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Underground > Comic Books >

What Vertigo Titles Do You Buy?

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:28 / 18.07.01

Warren Ellis asked this on his site the other day, and since a few people mentioned Vertigo recently I figured it might be interesting to see how many people here are still buying Vertigo titles regularly, and which ones.

Right now, the only ongoing titles I'm buying regularly are 100 Bullets and American Century - and there's something less-than-satisfying about the second of these that makes me think I might drop it unless it picks up in the next few issues. Tried getting into Transmetropolitan but have decided it reads better in trades. Oh, and I quite liked the User miniseries from last year, for all its flaws.

Anyone reading and enjoying Codename: Knockout, The Crusades, etc? Anything else worth recommending?

[ 18-07-2001: Message edited by: The Flyboy ]

deletia

12:36 / 18.07.01

Transmet, more out of habit and fondness than owt else, and Lucifer, which I like, but can't quite explain why.

Ellis

12:42 / 18.07.01

Transmet.
Just to see how the blasted thing ends.
I would buy the trades but... I just dont want to wait.

12:42 / 18.07.01

Desperadoes, which isn't a Vertigo title, but is the only comic I still regularly buy.

13:05 / 18.07.01

Buying Vertigo books is getting to be an increasingly depressing passtime.

I bought more-or-less every issue of Deadenders, but the last few more out of a sense of 'well I might as well see it through to the end..' than any real enjoyment (I liked the last issue though - a smart way to wrap things up).

I've been trying to keep up with Transmet. and Outlaw Nation, but I think I'm going to call it quits, as neither of them are very entertaining (in monthly doses at least).

I should be buying 100 Bullets, but being a shmuck, I didn't get in at the start, and I've been reading up on the trades.

Kind of depressing, when you look at the new-releases page in, say, an old issue of Hellblazer and think 'goddamn, if this lot came out next month I'm buy them all.'

13:32 / 18.07.01

I get the transmet trades, but worryingly enough i apparently already have the best of the series and it goes down hill from about 25 onwards…

I picked up the first issues of a lot of vertigo stuff but usually it leaves me cold (it was only giving the invisibles a 3rd chance that made me want to read it all)

100 bullets is apparently very good from the 2nd trade onwards- I'd be interested if i could steal a read of someone's copy of it but am at the moment insufficiently curious to buy a copy myself.

13:32 / 18.07.01

Transmet and Hellblazer.

<dons sheepskin> And yes, I agree that the trades are so much more readable. I really am beginning to get hideously peeved with 24-page bursts of not-very-much; it's like open-cast mining with a teaspoon.

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:33 / 18.07.01

quote:Originally posted by sleazenation:
I'd be interested if i could steal a read of someone's copy of it but am at the moment insufficiently curious to buy a copy myself.

We should talk...

15:04 / 18.07.01

I think it's fast approaching the time when publishers like DC realised that 'mature' projects - ie. project for adults - make better sense as self-contained stories rather than as ongoing series. The obsession with continuing stories way beyond their main plot has or should have ended, drives me insane. Either that or they should seriously consider bringing back the kind of adult 'super-hero' comics of books like Animal Man, Doom Patrol or Shade.

Jamieon

15:28 / 18.07.01

I totally agree. Part of what made the Invisibles and Preacger fun to read was the fact that they were self contained stories, with a beginning, a middle and an end.

That feeling of working towards something just can't be beaten.

That special feeling, that can't be beat.

The real thing!

Hopefully, Morrison and Milligan's Marvel books will have the same sort've self contained feeling. In fact, I'm sure they will.

Ronald Thomas Clontle

16:03 / 18.07.01

I haven't regularly read any of Vertigo's output in a while. I tried 100 Bullets, bought the first trade, but it bored me, as does virtually all crime noir. I loved the art, though. I tried a few recent issues of Hellblazer, and it held no interest for me. I tried Lucifer, ditto. I have never had even the slightest interest in Swamp Thing. I did pick a couple random issues of Deadenders, and thought it was cool, but I have no strong desire to find the other issues to have the whole story, I'd buy a trade collecting it if I saw it.

There's just nothing they are publishing that really is part of my taste, really...I'd love to buy a comic, any comic, that had that Grant Doom Patrol/Milligan Shade thing going on, but it seems that no one does that sort of thing anymore. I really loved Preacher, but nearly everything else Ennis does leaves me cold...I don't like Westerns, sorry.

Transmetropolitan I like okay, I've picked up a few trades...I don't feel very passionately about it, it's like one of those tv shows that you don't really like but you'll watch it if it is on and you don't have anything else to do.

19:57 / 18.07.01

100 Bullets still rocks!!!

Hellblazer has been a fun read... I like it.

Outlaw Nation I like the art & the story has a sort of Car crash curiousity to it... each issue is the last I pick up.

wow . .. that's about it. Vertigo is starting to become Gothreading I guess. They still haven't gotten over Sandman. O-N is like Preacher lite.

& I wish something like Shade or Enigma resurfaced!!!

Multuk, Hardboiled Shaman was also great...

09:13 / 19.07.01

I like Azzarello's stuff but I think his noir stuff probably resonates more with us yanks. At least most of the people I've talked to who have liked his stuff were from the U.S. and most of the people I've talked to who have hated his stuff were from the U.K.

I thought Muktuk was a really fun read also.

Ganesh

09:17 / 19.07.01

Don't buy any Vertigo any more. Three years ago, that would've seemed odd.

The Packard Goose

09:17 / 19.07.01

I picked up the first issue of the Lucifer monthly out of curiosity and was unimpressed. However, recent issues have rewarded my sticking with it. This series is really finding it's legs now, and for me is the only Vertigo title that currently captures even a hint of the Sandman/Shade/Invisibles glory days. The alternate Eden of the last two issues has been fun.

09:17 / 19.07.01

100 Bullets. Hellblazer.

I picked up the first 2 issues of Codename:Knockout just to see what it was like. Its fun, not brilliant, pretty disposable. You know what your getting before you open it up. 70's style James Bond shtick.

09:17 / 19.07.01

So the only Vert title I currently read on a regular basis is Hellblazer, but the new Hunter: Names of Magic series is looking sweet too, far better than the old Books of Magic (at least after the 1st 4 issues).

Transmet is good once in a while, but not every month.

It strikes me that a lot of Vertigo's best work is in the past, Preacher, Inivisibles, Sandman. I don't see any current book have that kind staying power where you can go back to a book you read five times and find something new (esp w/ Sandman and Invisibles).

So it seems like everyone and his mother is raving about 100 Bullets. I read the 1st few issues, and I don't really understand why it is so great. Maybe some one could clue me in. It is fairly well written, ie better than most comics (not saying much) but it does not seem to be worth my time.

Feel free to try to change my mind.

I could not stand The Crusades. I bought the 1st few issues and the art is such crap. Where the talk show host turns into a cartoon is so idiotic like the artist wants to change the feeling of the comic book whenever he is around and making a joke. Seems changing into a cartoon works in some books (David Mack's Kabuki and Age of Brozne by another artist come to mind) but it is clear there that it occurs in dream or dream like sequences.

That happens to be the same complaint I have with the movie Blow.

American Century started out nice, never kept track of it. If y'all recommand it, I might grab some back issues.

-Jesse

13:39 / 19.07.01

The magnificent OUTLAW NATION is the only Vertigo book I buy regularly. As Ganesh said, this feels odd: but I think I've largely outgrown the line.

I have been known to pick up the odd TRANSMET trade.

And I've got about half the PREACHER trades, and I'm still wondering what its rabid fanbase sees in it that I don't.

14:16 / 19.07.01

a lot of knob gags and scattalogical humor, apparently

14:36 / 19.07.01

hmm... transmet out of habit. outlaw nation out of interest. lucifer if it continues to be collected.null may pick up the names of magic. might start reading 100 bullets again,but i found it got a tad tedious.

17:01 / 19.07.01

i'm with ganesh, it does seem wierd that I've moved so far away from the vertigo titles. Only get Trans each month, mainly because I enjoy it and also to see how it ends.
But looking at the shelfs of comics (and the boxes that contain the rest of the damn things) it does show something is wrong over at the dc offices.
But then buildan imprint on the talent you've got then piss them off so they leave and where does that leave you?

Robot Man Reformed

17:24 / 19.07.01

Vertigo just seems like a desert now.

Still pick up Nocennti's (or whatever) and Philips' Kid Eternity and Jenkins' and Philips' Hellblazer when I run into them. Some issues as many times as 5.

19:49 / 19.07.01

I think Grant early on said something to the effect that it was a shame to lock the adult DC comics away in the Vertigo ghetto, whereas before it had been able to appear in unexpected places. This is one thing I like about him: when it seemed really cool and mature to release posh coffee table editions of, say, Sandman or Maus, he thought comics should be printed in cheap editions; when the consensus was that the superhero genre was redundant and largely consisting of stereotypes, he claimed that this goes for Love & Rockets style "underground" comics just as much; when the neonoir grim, "realistic" superhero surfaced with Dark Knight, he instead wanted the absurd approach of the Flash of the 60's.

And he was right.

(Kid Eternity?! You should try out Nocenti's Daredevil instead!!!)

20:50 / 19.07.01

eeer... Forgot about Lucifer, as a read it's getting better & better. Peter Gross is also kick asss on the book.

100 bullets keep improving!!! though the recient issue was a bit fluff

I think I'm about Done with Outlaw Nation this last issue was pretty good, ans it's also reached a good jump-off point!!!

22:52 / 19.07.01

Why would you buy anything from the "Timothy Hunter" brand? Wasn't the last five-issue thing bad enough? And now's there's more? Wow.
100 Bullets is wicked, but I don't think it will manage a satisfying conclusion. Outlaw Nation started out good, got worse, and has to pull out of the downward spiral now before it crashes. Hellblazer: thank you God for Azarello. Like Moore sez: Constantine to the life. One of only a few comics I look forward to every month. Transmet Well, you've just got to really. American Century because it started well. Have to see what happens (dubious about its chances of maintaining quality). I'm also ashamed to say that I bought the first Dead Boy Detectives. I know, I know, I'm sorry and I've paid the price...

As to Vertigo in general, they've got to stop publishing all kinds of Sandman spin-off stuff and get back to what made them in the first place - publishing good, new stuff, like Sandman was when it first came out. Enough with the "Vertigo" style - haven't you heard? Gaiman's doing film now...

[ 20-07-2001: Message edited by: Templar ]

23:47 / 19.07.01

Transmet collections and the first Lucifer TPB - that's all.

10:29 / 20.07.01

Templar: Dead boy detectives - is that the two boys from Sandman, who later appeared in the disasterous Children's crusade Vertigo cross-over? (The first issue, by Gaiman & Bachalo was REALLY good, but then it was just crap.)

Also, I'd like to second that DC should stop its Sandman spin-offs. I know I raved about Little endless before it came out, but having read it... YUK what a mess. Decent artwork as always from ms Thompson, though.

Is Lucifer really improving as many of you are saying. I bought the first six or so issues, and I thought it was -- ok. Should I pick it up again (remembering that the first six or so issues of Sandman were largely crap)?

Our Lady of The Two Towers

10:31 / 20.07.01

quote:Originally posted by sleazenation:
I get the transmet trades, but worryingly enough i apparently already have the best of the series and it goes down hill from about 25 onwards…

I think the 'year three' of Transmet was the best thus far but I only appreciated reading 'Dirge' once I'd got all three parts and read it as one. I think creators like Ellis have got to write for the format it's being published in. If he wants to write Transmet as a TPB then he should get it published as a TPB, if DC are forcing him to have it published as a monthly comic then he should write it as a monthly comic and stop all this self-indulgent masturbatory stuff. That said I do like Transmet at the moment.

Preacher; The first 24 issues are wonderful, a spot-on how-to manual for writing comics that are both funny but have a point to make. Unfortunately after that point the plot is lost totally, all the characters become arseholes [no pun intended] and you loose sympathy or indeed interest in it. When I first read issue 24 I thought "wow, this is going to be so great when I read the entire series once it's finished!" I still haven't read it yet.

13:24 / 20.07.01

quote:Originally posted by PATricky:
I think I'm about Done with Outlaw Nation this last issue was pretty good, ans it's also reached a good jump-off point!!!

now why don't they advertise this fact rather than the "jumping on" point issues.

09:05 / 21.07.01

Now that would be Novel...

Next issue we wrap up so many of those annoying plot threds you'll be able to say fuck-it for about the next six months... check out an issue then!

Yeah I'm liking Lucifer more & more... I almost forget it's a sandman spinoff...

09:05 / 21.07.01

quote:Originally posted by Harry Christmas:
Templar: Dead boy detectives - is that the two boys from Sandman, who later appeared in the disasterous Children's crusade Vertigo cross-over? (The first issue, by Gaiman & Bachalo was REALLY good, but then it was just crap.)

That's right.
And I'd just to like take a red pen and underline] the word disasterous in the above sentance. Vertigo: leave the pointless crossovers to Marvel.

[ 21-07-2001: Message edited by: Templar ]

09:05 / 21.07.01

at comics2001, i had a conversation with an artist who's worked for vertigo that told me that karen berger is obsessed with the concept of child abuse being the back story of every female character in vertigo comics. he told me how the comic he was working on had a strong woman, maybe a little fiucked-up (but who isn't?) and berger kept asking when the abuse history was going to come out in the story -- although there was none and she apparentlt insisted there should be.

i've also heard tales of what a nightmare she was to work with when she was pregnant...