Welcome to CBR’s live coverage of San Diego’s Comic-Con International where the Vertigo Editorial Panel is now underway. With Vertigo Executive Editor Karen Berger hosting, joinging the longtime editor are the creative minds behind many of Vertigo Comic’s big titles: writer Scott Snyder (“American Vampire”
, writer Jeff Lemire (“Sweet Tooth”
artist Mike Allred (“iZombie”
, artist Mark Buckingham (“Fables”
, Les Klinger (“Annotated Sandman”
artist Rebecca Guay (“A Flight of Angels”
, and writer/artists Colleen Doran (“Gone To Amerika”
and Bill Willingham (“Fables”
.
Starting of the panel, Berger showed slides of upcoming comics and teased the ending of “Scalped” and Allred told audiences that he got inspiration for the next “iZombie” cover from a men’s room wallpaper at a music club. Revealing the full range of Scott Snyder’s “American Vampire” covers, Snyder told the audience that the covers, when put together, show the full cast of the comic.
Artist Rafael Albequrque from “American Vampire” joined the group onstage and told listeners that the five covers also all interlocked, and showed an image of all five “American Vampire” covers side by side. Snyder then touched on the miniseries “American Vampire: Survival of the Fittest” saying he wanted to use the series to expand the vampire world.
“It’s also the completion of the story of Cash and Felicia and Cahs’s son Gus, who is actually named after Gus from ‘Sweet Tooth,’” said Snyder.
“It’s Scott and my anniversary,” joked Lemire.
Assistants then handed out a poster for one of Vertigo’s newest original graphic novels: “Marzi” as story about a girl growing up behind the iron curtain. Showing pages on the big screen, Berger said the series showed, “What’s it is actually like growing up in a repressed society,” said Berger. Despite the darker tone, Berger said it was not an adult book and would be marketed for younger readers as well as older.
Writer Derek McCulloch came in and apologized for artist Colleen Doran being unable to attend the panel before introducing their new joint comic, “Coming to Amerikay.” Berger then showed an image for the first issue of “DMZ: The Five Nations Of New York.” Set to end this December, the audience broke into applause when Berger asked if anyone had read the series or “Northlanders,” Wood’s other Vertigo series.
The audience cheered louder, however, when Berger introduced the cover for “Fables” issue #107. According to Willingham, “We left Sleeping Beauty years ago in the Imperial homeworld where she put the whole…Empire to sleep all at once.” Saying that in #issue 107 Willingham will catch up with Sleeping Beauty once again. However, Willingham said the issue ends on a cliffhanger which will not be continued in “Fables,” hinting that in order to find out where the story ends fans will need to attend tomorrow’s “Fables” panel.
Buckingham then showed the cover image of “Fables” #108. ”This is a return to watercolor washes in the comic which we did in issue #100,” Buckingham told the clapping audience before saying that he modeled Rose Red after his wife.
Showcasing Guay’s new series “A Flight of Angels, Guay expanded on what the series is about. “It came out of wanting to explore the theme of fallen angels in a dark, edgy way I hadn’t seen before,” said Guay. The cover showcasing two angels, Guay said the series begins with a group of fairies who find a fallen angel. Holding a tribunal over what to do with it, Guay said what follows is a series of vignettes on love, loss, and Biblical stories.
Berger then flipped though the art for the various stories, written by multiple different writers but all illustrated in incredibly different styles by Guay.
“It’s just lovely, lovely work,” Willingham praised Guay’s work before saying he is one of the writers in “Angels.”
“It’s the original art, actually the pages are going to be larger than the absolute version and in grayscale…so we didn’t reduce the art too much,” said Klinger.
Another newcomer, Max Collins, spoke about his graphic novel “The Road To Perdition.” Saying he did the second “Road To Perdition” with a different artist, Collins said he decided to come “full circle” to do a third and last “Perdition.
“All we wanted to do is not superheroes and be able to understand and comprehend what was going on!” said Collins, touching on the troubles he faced when first publishing the story back in the ‘80s. He added, “It’s a solid end to this story…we finally get to the end of this revenge trail.”
The audience applauded once more when Berger brought up images from Grant Morrison’s new collections of “We3” and “Joe The Barbarian,” the latter of which will be out in October. Berger then brought up the cover for an upcoming issue of “The Unwritten” which will actually be about a female writer who has to hide her gender in order to write. In November, Berger revealed they will ship “Unwritten” twice a month: the whole number issues (issue #10, issue #11) follow Tommy as he takes the Cabal down while the .5 issues (#10.5, #11.5) will show the history of the Cabal and other supporting characters.
Berger then said that also in October they will be debuting a new Halloween anthology and in a few months Vertigo will be announcing a brand new series. The editor then said writer Brian Azzerello will return to Vertigo with “Spaceman,” a story set in a post-apocalyptic world.
Vertigo editor Shelly Bond then took the microphone to answer the “age old question: does John wear boxers or briefs?” joked Bond. Showing the cover for the next “Hellblazer” cover for issue #283 which shows Constantine in nothing other than flame boxers. The next arc follows the “heinous things to all of the people who come in contact with the people who come into contact with John’s trench coat,” after Johns’ niece puts it on eBay, told Bond.
Then Bond gave away a real trench coat signed by Vertigo artist and writers to a fan who was able to identify how many times John Constantine has been married. The answer? One.
“Put it on!” Bond demanded, leading the applause as the fan modeled the coat, which also features a drawing of Constantine on the back. Berger then opened the floor to questions. Of course, the first question was whether Vertigo was planning on ending “Hellblazer,” Vertigo’s oldest series. The answer was a resounding no.
“As long as they want to keep doing it, as long as people keep reading the books…we’ll do it,” said Berger.
An audience member then asked about whether there is truth to the rumors on a “Fables” TV show or video games.
“Yes to there is some truth to the rumors,” said Berger, then said nothing was finalized at that moment. Another fan wanted to know what Willingham thought about the resurgence of fairy tales in TV.
“I trademarked all fairy tales!” joked Willingham, then seriously answered that it would be “hypocritical” of him to be upset about others adapting different fairy tales.
“The success and popularity of ‘Fables’ I think has helped,” added Buckingham.
A female fan asked Lemire about themes in “Sweet Tooth,” specifically about both animal and human rights. “That is in there, but…it’s not going to be preachy,” said Lemire, hinting that the Project Evergreen story will have a twist coming up.
Berger then ended the panel with a big thanks to “Everyone who read our work” as the panelists onstage stood and clapped.
