If you’re a fan of Vertigo comics, you should know this name: Karen Berger. She was the founder of the edgy adult imprint that has brought us some of the best comic books of the last 24 years. Vertigo was founded back in 1993 and Berger ran the line until 2013 with a difference of opinion that Vulture described as “in a relative blaze of glory.”
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From Vulture: Their difference of opinion was simple and particularly of-the-moment: Berger felt like DC was abandoning its focus on weird comics in order to put all its resources toward developing superhero stories for film and television. Leaving the publisher in a relative blaze of glory, she bade farewell to the industry and all but disappeared.
Thanks to her run at Vertigo we have such great books as Sandman, V for Vendetta, Preacher, iZombie, Y: The Last Man, Transmetropolitan, 100 Bullets, Hellblazer. After a somewhat quiet return to comics at Image, with a book called Surgeon X, that was written by Sara Kenney with art by John Watkiss.
Now she’s back in full force, this at Dark Horse Comics starting a new imprint called Berger Books which will launch in 2018 with 4 new series and the rerelease of a classic.
They include (from Vulture): Hungry Ghosts by Anthony Bourdain (yes, that Bourdain) and Joel Rose; Incognegro: Renaissance by Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece; Mata Hari by Emma Beeby and Ariela Kristantina; and The Seeds by Ann Nocenti and David Aja. On top of that, the imprint will rerelease Dave Gibbons‘s out-of-print Vertigo tale The Originals in an expanded edition.
But don’t worry – she has plans for a lot more, saying “I plan to have another wave of books later in the year as well, it’s not going to be a huge line, because it’s only me editing, which is another reason why I’m excited about doing this: It’s me back to my roots editing comics all the time, which I didn’t get a chance to do hands-on as much as Vertigo grew and grew.”
