Saying Goodbye To Vertigo Comics
Last week’s announcement that DC Comics will close the book on Vertigo Comics hit like a shockwave. The subset of the comics giant stood as a pillar of creativity and rule-breaking since its founding in 1993. Under Karen Berger’s editorial leadership, Vertigo unleashed iconic titles that appealed to an audience demanding more mature stories.
Many of Vertigo’s books featured the violence made popular during the ’90s, but never leaned on that imagery as a defining trait. Books like Y: The Last Man, Enigma, Preacher, and Doom Patrol explored the emotional weight of its characters and stories. The imaginative art served as support for this nuanced approach to storytelling.
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Notable authors like Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, and Garth Ennis were Vertigo’s trailblazers. No other publishing house would have released the kinds of stories they wanted to tell at that time. And Vertigo’s success didn’t go unnoticed by its parent company. DC knew what it had.
When Berger left the company in 2012, the writing was on the wall. But the label’s end is still painful to watch. Some of Vertigo’s titles will be folded into DC’s other divisions. A few of Vertigo’s classic titles will be republished under DC’s adult-oriented Black Label line. Time will tell if this transition will rob Vertigo’s books of their unique identity. But for now, light a candle and take hold of your copy 100 Bullets as we mourn the end of an era.
Goodbye, Vertigo.
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