The July edition of Bookslut offers a glowing assessment of DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint, which it says is “going through yet another evolution” as it expands further into graphic novels.
“I think, in many ways, the world is finally catching up to Vertigo in terms of what we’ve been doing in graphic novels for many years,” Vertigo Executive Editor Karen Berger tells Bookslut. “It’s forced us to up our ante. We’re best known for our comic series but it’s only recently that we’ve begun to explore the stand-alone graphic novel format.”
The lengthy profile eyes Vertigo’s upcoming graphic novels, like Rick Veitch’s Can’t Get No, Gilbert Hernandez’s Sloth and Brian K. Vaughan’s Pride of Baghdad.
Vaughan is candid about his less-than-auspicious stint on Swamp Thing for Vertigo, which predates his critically acclaimed series Y: The Last Man:
“Karen easily could have shit-canned me after I helped tank one of their biggest franchises but she recognized that I had a unique voice that might be better suited to original ideas. My career really didn’t begin until I started working on books that I helped create. Vertigo is probably the only publisher today that wouldn’t have laughed me out of their offices for pitching them a fully painted hardcover novel for ‘mature readers’ about the Iraq war… starring talking lions. Same goes with Y, an ongoing series whose pitch probably sounded more like a bad Cinemax after-hours flick than a thoughtful science fiction story. But Vertigo is a daring publisher, and they push me to be daring, too.”
Related: Bookslut review of Can’t Get No
