RIP Vertigo Comics

In one of many reshuffles and rebrandings of their line, DC Comics recently announced that they would be closing their line of comics aimed at the adult reader* Vertigo. Vertigo started back in the 90s as a way to recognise that mainstream comics could be more than just superhero fare and was a springboard for many famous writers and artists, including people like Neil Gaiman. At the time, creators rights for comics were a rarity and Vertigo, under the auspices of editor extraordinaire Karen Berger, was amongst the first to champion that cause.

Nearly thirty years on and the comics landscape has changed. Creator-owned comics are a standard thing nowadays and plenty of publishers put out content for mature readers, much of which has been translated to other media. In fact, it’s probably safe to say that you wouldn’t have shows like The Walking Dead without Vertigo laying that initial groundwork. While it is sad to see something so established go, in recent years, it has felt like a label that has struggled to keep up in a world that has moved forward.

Still, Vertigo titles were the first non-superhero comics that I really got into and here are some of the highlights from the heady days when Vertigo was at the top of its game.

Swamp Thing & Sandman
Not strictly Vertigo books to begin with as they predate the line, these two titles were the ones that can be said to have brought Vertigo comics into being. Alan Moore’s run on Swamp Thing and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, while being very different beasts, both brought a sense of wider storytelling into the comics, overtly drawing on myths and folklore from around the world to tell richer tales and. Although initially tied into it,  gradually distancing themselves from the simpler superheroics of Superman and Batman. Both still hold up, Sandman in particular being one of the early examples of a mainstream comic with a defined beginning, middle and end.

Hellblazer
Adapted once for the big screen and once for TV (across a couple of different series). John Constantine is cynical, chain-smoking magician who’s more likely to save his own skin than the world. This was the first one that I just picked up as I liked the cover and the art but, once I read it, I was hooked. It also brought the work of Garth Eniis to my attention…**

Preacher
Another one that has made the transition to the screen, I absolutely loved this as a teenager as it was rude, violent and very funny. Having read it again recently, I still enjoyed it but, being older, it was different experience - when I first read it, the writer was slightly older than me; when I last reread it, I was much older than him and it definitely felt different.

Doom Patrol
Another one that has been recently mined for the small screen, Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol is proper unfiltered weirdness. This was my first major introduction to Morrison’s idea heavy style*** and would not be the last (next up would be the even stranger The Invisibles which tackles quite esoteric and tricky themes but manages to be good fun).

An honourable mention to Transmetropolitan which started out under another DC imprint before becoming a Vertigo and is one of my favourite comics ever (disturbingly relevant at the moment). There were many others too - Shade The Changing Man, Sweet Tooth, Y The Last Man, Animal Man, DMZ, Fables - all enjoyable and all still available to read.

It’s a shame that Vertigo is packing up its logo but arguably its work is done. Creator-owned non-superhero comics are the norm and, in large part, we have Vertigo to thank for that.



* No snippy remarks about “adult” and “comics reader” being an oxymoron...

** I was going to say introduced me to Garth Ennis but he'd already been writing for 2000AD by that point, I just hadn’t really noticed writers yet at that point.

*** Again, I’d read Zenith in 2000AD but didn't connect it to him.