DC Closes Vertigo label earlier than expected

[Hybrid]

So books promoting 60s ecology, veganism, magic, the occult, killing god, transvestites, transexuals, gay, bi, pansexualism, having sex with trees, drug use and altered consciousness, calling readers of superhero books as having latent homoerotic tendancies, etc is all fine but its Goddess Mode that is a bridge too far.

Uh yeah, context is everything. I really shouldn’t have to explain the difference between having political themes and making straight up propaganda. It should be as clear as night and day. Again, that’s like using X-Men to defend Champions.

Also I got to love how people are trying to blame Image for this somehow. No it was because their realize it was such an utter flop that no one bought the comics. Plain and simple.

[iron chimp]

Uh yeah, context is everything. I really shouldn’t have to explain the difference between having political themes and making straight up propaganda. It should be as clear as night and day. Again, that’s like using X-Men to defend Champions.

Also I got to love how people are trying to blame Image for this somehow. No it was because their realize it was such an utter flop that no one bought the comics. Plain and simple.

So it was just poor storytelling rather than the themes.

[jetengine]

So it was just poor storytelling rather than the themes.

The woke argument is just right wing shills whining as per usual. Old school vertigo was as woke if not more in this day and age. The only questionable choice in the entire roster was Zoe Quinn and that was because no matter your side in gamergate she bought alot of heat with her that you wouldnt want.

The image point is valid though, if the issue is bad stories then then where are the good writers ? Not at Vertigo. Why ? Because they give **** contracts. Who does better contracts? Why Image.

[skyvolt2000]

So books promoting 60s ecology, veganism, magic, the occult, killing god, transvestites, transexuals, gay, bi, pansexualism, having sex with trees, drug use and altered consciousness, calling readers of superhero books as having latent homoerotic tendancies, etc is all fine but its Goddess Mode that is a bridge too far.

That is more about a dislike of the writer and artist more than anything else.
Titles by folks who were deemed the enemy of certain entitlement fandom. Notice the leads of those books are NOT a certain demo.

American Carnage and Batman & Outsiders share the same writer. Who also does Postal, X-Men's Fallen Angels & Buffy's Angel. If American Carnage was filled with Identity Politics-wouldn't those books be filled with it to? I don't remember Postal or Outsiders preaching Identity politics.

Funny Scalped doesn't get trashed. Whose writer made Jane Foster famous. A book with plenty social commentary on Native Americans.
Or American Way. Oscar winner John Ridley's book about the first super hero ever-who was BLACK. Who got called a sellout by his own people and whopped up on racist.

at least to me but titles such as Border Town,Hex Wives,Goddess Mod,High Level is filled with so much identity politics and adenda

Please list all that Identity politics and agenda in those books.
Not what some youtuber said or some summary. What did you read personally.

I am asking because I hear these claims and as someone who READ some of the books in question-don't see it.

Also.....

American Carnage

Former FBI agent Richard Wright is about to receive that rarest of gifts--a second chance. But like anything worth having, it carries a high price.

After leaving the Bureau in disgrace following the accidental shooting of a child, Wright has been steadily failing to make a living as a private investigator. When his old mentor asks him to infiltrate a group of white supremacists in Los Angeles to discover who is responsible for the death of a fellow agent, he realizes that this is his last shot at redemption.

For a light-skinned, biracial man like Wright, however, it's an especially dangerous assignment. The organization is being torn apart by a power struggle between a charismatic leader with national political aspirations and the old-school rank and file who prefer cross burnings to public speaking. Navigating this minefield of hate while maintaining his cover will stretch him to the breaking point--and what he discovers in the belly of the beast will test everything he knows about himself.

Incognegro (2008) was made under Vertigo & a sequel at Dark Horse in 2018.

Zane Pinchback is a reporter for a black newspaper in the early 1930s New York City. He has built his career investigating lynchings while undercover as a white person, as he is light-skinned enough to pass for white. He is about to retire, but then fate intervenes as his brother is charged with the brutal murder of a white woman in Mississippi. Fearing that his brother will be lynched before given a chance to clear his name, Zane decides to go on one final investigation to free him, and brings along a friend who hopes to assume his job after he retires.

The author, Mat Johnson, is an African-American who, due to his light skin, was able to be perceived as a white person. He learned that Walter White, who served as the chief executive of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), pretended to be a white person in order to investigate lynchings. In addition, he received inspiration from the 2005 birth of two twins, one of whom appears white and the other appears black

Both are telling the same story. Both are about investing a murder that a group might have done. How is this identity politics?

Because if it is-we need to see a TON of bashing over Batman books where he does it.
In fact Batman Seduction of the Gun had Tim Drake do it and so did Static in His book.

[dancj]

It's pretty clear that Vertigo was killed by a combination of the contract being changed so no-one with any level of success wanted to work there anymore, and Image stepping up to publish similar books with good contracts.

Nothing to do with woke/SJW bollocks.

[ed2962]

Uh yeah, context is everything. I really shouldn’t have to explain the difference between having political themes and making straight up propaganda. It should be as clear as night and day. Again, that’s like using X-Men to defend Champions.

Also I got to love how people are trying to blame Image for this somehow. No it was because their realize it was such an utter flop that no one bought the comics. Plain and simple.

I don't think anyone is "blaming" Image for the fall of Vertigo. They're saying that Image's contracts are better and thus attracting the bigger talent. And while Image publishes a wide variety of content, some of their titles are every bit as so-called "woke" as anything from the Vertigo relaunch.

[ed2962]

I'd also like to add that DC's company owned characters either went back to the main universe or got revamped for the Young Animals line and so Vertigo didn't have the recognizable IPs they had at the beginning of the imprint.

[iron chimp]

I dont even think image was the problem. The first wave of vertigo was heavy brit invasion. Dave Mckean got sponsored by kevin eastman and then did ogns and his art career. Gaiman left to do novels and tv. Alan ended up at Wildstorm. Ellis went to wildstorm. Brendan mccarthy went to film. Ennis ended up at dynamite. Milligan ended up all over the place. Once the 2000ad supply line dried up then that was huge chunk of their output gone and nothing from the UK to replace it. Wagner and Grant could just go back to Judge Dredd and their UK series so DC was no big deal to them.

The American half of vertigo did end up at Image in the main but the british went all over the place and the new uk talent to replace them sadly dried up.

In the 80s / early 90s you could make a LOT of money from Comics too so it attracted talent. By the late 90s a lot of that money had gone after the crash, the rise of OGNs, pressure from film and cgi, and the ever growing complecity of computer games so I guess a lot of talent thst would have gone to comics a decade before was now going into those media

[superduperman]

The contract thing was definitely an issue. It's not a coincidence that all the best creators started jumping ship the moment they changed them. Once nobody wants to join them, it doesn't have much a future left. I would argue the entire management at DC is a mess. If not WB as a whole. The firing of Berger also had to play a role. That was her baby and they killed it. If you look at the management decisions surrounding Vertigo, it's not that hard to see why it failed. Vertigo used to be the exclusive home for out of the box original content. Now it isn't. So competition combined with bad deals killed them.