Karen Berger Steps Down as Vertigo Excutive Editor, SVP

[Darrell D.]

3.) Vertigo has annouced more projects with creators coming ahead. I doubt they will suddenly fold it all and decide ..hey fuck you guys. Hellblazer is ending and Berger is gone. They will publish the projects more or less the next year and hope they work.

Why not? I doubt when Helix was folded they were thiniking, 'Gee, we have to publish these books we promised those creators'.
Same with Jinx. And Zuda. And Piranha Press.
Announcing books is no guarantee of anything.

[hysang]

Why not? I doubt when Helix was folded they were thiniking, 'Gee, we have to publish these books we promised those creators'.
Same with Jinx. And Zuda. And Piranha Press.
Announcing books is no guarantee of anything.

Bingo. Companies announce books all the time....do they always ship? Nope.

[Libaax]

I think you're discounting Carey/Gross's Unwritten too easily. It's easily as good as any of Vertigo's best.

Im not discounting Carey/Cross because i have read only 1 issue of Unwritten and havent wanted to read the series before now. I respect them enough to not judge their work before i have read enough of it. I cant read every Vertigo comics ever and i havent read Unwritten for real yet because of bad experience with other new generation Vertigo.

I truly hope Unwritten is fricking great because i have tried too many other current,recent Vertigo that was not near Scalped level. I have read Fables and i think its popular for its fairy tale and fantasy element and nowhere near the best Vertigo has to offer now.

[Mr. Holmes]

Unwritten is better than Scalped and Fables. It's the closest thing DC has now to the Swamp Thing/Hellblazer/Sandman/Lucifer era of Vertigo.

[Libaax]

Unwritten is better than Scalped and Fables. It's the closest thing DC has now to the Swamp Thing/Hellblazer/Sandman/Lucifer era of Vertigo.

It has to truly brilliant to be better than Scalped imho. Scalped was near perfect noir story with real,ugly humanity.

I respect your opinion and look forward to trying it for myself. I see Fanboystranger acclaim it as good as glory days of Vertigo comics too. Pretty mean of you guys not recommend the series before this thread :P I have not heard that kind of praise about it from you guys before. I would have tried it long before if i had.

[Mr. Holmes]

Well it's not a crime story like Scalped, so it's really an apples and oranges comparison. Like Sandman and Lucifer, it's about the intersection between fiction and the reality, and kind of a commentary on fantasy novels like Harry Potter. I'm not caught up on the series yet though.

[Billy Batson]

I've read Scalped fully and the first four trades of the Unwritten. It's a good series and worth the read but judging from what I've read from it so far, it's not as good as Scalped.

[Darrell D.]

Unwritten is better than Scalped and Fables. It's the closest thing DC has now to the Swamp Thing/Hellblazer/Sandman/Lucifer era of Vertigo.

I may have to check out Unwritten.

[Desaad]

I've read Scalped fully and the first four trades of the Unwritten. It's a good series and worth the read but judging from what I've read from it so far, it's not as good as Scalped.

It's a fundamentally different type of book.

It's like asking, which is better, The Wire or the works of Borges?

[Libaax]

It's a fundamentally different type of book.

It's like asking, which is better, The Wire or the works of Borges?

Thats silly really because its the same medium just different genres. The Wire and Borges is different art mediums.

You can always compare the quality of the writing and art of any comics. I can compare Borges weird,fantastic stories to naturalistic realism of say Jack London.

Although you guys can debate the quality of Scalped and Unwritten in some other thread maybe.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Why not? I doubt when Helix was folded they were thiniking, 'Gee, we have to publish these books we promised those creators'.
Same with Jinx. And Zuda. And Piranha Press.
Announcing books is no guarantee of anything.

Then why not fold Vertigo in 2011 ? With the new 52 relaunch as I posted earlier. Which would have been a good way to end it all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helix_(comics)

Helix as this link shows actually ran 2+ years and ran into problems with the sci-fi type genre crowd they tried to draw. It never worked. But it shows that nearly all the books had ended by the 1998 date except for Warren Ellis who had his series moved to Vertigo.

Zuda which you claimed suddenly folded...actually lasted from 2007-2010 and DC annouced it was folding Zuda into DC's new digital publishing service...



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuda_Comics

It featured comics for Flash player instead of in a web page. Announced in a press release on July 9, 2007[1] and the first ongoing series and competing comic entries went live October 30, 2007.[2] Zuda removed the competition aspect in April 2010[3] and in July 2010, soon after the launch of DC's digital comics service, it was announced that Zuda would close and be folded into the new digital publishing arm.[4

And with Piranha Press it latest from 1989-1994. When that editor over the line left , DC renamed the imprint which was Paradox Press. It lasted til 2001 but due to low sales it was finally folded .

In each case DC maybe had 2 projects at most on the burner. They moved one in Ellis case to Vertigo. The other one has never came out and remains according to DC in pre-production and was supposed to come out for Paradox Press in 2001.

This doesn't show anything at all to say DC will throw away an imprint they have published for 20+ years for the hell of it. If they was...2011 was a date for it to happen.

[Mr. Holmes]

Thats silly really because its the same medium just different genres. The Wire and Borges is different art mediums.

You can always compare the quality of the writing and art of any comics. I can compare Borges weird,fantastic stories to naturalistic realism of say Jack London.

Although you guys can debate the quality of Scalped and Unwritten in some other thread maybe.

You can compare those aspects sure, but here's the thing: the writing and art are both really strong in both books. So ultimately, the "better' of the two will boil down to preference.

[MartinRedmond]

Transmetropolitan started over with the Helix (sci-fi only) imprint.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Transmetropolitan started over with the Helix (sci-fi only) imprint.

And moved to Vertigo....once they folded the line in the middle of 1998. They likely knew after 1997 the line was ending and to wrap books by then and move that to Vertigo.

[AgPhoenix]

Why not? I doubt when Helix was folded they were thinking, 'Gee, we have to publish these books we promised those creators'.
Same with Jinx. And Zuda. And Piranha Press.
Announcing books is no guarantee of anything.

As much as it pains me to say it, but Darell D is right here. Creative Projects get canceled all the time, especially if the powers that be don't think they can be exploited for significant profit. Now does this mean that I think Vertigo is dying anytime soon? No, but Berger's stepping down definitely increases the amount of places where this story could end.

There's nothing stopping DC from telling some of these projects to go elsewhere.