Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Comic Books >

So Why Do People Hate Vertigo?

Page: (1)2

07:20 / 25.11.04

Call me curious. Since I started coming to these boards, I've noticed an undercurrent of dislike/hatred for the Vertigo imprint that occasionally breaks through the crust in an occasion of only occasionally backed-up invective.

I'm curious, mostly, because there are (as I see it) several very good titles under Vertigo right now. The new Books of Magic series is completely fucking excellent. Normally I can't really stand Dean Ormston's art, but it seems to work for me here. Unfortunately, I'm sure that this series being good is a sure sign that it, like the previous BoM series, is doomed.

Lucifer, while it does have its slow points, is still one of the mainstays of the line and a really good read.

Fables Another "fucking excellent" title. Can't really think of any gripes with this one at all.

100 Bullets doesn't exactly turn noir storytelling on its ear, but that doesn't make it bad. The characters are extremely well-written (though every character in the book, from major to minor, having a section of their brains entirely devoted entirely to witty retorts is occasionally annoying, and was my main complaint about the 100 B. team's work on Batman.

Hellblazer I haven't checked out in a while, though from the trades that I'm slowly collecting, I can't see where it's become all that unbearable.

The Witching Eeehhh... I can't really defend this one. It seems to be getting better, though. Great jabs at 'devil worshippers' in this book.

Plus some other stuff that I'm not thinking of because it's 4 in the morning.

07:21 / 25.11.04

Or double-posting for that matter. Christ.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

17:35 / 25.11.04

Well, there's a little bit of dislike for Vertigo in it's old 'goth, goth and more goth!' books, Neil Gaiman is mildly disliked on the board and it's all as embaressing as being twelve years old and calling yourself Misery Whispers or Lord Mercy. Whoops, my 'throwing stone in glass houses' alarm has gone off.

But I think it's mostly being underwhelmed by most titles rather than active dislike. There was a certain amount of 'Warren Ellis is being a prick' around the time of Transmet but that was him, not what he was writing.

20:09 / 25.11.04

I think it was th eunfulfilled promise for me. Started off with Swamp Thing, then lots of Gaiman (which I liked) and Hellbalzer. All pretty good at the time. Then I kept going with Shade andothers and one day thought: "This is just pretentious psychobabblt shite!", looked around and realised all the good titles had stopped, and all the good writers had run away. I can't recall exactly which comic did that to me, but I'd lay money on it being something by DeMatteis. It may have been the ongoing Books of Magic, now I come to think of it, after I re-read the original (which as a DC fanboy, I still think is great). Betrayal. That's what I think I'm trying to say.

Regrettable Juvenilia

21:08 / 25.11.04

You won't get any Vertigo hate from me - in the last couple of years, I think it's become better than ever. Human Target, 100 Bullets, Y: The Last Man, The Losers, arguably Lucifer, Seaguy, We3...

22:45 / 25.11.04

Again I don't think there is much vertigo hate - Vertigo antipathy at times yes; hate? not really. In would be interested to see how many people think of Sleeper and Ex Machina as honorary Vertigo books tho...

03:13 / 26.11.04

Most of the books I read come from Vertigo, and I think it's the best thing the big 2 are doing. Vertigo is the only place where you can do creator owned non-superhero work, with color, high quality production values, and not have to worry about the company going under before you finish the book. I don't love everything Vertigo does, but they've done a lot of my favorite comics of all time, so I've got nothing but love.

06:23 / 26.11.04

Our Lady summed up my feelings. Gaiman annoys me, Goth is naff, etc. other than that no probs.

Oh yeah, I'd of liked Hellblazer to have finished eons ago.

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:54 / 26.11.04

Can you give an example of this Vertigo hate, unBjork? I'm not seeing it. Do you mean that sometimes people don't like Vertigo books, or that there is some sort of dissatisfaction with the business practices of the imprint?

09:12 / 26.11.04

Well, Cube, seems to have stored up some Vertigo hate. Not quite sure what he's talking about, but there's certainly some resentment there.

Betrayal

?Wot?

The Natural Way

10:35 / 26.11.04

I was wondering what the HATE was, too. Underwhelmed largely, but more than willing to give things a go. Like Fly says, there's been quite a few highlights.

10:46 / 26.11.04

But then, most of us are underwhelmed by the vast majority of comics. 'Snot really saying much.

Matthew Fluxington

16:25 / 26.11.04

I don't hate Vertigo at all, but I do wish that they'd put out more comics that I'd like to read. A lot of what is successful for them right now is about halfway interesting, but doesn't grab me.

20:20 / 26.11.04

Like Flux I'd like to see more comics published that appeal to my tastes but more I'd like to see better comics published - at the moment it seems like not particularly great or original ideas are winning plaudits in the fanboy community, without generating terribly great sales.

Matthew Fluxington

20:34 / 26.11.04

Right, and it's not as though there's some magic formula for how to make a great comic. I just think that they have a set of writers who are competant, but maybe a bit artistically conservative and lack a certain spark. If I had a lot of money, I'd probably give more of these books (Y The Last Man, Fables, 100 Bullets, Lucifer) a better shot, but life is short and money is tight.

16:59 / 27.11.04

>> The new Books of Magic series is completely fucking excellent.

As someone who enjoyed the first miniseries and roughly the first third of the original BOM series, I can't understand why someone thought it was a good idea to do an alternate universe Tim Hunter and start from scratch with him, after DC has spent years writing and developing the "real" Tim Hunter as a character (one of the few characters in comics who actually grows and evolves from age 12ish to being a teen, Dick Grayson and most of the DCU superhero sidekicks being the few others).

Bleh. Alternate universe Tim, Molly, John Constantine and Zatanna = absolutely no interest from me, despite the beautiful Frank Quitely covers.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

18:35 / 27.11.04

I don't have Vertigo hate, but I do think that, as a line, it has gotten quite diluted lately. Maybe I don't get it, but I don't see a whole lot of difference between a Vertigo book and a Wildstorm Mature readers comic anymore. When Vertigo started, they had a clear identity (the dark corner of the DC Universe) and a clear choice to explore a kind of horror.

Now, they seem to just be where the mature readers comics go that aren't developed by Wildstorm. I remember for the first few years of the line, you could count on a level of quality, due to the involvment of specific creators and a firm editorial hand, but over the past five years, Vertigo has lost that focus. Maybe it's because so many other companies are mining the same ground, but the days of being interested in a Vertigo book because of the imprint is gone.

I think the best example of this is "Y, The Last Man." A decent enough comic, but is there a reason this is a Vertigo book, other than it's not in the DC Universe, and there is some swearing? On the other hand, is there a reason "Fallen Angel" isn't a Vertigo book other than Peter David is known for mainline super-hero comics?

The line needs an identity or a fosuc, or it should just become the "mature readers" line, and any DC mature readers book should be under the imprint.

18:58 / 27.11.04

I follow writers not imprints or characters. But I've bought a lot of Vertigo I guess and I'm probably fond of the imprint I guess for putting out books like Shade the Changing Man and giving people like Delano and Milligan work.

They've unleashed a lot of great writers and given them books.

Anyone remember Invisibles? or The Filth? ; )

19:02 / 27.11.04

Am I the only one who hasn't read less than half of Sandman and can't get it up enough to read the rest or thinks that Gaiman is an overrated hack?

Books of Magic was always shite so I didn't bother with the new series.

09:34 / 28.11.04

Solitaire, what exactly are you saying? That Vertigo should restrict itself to DCU horror? The fact that Vertigo has lost much of its original identity is something to be celebrated imo; the possibilities for storytelling are now so much broader.

Who cares whether Wildwstorm could produce the same product, surely all that counts is that the product is good, and varied.

09:36 / 28.11.04

Whether you like Gaiman or not, I think describing him as a hack is a little wrong-headed.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

10:27 / 28.11.04

Yeah, I like the Sandman. Don't like much of the Sandman-related crud that wasn't written by Gaiman, do people really not like The Sandman, or are they lumping it together with the SchlockGothCrud of Caitlin Kiernan that came after? It was like comics for the ManicStreetPreachers fan from the Melody Maker funny pages...

As for the alternate Tim Hunter thing, I ntoce these things go in waves. In the early 80s 'Crisis on infinite Earths' nearly didn't happen because the prevailing wisdom of management was that the kids would only buy comics that had been published for decades. Mid-nineties the prevailing wisdom was that kids wouldn't buy comics that had been published for decades, so new issue ones are the order of the day. Now the thinking seems to be that kids won't buy new comics that have any kind of history, hence John Byrne gives us old characters, like the Doom Patrol, from decades ago but jettisons all history, hence Ultimate whatevers, hence another example which I thought of just now but which I've annoyingly forgotten.

I predict that in five or six years time, we'll eat our meals in a pill, we'll live on the moon, and the wisdom in comics will be for classic long-established characters who no-one has ever seen before. This should cause a lot of heads to explode at Marvel and DC and we can live in peace with our Martian Overlords.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

13:30 / 28.11.04

I don't know if Vertigo should remain the dark corner of the DC Universe...but the line does need some sort of identity if they want to keep it as a separate, distinct imprint.

I'll use book publishing as an example: there are only a few publishers, but there are a lot of different book lines, handled by different editors. Right or wrong, it makes it easier for booksellers to know what they are getting.

When it started, Vertigo had a line identity, and a lot of readers gave their newer books a chance based on that, because that is how comic book fans are. DC has a number of specific product lines, the mainstream DC Universe stuff, the more mature Wildstorm super-hero stuff, The kids stuff with Johnny DC, "outside the universe" which is all the licensed stuff, their Euro-comics line, their manga line and then Vertigo.

Maybe it is that so much of the time, DC as a company just drops books on the market with an ad in Previews and expects it to sink or swim, but more line identity would help struggling comics because shop owners and readers would know what to expect. It makes it hard for a comic that needs to find its readers to do so, and having a clear line identity would help with that.

I work part-time at a friend's comic shop, and have for a while, and I can't tell you how many people dropped 100 Bullets in the early issues because they were expecting a horror/magic theme to the book, and it never came Being in Vertigo has limited the sales potential of that comic to the audience that they cultivated with the rest of their books. Putting it in the Paradox line (which is where Road To Perdition was) might have helped.

Seaguy struck me as a book that did not fit in Vertigo as it was a mature readers super-hero title that would have gotten more attention if it were through Wildstorm.

As for the Sandman thing...Sandman seems to be shaping up to be very much a product of its time. It helped DC continue to move toward more mature works after they lost Alan Moore, was perfectly situated to break into bookstores, and created the comic series with a definate ending that ends when the creator leaves. I liked it at the time, but really have very little interest in going back and reading it again, as I've read better comics since.

The Natural Way

14:25 / 28.11.04

Hold on, if Vertigo were to take yr advice then you could forget books like The Invisibles, Flex Mentallo, Shade the Changing Man,, The Filth, Vertigo Pop (London), 100%..... Basically, most of the imprints' high points over the past ten years. Vertigo is simply a high profile "mature readers" imprint and it really needn't - and shouldn't - limit itself to the tastes of a gang of gothbeards who miss the Sandman, Swamp Thing and Delano's Hellblazer.

14:56 / 28.11.04

As far as I can tell, Vertigo's always been a place for mature and intelligent comics for the mature and intelligent reader. Sure, some of them slip through the cracks and are just "big ol' comic with some cussin'" but usually not. Perhaps it started with a number of "horror/punk/magic" comics, but I never really noticed.

I don't purchase comics based on imprints or any of that, just for writers or stories I like. But I do notice that Vertigo has a higher quality-to-quantity ratio than most imprints or publishers.

16:35 / 28.11.04

Solitaire, again, your position is that Vertigo should go back to putting out horror/magic comics exclusively? Sounds like an awful state of affairs to me.

By the way, are you arguing that Vertigo's sales have suffered because of their (allegedly) fuzzy brand identity? Do you have any hard evidence beyond your comic shop experience?

ONLY NICE THINGS

17:03 / 28.11.04

I think Solitaire's point is that those comics woudl have gione int a different line - so, Seaguy to Wildstorm, Y: The Last Man to... well, not sure. Shade? That goes back a long way and doesn't have a magic/horror theme... likewise Doom Patrol. I'm not sure that Vertigo was ever a magic/horror line - it was a line that for a while was heavily associated with Swamp Thing and Sandman and their spin-off (Hellblazer, the Dreaming, etc). The Witching, occupying as it does precisely the "modern horror" space, feels to me like an attempt to keep milking that audience without really wanting anytihng other than its money, but then I am not entirely familiar with it:

Don't like much of the Sandman-related crud that wasn't written by Gaiman, do people really not like The Sandman, or are they lumping it together with the SchlockGothCrud of Caitlin Kiernan that came after?

You mean, how could anyone dislike the Sandman? I though some of it was well-written, it did some interesting things, Gaiman has a very good visual imagination, but it was also, especially in the later period, absurdly, comically self-indulgent and delighted with its own limited erudition. A qualified success, but I agree that much of the annoyance with the Sandman may be that it showed that supposedly "mature" audiences could be sold huge amounts of expensive and pointless branded tat just like the "fanboy" audiences they were supposed to be looking down on.

19:43 / 28.11.04

As far as I recall, Vertigo was created to be a mature readers imprint. That's a pretty broad remit. I can't see where that makes titles such as 100 bullets somehow out of place.

Moreover, DC has attempted to launch a variety of different imprints over the years but none has had the success of Vertigo from Impact through to milestone - Helix, the Sci-Fi imprint also failed - the only one title that was successful was Trans met, hardly enough to sustain an imprint on its own - it ended up being shunted into Vertigo...

Vertigo has succeeded in broadening the range of themes DC can explore in the comics it publishes and, I would argue, has played a significant role in in growing a mainstream (Bookshop) market for comics, and I think that fact that other imprints and publishers have attempted to immitated Vertigo only reinforces how influential Vertigo was and is.

Matthew Fluxington

23:18 / 28.11.04

The line needs an identity or a focus, or it should just become the "mature readers" line, and any DC mature readers book should be under the imprint.

But that's what it is and what's it's always been: the mature readers line. They've always published non-horror stuff, it's just that horror-leaning stuff has dominated the line because that's what the writers/editors came up with. Vertigo has a strong brand identity - it's the writer's label, essentially. They specialize in marketing books based on name writers, with series that emphasize the writing over the art. They've always been the opposite of Image, basically.

It's important to remember that although Wildstorm and Vertigo are owned by the same corporation, they are in fact different companies with different editorial staffs. So it's not actually a case of redundancy. There's a reason why Alan Moore works for Wildstorm and not DC/Vertigo.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

01:36 / 29.11.04

By the way, are you arguing that Vertigo's sales have suffered because of their (allegedly) fuzzy brand identity?

I am. My thoughts on it have been forming while we've had this discussion, but I think their launch as a "British writers doing goth/punk" brand has limited them. I CLEARLY remember a lot of writers says that they weren't taking their work to Vertigo because of its British creator bias in the 90's.

I hope I don't come off as saying that Vertigo SHOULD be limited....and if I am it's because I'm still thinking through my opinion. But it is a line that has a very definate brand identity, and once that it established, it is hard to break. I don't think it is possible for them to change it, myself, so they should keep it as the "mature horror" line, and start a different line for other mature readers.

Do you have any hard evidence beyond your comic shop experience?

I track comics sales as a hobby on my website, and a comic like Fables is considered a huge success sales-wise, even though it was selling about as well as Legion of Super-Heroes was when it was canceled due to low sales. The line has put an upper barrier on sales, IMHO, and a different "mature readers" imprint (like Marvel Knights or MAX at Marvel) would help them break that barrier.

02:12 / 29.11.04

Personally, I'm against Vertigo because it's a bit too corporate these days. And because some of the people who work there aren't really open to revolutionary concepts.

A friend of mine has some brilliant ideas, but when he, this guy, arrived outside the Vertigo building the other week with his best work in his portfolio, having got 'the brush-off' from his postal submissions ( but they're busy these people, and you need to be determined, ) he was told by the man on the door that he should " Take it somewhere else, buddy. "

" Ah, " said my friend " But no, that's impossible. "

" Oh yeah ? Why ? "

" You refer to my ideas in the singular, my man, when in fact, there are many. "

" Yeah ? "

" I think so, yes. See what you don't understand is... "

I don't think I... I don't think my friend was expecting to be hit so hard in the face after that really. Bad Vertigo, bad.

06:47 / 29.11.04

But solitaire - comic sales are just part of the picture - A major part of the Vertigo's income has traditionally be trade sales, especially those in book shops. Rightly or wrongly, ongoing Vertigo series are more likely to be A) collected B) sell better as trades and these concerns as well as those about further growing the market for GNs are all factors that an editor has to take account of when deciding when to can a comic.

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:18 / 29.11.04

Solitaire - Could you put a link to your website? I'm interested in comic book sales, but not interested enough to buy Wizard. Sleaze makes a good point- are you including sales of trades, which may make a difference. Vertigo might have different sales model and selling cycle to, say, the Legion of Super-heroes, so the comics become in effect adverts to generate publicity and word of mouth for the trades, which are then bought by people who have read the individual issues in the shop/at friends' houses...

08:56 / 29.11.04

Can you give an example of this Vertigo hate, unBjork? I'm not seeing it. Do you mean that sometimes people don't like Vertigo books, or that there is some sort of dissatisfaction with the business practices of the imprint?

More of the former, much less of the latter. General satisfaction with the business practices of Vertigo seems to be pretty high, actually.

As for examples... maybe 'hate' was a little too strong of a word. "Occasionally very strong, but usually moderate dislike" probably would've been better. I've been lurking/posting here for about 2 years, and it was just the general impression I got from various posts. A couple years ago, M. Fluxington wrote that (paraphrased) "Vertigo should concentrate on putting out good books instead" in response to a slice of debate that said Vertigo was good for continually printing the highlights of yesteryear, for example.

I just thought that Vertigo seems to be putting out a number of good books right at the moment in contrast to a generally blah opinion from a number of people. Hence, this thread.

10:41 / 29.11.04

I think Solitaire's point is that those comics would have gone into a different line

I understand that, Haus. And, I, like you, am suspicious of the claim that Vertigo was ever exclusively a horror/magic imprint.
I was just trying to tease out of Solitaire an argument based on facts not anecdotes.

Page: (1)2