Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Vertigo Title Review (R.I.P.)

So I read the latest Sandman story today in one sitting and all I can say is WOW. It was superb. Better than I expected or even hoped. I loved it and can't wait to reread already, so I can pick up on all that I missed.

Dave, I know you're reading it issue by issue. I think you'll really enjoy reading it all at once--I've always felt that way with the multi part Sandman stories. Gaiman really crafted an amazing story here full of epic imagery and wonderful, human moments.

I was so excited I had to text my brothers and sisters to tell them.

That's actually a really nice area too. geez.

I read Unfollow 1 and 2 last night. Interesting story. It is about a tech billionaire that is dying and gives away his fortune to 140 characters.

However, there is some plot to whom he has chosen. Can't wait to find out what's going on.

The few of the 140 characters that have been introduced so far have been interesting. Plus full frontal male nudity!

This could easily be an edgy tv series.

Well, I don't think the recent Vertigo launches have been very successful from a sales perspective.

I tried Clean Room and Unfollow, but didn't stick with them, they didn't grab me soon enough (full frontal male nudity notwithstanding, :))

I tried Red Thorn, it explores Scottish mythology, and I really like that (and: full frontal male nudity!!!)

I am also reading Lucifer, and I like it. The writer is building off things that happened in Carey's Lucifer (the run-in with Izanami, for example), and there is a bit of a tour through the Vertiguniverse: we have visited the Dreaming, seen Cain & Abel, etc. (and: full frontal angelic nudity!!!)

Side note: Appears to be lots of full frontal male-ish nudity in comix these days. Is this progress or regression?

Art Ops came to an end with the latest issue. It was a satisfying conclusion (if a little rushed), but I won't really miss it all that much. The Allred art was great (when he was a around), but the writing never really grabbed me.

I'm still getting Astro City, which I don't really consider a Vertigo book. So if I don't count that, this is the first time I'm not getting any Vertigo books in like forever. Certainly since Legion World was created as a message board. Weird.

But nothing they've done has really grabbed me.

^^Vertigo is yesterday's news, IMO. Even though I've come to appreciate a lot of what they've published (both in the Proto-Vertigo years of 1988-1993 and from their official beginnings in 1994 on), I still think they foisted a lot of pretentious, pseudo-profound pap on innocent readers who ended up feeling fleeced.

Young Animal is what I consider a fresh start for the essence of the same basic aesthetic which originally led to the Proto-Vertigo Era.

The Queen is dead, long live the Queen.

Wow, I know that Vertigo has felt all but dead since Karen Berger left, but it still feels weird to hear the imprint is now no more.

R.I.P. Vertigo (1993-2019)

It kind of feels like the anniversary of a death, renewing sadness over a loss felt years before.

Other factors than just Didiosyncrasies led to its demise, but the fact that Didio apparently felt that “inappropriate for younger readers” was the imprint’s only defining feature explains at least part of the imprint’s struggles in recent years.

It does feel like reading about the death of some actor who you thought had died years ago. Sad end for a once-superior imprint.

Fortunately Vertigo had such a huge influence on the comics industry that several companies are doing the kinds of books Vertigo was once famous for. In part it died because there was no longer a need for it.

All I know is that some of my very favorite books of all time were published under the Vertigo imprint (though several were already existing when the imprint was created or later grandfathered in like Moore's Swamp Thing run).

While thinking about favorites from Image and the other indies, I feel there are still more all-time personal classics that came from Vertigo for me. So this feels pretty sad.

I definitely relate to that feeling. After all , those early books were the trailblazers, and these other books are traveling that well-marked Trail. There’s an energy to those early days that current books, no matter how well made, can never capture again. Combined, of course, with all the feelings bound up with our lives at that time. I was 19 when I discovered Proto-Vertigo in 1990, and those books spoke to my 19 and early 20s English major self in a way that current books can never speak to my staid middle aged self.

Of course Vertigo folded before they could grant Rachel Pollack the dignity of reprinting her Doom Patrol run under the banner that published it.

Goddamn cowards.

I second that statement.

I've been rereading Sandman again and I've just now come to the realization that, honestly, I was only ever interested in the series because of everyone BESIDES the title character. I think that's why I preferred A Game Of You so much over the other arcs (despite its problems) because of how little Dream was in it.

Honestly, I'd be surprised if very many Sandman fans feel that Morpheus is their favorite character in the series. He's kind of a wet blanket/cypher of a character for the most part. It was almost always what was going on around him that I found most interesting.

It's hard for me to find him interesting or endearing at this point if my understanding of the Kindly Ones is correct. If the whole thing was one big suicide gambit and him setting up Daniel to be his successor then, well, he basically manipulated Lyta Hall into taking the path she did and it left her taking the blame for everything. But people still think she didn't have a right to do what she did. Honestly, she should've killed him with her bare hands for putting her through that nonsense.

That’s always been my reading. Although I don’t feel it was necessarily a conscious suicide gambit. When death made a comment about how he had been arranging things even longer than he realized, I think everything that led to him having to kill his own son was subconscious. Once he did that, he knew he was doomed and everything since was preparing for that inevitability.

I... am so mad. Like, really, really mad. More mad about this now then I was when they first announced the end of Vertigo.

It now hits me how they did all this explorative stuff and weird stuff about sexuality and queerness and bisexuality and transgenderism before most other mainstream comic companies were willing to do...

And then it's like somewhere along the line someone... stopped caring? Like nothing they were creating had any really thought or love or desire to say something and Vertigo just became this place about weirdness for the sake of weirdness. It was like they only focused on weird out of obligation rather than because they wanted to.

And during all of it they never had a book that talked about asexuality or autochorissexuality because it was too late? But where's the obscure DC character getting reimagined talking about that particular aspect of the spectrum. Why not Odd Man or Anima or Mindboggler or the Clock.

Now I'd have to hope to see it in Black Label drowned in the deluge of sexy Batman and Harley Quinn and Joker books? Oh Jesus.

The more that DC has been a smaller piece of a corporate whole as WB merges and divests, they just seem to need to show a profit, and that means cranking out as much bat stuff as possible to print money.

Its really unfortunate, as it leaves specialized imprints in the dust and promotes vanilla products, instead of investing in good writers and artists with inventive takes.