Vertigo

Brian Azzarello's "Filthy Rich" (DC Comics, $19.99), the first release for Vertigo Crime, a new graphic crime novel imprint of DC, goes a long way toward suggesting that the Andersonville-based comic book writer is, indeed, the most jaundiced writer in the industry. The kind of guy they had in mind when they invented Venetian blinds and February afternoons. One would think, in the many years he's lived on the North Side, all those strollers and cupcake shops would have softened an outlook so knotty and hard. But "100 Bullets," his masterful 10-year, 100-issue crime saga, started as a morality tale about revenge (served cold, hot, etc.) and, by the time it ended last spring, rarely swerved. Here's a guy who once wrote a five-issue Superman comic that sympathized with Lex Luthor; and, last year, had a hit with "Joker," an acclaimed graphic novel about Batman's archenemy squalid enough to burn off whatever stray campiness Heath Ledger hadn't already eviscerated.

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