About Vertigo
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2003 marked the 10th Anniversary of the Vertigo line of comics and graphic novels. Vertigo was launched in 1993 as a venue for titles that push the boundaries of traditional comics. Aimed at the mature, literate reader, titles from Vertigo are created for adults and are labeled appropriately. Vertigo's monthly publications and numerous graphic novels provide serious, innovative fiction told in compelling visuals by today's most provocative writers and artists, including Neil Gaiman, Warren Ellis, Gilbert Hernandez, Peter Milligan, Grant Morrison, Paul Pope and Brian Azzarello.
The SANDMAN comic book series served as the prototype for the Vertigo line, loosely inspired by the original 1939 SANDMAN comic. Forty-five years later, writer Neil Gaiman took just the title and created a being of mythic stature: Morpheus, the Master of Dreams. Rolling Stone described the series as "the most imaginative and transfixing book in mainstream comics today." Although the monthly SANDMAN series ended in 1996 after 75 issues, the entire epic is still available as the tremendously popular and best-selling ten-volume Sandman Library. A Japanese-inspired version of the Dream King returned in the graphic novel THE SANDMAN: THE DREAM HUNTERS, written by Gaiman and illustrated by world-renowned artist Yoshitaka Amano. The legacy of The Sandman lives on in various publications under the umbrella of THE SANDMAN PRESENTS as well as in the monthly series LUCIFER. Gaiman returns to the Sandman with the Fall 2003 publication THE SANDMAN: ENDLESS NIGHTS, featuring a dream team of international artists.
Vertigo titles explore a variety of different genres. Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso's 100 BULLETS tells the interrelated stories of people who are given the chance to take deadly revenge against those who have done them wrong, with no strings attached. And one of the most compelling characters ever, John Constantine, continues to explore the dark side of humanity through his own mystic machinations in the pages of HELLBLAZER. Writer Brian K. Vaughn explores the haunted reality of being the last man on earth in Y: THE LAST MAN. THE FILTH, written by INVISIBLES scribe Grant Morrison, is a twisted super-thriller in which Morrison takes the reader on a psychedelic roller coaster ride through a maelstrom of extra-dimensional espionage, disease pathology, co-opted reality and the notion of identity itself.
Like most of Vertigo's acclaimed monthly series, the collected editions of the monthly comic stories offers current and future readers access to some of the finest comics ever created. The 8-volume TRANSMETROPOLITAN is the near-future story of outlaw journalist Spider Jerusalem, the outrageously outspoken teller of truths. It is written by one of today's most popular authors, Warren Ellis. PREACHER, by writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon, ended a highly successful 66-issue run that chronicled the tales of chain-smoking, heavy-drinking Reverend Jesse Custer who, with his gun-toting girlfriend Tulip and best friend and vampire Cassidy are in search of god. These stories are featured in a complete 9 volume series kept constantly in print and available to retailers and readers.
These monthly series share a sensibility that gives Vertigo a distinct identity and all have strong sales among older, sophisticated readers. More intellectually stimulating and psychologically complex than many other comics, they utilize the art form to explore interpersonal relationships and society as a whole.
