DC just announced a Vertigo Comics revival with 10 new titles. To mark the occasion, here’s what I wrote about Vertigo in my June 25, 2019 newsletter.
Last Friday DC confirmed that it’s sunsetting the Vertigo imprint, along with some other brands like Zoom and Ink. Instead, there will just be three brands: DC Kids, DC, and DC Black Label. DC already moved a few things previously labeled Vertigo, like Watchmen and V for Vendetta, to Black Label.
It’s hard not to feel sad about the end of Vertigo. Some of the most important comics in my life, including Sandman, Transmetropolitan, and The Invisibles, were published by Vertigo, and it’s hard to overstate the influence the line had on the medium. But let’s face it: the Vertigo people are mourning died a long time ago, probably before Karen Berger left in 2013.
When discussing Vertigo’s decline and eventual death, most people point out that Vertigo doesn’t feel unique now that there are so many other publishers, most importantly Image, willing to publish adult oriented, non-superhero comics. Others point out that Vertigo has had a hard time retaining talent, possibly because its contracts aren’t as favorable to creators as those of Image and others. Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison, Garth Ennis, Brian Azzarello, Bill Willingham, and Brian K. Vaughan all continue doing creator owned comics work, but it’s been a long time since any of them did a book for Vertigo.
But to me, the end of the Vertigo as I once knew died a slow death as it transformed into what from the outside appeared to be DC’s catch-all creator owned imprint, instead of a distinct label for a particular kind of comic.
The Vertigo books were always eclectic, but they all still felt like they belonged together. And it wasn’t just the fact that so many of the line’s writers were from the UK. US writers like Matt Wagner, Steven Seagle, Joe Lansdale, and Elaine Lee joined the lineup early on. There was a shared aesthetic, at least for the covers. The early Vertigo books all looked like something that wouldn’t have been out of place at a record store. But more than that, they shared a sensibility. There was a particular Vertigo vibe you got off its books. Sandman, Jonah Hex, and Shade were really different from one another, but the audiences overlapped, and not just because they were all good books. Other companies and self-publishers were also putting out cool, mature comics. But you kind of knew that Invisibles and Preacher were Vertigo books and that Eightball, The Crow, and Concrete were not. Most importantly, there was a sense that if you liked one Vertigo book, you’d probably like most of the others.
That changed over time, as the label became more inclusive and started taking in books from other imprints DC shuttered. That’s not to say Vertigo was putting out bad books. Far from it. But the line lacked coherence. Transmetropolitan was actually a refugee from DC’s ill-fated Helix imprint, and even though it stands out in my mind as part of Vertigo’s glory days, it also never quite fit into the Vertigo line I don’t think (Ellis wrote that he never felt like he fit into the Vertigo stable). The line got more and more diverse, which is a good thing in a lot of ways, but it also meant that you couldn’t really count on liking something just because it was a Vertigo book. Would someone who read Scalped be interested in Codename Knockout? Would someone who liked Day Tripper like DMZ? Maybe, maybe not.
Last year’s Vertigo relaunch didn’t do much to address that incoherence. There was an emphasis on identity politics, but it still seems to me that you could swap-out any given book on the roster with any almost any non-right wing creator owned book from Image, IDW, Boom, Oni, Dark Horse, Ahoy, Black Mask, TKO, Vault, or Aftershock.
That’s not a bad thing. It’s great that there are a dozen or more different publishers competing for the best creator owned works in comics and that DC is, or at least was, among them. But there’s no particular reason those creator owned books need to be called “Vertigo” instead of “Black Label.” So in a sense, I’m sort of glad they’re retiring the brand for now. And besides, the new, simpler branding makes a lot of sense.
But just like comic book characters, brands seldom stay dead forever. I’m sure something calling itself Vertigo will emerge once again someday.