DC Comics Confirms They Are Bringing Back Their Vertigo Imprint, just announced at New York Comic Con... and by Bleeding Cool a year ago.

At last year's Thought Bubble Comic Con, Bleeding Cool got the scoop that "in 2024 (or at this stage, more likely 2025), DC Comics will be bringing back Vertigo." And at New York Comic Con, they just announced that a) this was indeed happening and that b) the creator-owned series Nice House By The Sea by James Tynion IV and Alvaro Martinez Bueno was pivoting from being a Black Label series to being a Vertigo book to launch the imprint.

Vertigo was a mature readers line that brought together darker takes on existing DC Universe characters such as Swamp Thing, John Constantine, Doom Patrol, Animal Man, Swamp Thing and Sandman, as well as semi-creator-owned series such as Preacher, Transmetropolitan, The Invisibles, Scalped, Testament, and so much more. In 2020, Bleeding Cool broke the news that DC Comics was to 'shutter' Vertigo. We stated that some books would move to Black Label, and some would no longer be published. We were told, repeatedly, that we were wrong, and we were talking nonsense. Well, American Vampire moved to Black Label, Image Comics announced they'd be publishing the comic SFSX (Safe Sex), previously announced as coming from Vertigo, and finally, DC made it official that they were going to shutter Vertigo - and more besides. The DC Ink and DC Zoom imprints, launched with such pomp and circumstance a few years ago, would also be done away with. The command came from the previous big boss Pamela Lifford, who had an aversion to imprints. Certain projects were folded into the DC Black Label line, intended only as a reading age signifier.

Well, Pamela Lifford is gone now and in her wake, we heard that DC Comics is looking to bring back the Vertigo line. The Black Label line is generally for short-run comics, but Vertigo - which will encompass the Sandman Presents line - will include ongoing series. A year ago, they were just talking about DC Comics characters and IP treatments, but there was talk about returning to the creator-owned sphere for long-running titles. Apparently, some of the impetus for this has come from DC and Warner Bros. executives nostalgic for what Vertigo used to bring to the company - and it can't have been hindered by Bodies, only made into a Netflix series when the rights had eventually been returned from DC Comics/Vertigo, and hindered before that. If, and when Vertigo returns, the lesson learned is that DC and Warners should be more open to such projects.