Recently, the comic book industry has had a lot of talk revolving around the current status of DC Comics and how the higher-ups are making poor decisions which inadvertently causes negative conditions to worsen. We already covered how DC’s newest imprint Black Label is currently having an identity crisis following the release of Batman: Damned #1 and its “controversial” images despite the label focusing on making mature stories. In the past week or so, another imprint at DC is supposedly in danger of being tampered with if not abandoned entirely.
According to Bleeding Cool, and its sleuth of anonymous sources, rumors have been popping up within the comic industry itself that DC Comics is shutting down the Vertigo imprint.
Vertigo is one of DC’s oldest imprint being officially created back in 1993 although it was spiritually created when the series The Sandman by Neil Gaiman began in 1989. The imprint was created to be home to stories that wouldn’t normally adhere to the policies of the Comics Code Authority (CCA), i.e. mature/adult-oriented stories such as The Sandman. Vertigo would go on to be home to many horror or fantastical tales such as Preacher, Constantine, Fables, Y: The Last Man, and so many more.
While the imprint has never truly been as successful as DC mainline titles in terms of profit, critically many of its titles have been Eisner award-winning with many claiming some of the industry’s best comics have been made through this imprint. DC in the last couple of years has started multiple new stories under the imprint such as those under The Sandman Universe titling including The Dreaming, Lucifer, Books of Magic, and House of Whispers along with American Carnage, a crime story reflecting on modern day issues in American Society.
Not all of the stories have been rushing off the shelves sadly, with The Dreaming probably being the most successful title for the imprint.
According to Bleeding Cool’s sources, low sales aren’t the only reason for Vertigo’s sudden threat. Apparently, Vertigo is simply too difficult to manage for the publisher since it deals with mature themes and those “content issues” make them difficult to sell to the common reader. The imprint also has problems competing with creator-owned deals offered by other publishers. It would appear that Vertigo may remain for at least another year but by then many stories under the imprint may be moved to either the Black Label or Young Animal imprints, although the lifespan of those imprints are also currently in question.
Infamous comic book artist Rob Liefeld (creator of Deadpool and co-founder of Image Comics) went on Twitter to give his own opinion on the situation going over at DC Comics, despite not currently employed by them. Here are some of his tweets that have been since deleted but were saved via BleedingCool. Liefeld must have woke-up to the idea that these statements were a terrible idea, but the internet is not a place where inflammatory statements go away.
“Comics gonna drive off a cliff here real soon…..gotta get my popcorn.”
“I ain’t never seen a company in as much disarray as DC Comics. Thank God they have Batman to act as their Tylenol, Asprin, laughing gas… ‘more Batman will fix it!’”
“I understand my DC honesty will cost me a potential opportunity but who cares! C’mon… they should fire everybody in management and refresh. Batman will still be there for the next group.”
Suffice it to say, fans quickly took to Twitter to defend the publisher while denoting the credibility of Liefeld at the same time. Liefeld, like many fans of DC currently, thinks that the management of DC should be changed.
After hearing the news that Vertigo might be shut down, Black Label is losing its initial purpose, and they’re causing characters to go through such poor developments like those seen in Heroes in Crisis, who can blame these people for being concerned for the celebrated publisher?
Hopefully, DC Comics will come out with an official statement concerning all of these issues soon.
SOURCE: BLEEDING COOL