DC shuts down Vertigo imprint

[Earth 2 Chris]

Not really sure what Vertigo has done in the last several years. The last buzz I heard was around Fables, but this is pretty shocking.

https://13thdimension.com/dc-shutters-vertigo-imprint/

DC must really be in deep dog doo.

Chris

[Random Axe]

This is only the beginning of the flaming, nuclear downward spiral coming from DC...

[thunderbolt]

Are Didio and Lee still driving the flaming bus off the cliff?

[PNGwynne]

Perhaps it's just that the mainstrean DCU now embraces Vertigo-like content? IDK, I read so few titles.

Still, I'm saddened to hear this; my feelings echo T-Bolt's.

[knight errant00]

Perhaps it's just that the mainstrean DCU now embraces Vertigo-like content?

That's what I was thinking . . . when the Joker is a serial killer with a peel-away face and the Watchmen are integrated into the main continuity, what's the point of Vertigo?

[monitor_ep]

If you read DCnU 52 Swamp Thing and Animal Man in the main releases than yeah Vertigo was dead a few years back, DC finally pulled the plug and buried it.

[MRP]

Vertigo died when WB decided it didn't want to give up rights to creators anymore and changed the contracts to essentially kill any interest in creators taking their properties there, driving away all the name talent that was there doing creator-owned stuff, and those creators all went to other publishers like Image. What was left was either stuff by creators who were not established or DC friendly properties. The label remained, but what made Vertigo the Vertigo we knew and loved has been gone for a good 6 or 7 years now.

This final death though is not isolated, it is DC consolidating its brands. They are also ending the Ink and Zoom labels for stuff geared towards younger readers, but actually doubling down on creating more of that content, they are just not going to use the Ink and Zoom labels, just like with Vertigo. It probably also means the ned of pop up imprints like Wildstorm and Young Animal.

They will now use only 3 labels for their books:

The three labels will be structured as follows:

DC Kids will focus on readers ages 8-12 and offer content created specifically for the middle-grade reader
DC, focusing on ages 13+, will primarily be the current DC universe of characters
DC Black Label will focus on content appropriate for readers 17 and older

Anything that would have been Vertigo is now Black Label. This has already been happening though, as new printings of Vertigo series have been getting the Black Label branding for the last 6-8 months, so this is just confirming what they have been doing for a while now. Anything that would have been Ink or Zoom is now DC Kids, etc.

The idea of Vertigo as a place where creators could go with their own ideas, publish them and retain the rights though (i.e. the environment that created Preacher, Fables, etc. has been dead for years though. WB and CE Entertainment killed that a while ago in their greed to keep all IP rights to anything they publish. This is just pulling the sheet over the corpse they left out on display the last couple years.

-M

[hedrap]

Black Label was going to be a film/tv imprint. Phienix standalone Joker and HBO Watchmen were originally Black Label.