Vertigo Comics
DC Vertigo, also known as Vertigo Comics or simply Vertigo, is an imprint of the American comic book publisher DC Comics. Vertigo publishes comics with adult content, such as nudity, drug use, profanity, and graphic violence, that do not fit the restrictions of DC's main line. Its comics include company-owned series set in the DC Universe, such as The Sandman, Swamp Thing, and Hellblazer, and creator-owned works, such as Preacher, Y: The Last Man, and Fables.
Vertigo originated from DC's 1980s adult comic line, which began after DC stopped submitting The Saga of the Swamp Thing for approval by the Comics Code Authority. Following the success of two adult-oriented 1986 limited series, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen, DC's output of adult comics, edited by Karen Berger, grew. By 1992, DC's mature readers' line was editorially separate from its main line and Berger received permission to manage them under a separate imprint. Vertigo was launched in January 1993 with a mix of existing DC ongoing series and new series.
Although its initial publications were primarily in the horror and fantasy genres, Vertigo expanded to publish works dealing with crime, social commentary, speculative fiction, biography, and other genres. Vertigo also reprinted comics previously published by DC under other imprints, such as V for Vendetta and Transmetropolitan. In North America, Vertigo pioneered a publishing model in which monthly series are periodically collected into editions for bookstore sale. Vertigo became DC's most popular and enduring imprint; several Vertigo series have won the comics industry's Eisner Award and have been adapted to film and television.
Vertigo began to decline in the 2010s, as certain properties like Hellblazer and Swamp Thing were re-integrated into DC's main comic books, while Berger departed in 2013. Berger's departure was followed by a series of editorial restructures. An attempted relaunch in 2018 suffered a multitude of setbacks, including numerous cancellations. DC discontinued Vertigo in January 2020 as part of a plan to publish all comics under a single banner. Most Vertigo series moved to DC Black Label until 2024, when DC revived the imprint.
History
Development
Vertigo originated in 1993 under the stewardship of Karen Berger, a former literature and art-history student, who had joined DC Comics in 1979 as an assistant editor. Berger edited proto-Vertigo titles from the start of her time with DC, beginning in 1981 with House of Mystery. She took over editorship of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run from Swamp Thing co-creator Len Wein in 1984, and in 1986 "became DC's British liaison", bringing to DC's pre-Vertigo titles the individuals who would be instrumental in the creation and evolution of Vertigo seven years later, including Neil Gaiman, Jamie Delano, Peter Milligan, and Grant Morrison. She "found their sensibility and point of view to be refreshingly different, edgier and smarter" than those of most American comics writers.Berger edited several new or revived series with these writers, including superhero/science fiction series such as Animal Man, Doom Patrol vol. 2, and Shade, the Changing Man vol. 2, fantasy series The Sandman vol. 2, and horror titles Hellblazer and The Saga of the Swamp Thing. She also edited limited series such as Kid Eternity, Black Orchid and The Books of Magic limited series.
These six ongoing titles, all of which carried a "Suggested for Mature Readers" label on their covers, shared a sophistication-driven sensibility the comics fan media dubbed "the Bergerverse". In a 1992 editorial meeting with Paul Levitz, publisher Jenette Kahn, and managing editor Dick Giordano, Berger was given the mandate to place these titles under an imprint that, as Berger described, would "do something different in comics and help the medium 'grow up'". Several DC titles bearing the age advisory, such as Green Arrow, Blackhawk, and The Question, did not make the transition to the new imprint.
Meanwhile, Disney Comics and former DC editor Art Young had been developing an imprint to be called Touchmark Comics, analogous to Disney's mature-audiences Touchstone Pictures studio. This project was abandoned following the so-called "Disney Implosion" of 1991. Young and those works were brought into the Vertigo fold, allowing Berger to expand the imprint's publishing plans with the limited series Enigma, Sebastian O, Mercy, and Shadows Fall.
Initial year
Vertigo was launched in January 1993 with a mixture of existing ongoing series continued under the new imprint, new ongoing and limited series, and single-volume collections or graphic novels. Their publishing plan for the first year involved two new titles – whether ongoing/limited series or one-shots – each month. The existing series were Shade, the Changing Man, The Sandman, Hellblazer, Animal Man, Swamp Thing, and Doom Patrol.The first comic book published under the "Vertigo" imprint was the first issue of Death: The High Cost of Living, a three-issue series by Neil Gaiman and Chris Bachalo. The second new title was the first issue of Enigma, an 8-issue limited series initially planned to launch Touchmark, written by Peter Milligan and drawn by Duncan Fegredo, the artist from Grant Morrison's earlier Kid Eternity limited series. The following month saw the debut of Sandman: Mystery Theatre by Matt Wagner and Steven T. Seagle, and illustrated primarily by Guy Davis, described as "playing the '30s with a '90s feel... haunting, film noir-ish...", and starring original Sandman Wesley Dodds in a title whose "sensibilities echo crime genre fiction". Joining it was J. M. DeMatteis and Paul Johnson's 64-page one-shot Mercy.
New series that began in the months that followed include Kid Eternity by Ann Nocenti and Sean Phillips, Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell's three-issue steampunk limited series Sebastian O, Skin Graft by Jerry Prosser and Warren Pleece, The Last One by DeMatteis and Dan Sweetman, Jonah Hex: Two-Gun Mojo by Tim Truman and Sam Glanzman, Black Orchid by Dick Foreman and Jill Thompson, The Extremist by Peter Milligan and Ted McKeever, Scarab by John Smith with Scot Eaton and Mike Barreiro, and The Children's Crusade, a crossover involving several of the imprint's ongoing series. The Books of Magic limited series was relaunched as an ongoing series written by John Ney Rieber, and illustrated by Peter Gross, Gary Amaro, and Peter Snejbjerg.
Although the books did not have a consistent "house style" of art, the cover designs of early Vertigo series featured a uniform trade dress with a vertical bar along the left side, which included the imprint logo, pricing, date, and issue numbers. The design layout continued with very little variation until issues cover-dated July 2002 which introduced an across-the-top layout ahead of 2003's "Vertigo X" 10th anniversary celebration. The "distinctive design" was intended to be used on "all Vertigo books except the hardcovers, trade paperbacks, and graphic novels". Berger noted that DC was "very" committed to the line, having put a "lot of muscle behind" promoting it, including a promotional launch kit made available to "etailers who order at least 25 copies of the February issue of Sandman ", a "platinum edition" variant cover for Death: The High Cost of Living #1 and a 75-cent Vertigo Preview comic featuring a specially written seven-page Sandman story by Gaiman and Kent Williams. In addition, a 16-page Vertigo Sampler was also produced and bundled with copies of Capital City Distribution's Advance Comics solicitation index.
Vertigo publications generally did not take place in a shared universe, but several of the early series which had begun as part of the main DC Universe had a "crossover" in 1993-94: The Children's Crusade. The event "did not yield smashing results" or garnered many positive reviews, in large part due to its "gimmicky" nature, which ran counter to Vertigo's quirky, non-mainstream appeal and customer-base. The event was defended as "no marketing ploy" by one of the event's editors, Lou Stathis, who wrote of his dislike of the often "crass manipulation" of crossover events, defending The Children's Crusade as having come not from marketing, but the writers' minds, and therefore being "story-driven" rather than manipulative. The crossover did not become an annual event, however — indeed, "annuals" linked to Vertigo series rarely reappeared after this event.
Works previously published by DC under other imprints, but which fit the general character of Vertigo, have been reprinted under this imprint. This has included V for Vendetta, earlier issues of Vertigo's ongoing launch series, and books from discontinued imprints such as Transmetropolitan and A History of Violence.
Two of the new ongoing series did not last long: Kid Eternity was cancelled after 16 issues, and Black Orchid continued for only 22. Sandman Mystery Theatre and most of the pre-existing series continued for several years, including Sandman which reached its planned conclusion with #75. Hellblazer was the last of the original ongoing series to be canceled, ceasing publication in February 2013 with #300.
Berger won Eisner Awards for her editing in 1992, 1994 and 1995 for her work on the proto- and early Vertigo titles Sandman, Shade, Kid Eternity, Books of Magic, Death: The High Cost of Living and Sandman Mystery Theatre.