and episodic world building that make it feel a bit like modern day genre television. Avoid the pre-Millar Nancy Collins run like the plague (probably the worst thing to come out of Vertigo, which is saying something).

I'll have to have a think about this.

{This thread, for the sake of future reference.)

There’s definitely an argument that one of the reasons the imprint existed was because of the widespread recognition and respect that the Sandman was receiving - but even so that’s some impressively crazy talk there.

What it definitely was, was the Karen Berger imprint - I was wondering if the thread revive was related to her new imprint, which I haven’t read anything in yet.

Extremist and Sebastian O were also both Touchmark books iirc

Also Tattered Banners, Mercy. Maybe also Tell Me, Dark?

I think the Shadow's Fall miniseries by John Nay Rieber was Touchmark as well.

Tell Me Dark was published by DC pre-Vertigo, Shadows Fall was Touchmark, as was Mercy. Tattered Banners seems unlikely as it was so much later, not even faintly gothy, and neither Giffen nor McMahon were in Touchmark's promo, but iirc it did lay fallow for years before being finished without Giffen.

Still, if there's one thing we can say, it's that what Vertigo definitely was, was the Art Young imprint.

Five years between Seaguy 1 and Seaguy 2, nine years and counting since Seaguy 2.

Never mind though: yeah, Seaguy 2 was weak, Seaguy 1 was the worst of that cluster of Morrison minis, and Morrison is sadly bad not good now.

Here's a good rundown on the Touchmark backstory, with scans of promo material: https://www.cbr.com/comic-book-legends-revealed-321/

I think I mistakenly included Tattered Banners because it was announced very early, alongside many of the initial Vertigo titles, but as you mention wasn't released until many years later.

Tell Me Dark was published by DC pre-Vertigo

also not Vertigo:

https://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_small/14/148518/2883281-better_mr_e_1_cover.jpg

K.w. jeter?!

Speaking of proto-Vertigo mature readers titles, I just remembered that a collection of Del Close and John Ostrander's Wasteland was hinted at a while back but has apparently disappeared into the ether. That's a bummer.

would for sure be a lesser reading experience in collection

A few of these are now being published by Dover, of all people, who have also rescued some other lovely, earlier comics works from neglect: http://store.doverpublications.com/by-subject-graphic-novels-and-comics-graphic-novels.html

Oh sweet, thanks for the tip.

I have that Puma Blues collection. Or a Puma Blues collection. If it's Dover, I never noticed.

If it's the 2015 one with the new ending, that's the Dover one.

There's only one Vertigo book in that lineup, really - Mercy was a Touchmark refugee, but probably came along with the Seekers rights when they were dealing with deMatteis.

Yeah, that's the Puma Blues edition I have. It's a nice big hardcover, which is not what I generally associate with Dover.

Delano's World Without End was a proto-Vertigo DC mature readers title.

The Charyn/Boucq graphic novels are all essential, esp The Magician's Wife - just a shame the page size is smaller than on the original Catalan translations.

It ain't been what it once was for many a moon, but still...RIP(?) Vertigo.

Fucken DC, man...

If true, it feels inevitable, but still sad.

And that 25th Anniversary celebration book didn't even materialise!

My first reaction was, BUT... SEAGUY 3!!

I'm sure Morrison will be given carte blanche to do whatever he wants to do under the regular DC banner, but I'm not sure he'd want to given the changes they made to creator contracts a while back.

I mean, there's not much material change, as whatever little wisp of Vertigo currently remaining doesn't in any way resemble what it was back in the day, and since (as far as I can tell) the Vertigo-esque/Vertigo-lite stuff they've been publishing lately (eg Gerard Way's Young Animal stuff, the Sandman-verse titles) are unaffected. Even though the line has been a bloated drunken shut-in for most of its existence, I still mourn for the impact it had in its sleek and jaunty youth.

I think the last Vertigo comic I bought before Seaguy was the third issue of The Invisibles. Inbetween was my “comics, they ARE just for kids” snooty teenage phase.

TBH, as a kid, Vertigo’s biggest draw was the extra boobs in SHADE.

Been reading <i>The Unwritten</i>, got to Volume 3 and gotdamn this series has gotten good. Issue #17, "The Many Lives of Lizzie Hexam - A Pick-a-Story Book!" is a marvel.

Vertigo was finally euthanised last week btw

I know. I just wanted to enthuse to somebody about this series.
Also, I figure sooner or later DC will have another brainfart and dig the name back up, probably within five years.

just noting for thraed posterity!

The Unwritten was great for a while, but IMO it went on a bit too long and got a bit too meta (even for a series whose whole premise is about metafiction), Carey should've wrapped it up a bit earlier. Still, it's definitely the best post-90s Vertigo title that I've read.

Oh hey look, a new sub-imprint imaginatively titled DC Horror, which is kicking off with...Conjuring tie-in comics. Cool stuff, proud legacies.

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/dc-launches-new-horror-imprint-called-dc-horror-for-the-conjuring/

yeesh, enough with the imprints already

Question for the more experienced heads: are horror comics going through a resurgence/bubble these days? Or is it just something that I'm noticing more in the past couple years as I've started to get into them? Yes, I'm aware of some of the history of horror comics throughout the decades, but it feels like I'm seeing them more and more at the store especially in the past year. Or maybe my store is just promoting them more on social media or something. Any thoughts?

they are definitely in the midst of a resurgence. Aftershock and Boom have more than 60% of their roster as horror comics and Image and Dark Horse are likely around 40%. Chalk it up to The Walking Dead's long impact maybe?

Interesting, thanks!

They're still mostly written by Cullen Bunn, right?

lol, a lot of them are.
https://www.horrordna.com/features/7-most-promising-horror-comics-of-2021

I guess he's supposed to be good at it but, on the basis of his Marvel work, I can't say I'm champing at the bit to find out.

i don't care for bunn or kindt, which rules out like 1 of 5 comics these days

Right now it seems like there are a lot of guys -- Kindt, Bunn, Remender, Charles Soule, Tom Taylor, Dennis Hopeless, James Tynion, Donny Cates, I'm sure there are more -- who came up in the 00s and 10s, get big assignments for Marvel and DC, and clearly write better than a certain level of 90s hack (Scott Lodbell or Chuck Dixon, say) but are just... deeply, deeply ordinary.

I'm missing that layer of mid-tier writers who weren't exactly always *good* but were at least consistently weirdly interesting (e.g. Mike Baron, Messener-Loebs, John Ostrander, Ann Nocenti, etc.).

No one who's writing dozens of books a year can be consistently weird and interesting, tbf. And I don't blame these guys for taking the paychecks when they can get them

Agree, it's more like the ratio of hackwork to "weird and interesting" has gotten worse, from like 4:1 to 4:0.

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