The Official Vertigo Thread

Wow. Anthony Bourdain + comics = not a combination I would've ever thought of.
 
What, the chef thing? No idea, not really heard of anything like it before. I mean, the whole gang thing is pretty common, but gangs of chefs out to get one another is a new one for me
 
Not much details, but sounds very interesting none the less. Seems like it's been while since we've had a full-out science-fiction story from Vertigo.
 
Yeah, I'll be giving this a read. If worth it, will be adding it to my list of trades.
 
http://www.newsarama.com/comics/straub-easton-green-woman-101025.html

As part of a growing trend toward actors and authors writing comics, an unlikely pair of celebrities have teamed up on a new graphic novel.
Best-selling horror novelist Peter Straub and actor Michael Easton united to write The Green Woman, a new graphic novel just released by publisher Vertigo. Featuring art by painter John Bolton, the story follows both a homicide detective and the seemingly reformed serial killer he's hunting.
It's not the first time either Straub or Easton has worked within the world of graphic novels, and they're part of a growing trend. From Stephen King's just-finished comic work on American Vampire to Kevin Smith's recent Batman comic, actors and novelists dabbling in comics is becoming a familiar occurrence. Names like Nicolas Cage, Milo Ventimiglia, Jodi Picoult, Brad Meltzer and Ian Rankin have turned up on the front of graphic novels and comics.
"Michael and I are both very fond of graphic novels," Straub told Newsarama of their choice to write in the medium. "I read all the way through the Preacher and the John Constantine books because Michael raved about them to me — and he was right about them, of course, they're great works of complex storytelling."



The two met when Straub was given a tour of the One Life to Live set, where Easton plays the popular character John McBain. Straub was dropping off some signed books for his favorite actors. "Michael soon wrote to me, telling me that he had already known and enjoyed the book Koko, which he had in fact read aloud to his mother in her last year of life," Straub said.
As the two began talking, Easton asked Straub to take a look at the graphic novel he was writing. "I said yes, of course, and a few days later he turned up at my house with a big folio of pages from Soul Stealer," Straub said. "It was a natural evolution of all this that we one day began to talk about doing a graphic novel of our own."
Although Easton's best known for his acting on shows like Ally McBeal and Mutant X, he's written several screenplays and even published a book of poetry, as well as his Soul Stealer graphic novels. But he recognized the benefit of getting to work with a writer like Straub.
"When you get the opportunity to write a horror story with one of the true masters of horror you jump at it," Easton said. "I'm a guy who's been pretty damn fortunate. And working with Peter you get an understanding of what a true writer is. I have a ways to go, but maybe I'm getting there. For now, I'm just trying to get the right words in the right order."
This is Straub's first graphic novel as a writer, although he's been overseeing the comic adaptation of The Talisman, a novel he co-wrote with Stephen King.



With The Green Woman, the two writers expand the story of Fielding "Fee" Bandolier, the serial killer who previously appeared in Straub's Blue Rose Trilogy. But this part of Bandolier's story doesn't rely on the novel — instead being self-contained — so the two decided to tell Fielding's new chapter in a graphic novel.
"Some words like pictures," Easton said of the decision to turn away from prose. "In this case, I think it allows for a bit of magic on the page."
"We liked the darkness, the potential for violence, the odd brooding
'poetry' that seemed to move through the story," Straub said.
The title, "The Green Woman," refers to the old, abandoned bar on the banks of the Milwaukee river that is Fielding Bandolier's sanctuary. "He lives there, brooding about his terrible history and thinking about new outrages," Straub said of the serial killer. "He wishes to be released from the obligation to kill, and he senses that his release is immanent.
"In the other half of the story, a brilliant young New York homicide detective of excessive habits and deep self-loathing, Bob Steele, gradually pieces together the facts of Bandolier's existence and sets out to arrest or murder him," Straub said.

The bar, "The Green Woman," gets its name from the figurehead of an old, evil ship called the Black Galleon. The title echoes the story's theme and adds an eerie mystery of its own. "[The figurehead] is the source of the evil in the story," Straub explained. "In part, her evil comes from incompletion and the yearning for a restored wholeness: the figurehead wants to be reunited with the timbers of the old Black Galleon, now long rebuilt into a pub in Belfast."
When the writers were working with Vertigo to choose an artist, they were attracted to John Bolton's painted images. "We considered the work of a lot of artists, and it just seemed to us that John Bolton really had the tools to do a great job with our material," Straub said. "He could be naturalistic and he could be grotesque. His touch, his line and use of color, had a great deal of power -- what he wound up giving us knocked us out. Bolton did a brilliant job with our story."



"We wanted something twisted and epic and John got that from the first page," Easton added. "You never have to ask him to push the boundaries with his art because he's already doing it. We were very fortunate that John responded to our story. Sometimes you shoot for the moon and you get it."
Both authors admitted the story is very dark and disturbing, which Vertigo is marketing in light of this month's Halloween focus. "It is a story about a kind of imprisonment and the need to break out of that confinement," Straub said.
"I like to think of it as more haunting than dark," Easton said. "Hopefully it sticks with you like your shadow."
Click to expand...
Being seeing previews for this in several books. It looks fairly interesting, may give it a try later on.


Also, I did realize how much of Peter Milligan's Vertigo work is out of print (Well, just in general, a lot of his work is). I hope with this Vertigo Resurrected thing they keep reprinting some of his stuff. I know they're doing The Extremist next month. Hopefully, series like Girl and Enigma also get that treatment
 
Tron Bonne said:
http://www.newsarama.com/comics/straub-easton-green-woman-101025.html


Being seeing previews for this in several books. It looks fairly interesting, may give it a try later on.


Also, I did realize how much of Peter Milligan's Vertigo work is out of print (Well, just in general, a lot of his work is). I hope with this Vertigo Resurrected thing they keep reprinting some of his stuff. I know they're doing The Extremist next month. Hopefully, series like Girl and Engima also get that treatment
Click to expand...

Can't wait for The Extremist and I hope they speed up the Shade trades. Milligan has done an ungodly amount of great work for Vertigo. I'm holding my breath for reprints of The Minx.
 
Watchman said:
Can't wait for The Extremist and I hope they speed up the Shade trades. Milligan has done an ungodly amount of great work for Vertigo. I'm holding my breath for reprints of The Minx.
Click to expand...
I'm looking forward to more of his Human Target work to be re-released as trades.

Watchman said:
Your avatar is :awesome:
Click to expand...

And thanks.
 
http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2010/10/29/comic-book-legends-revealed-284/

Here's a piece from CBR's ongoing Comic Book Legends Revealed by Brian Cronin that talks about Flex Mentallo, it's copyright situation (from what is known to the public), and a possibility as to why it's not been reprinted. There's a lot of pictures at the link that'll be referenced, but I'm not going to put them up, just check it if you want them:

This has been discussed so many times over the years that I actually sort of presumed that I had dealt with it in the column, but I had not. I mentioned the story in my book, but I don’t know if I fully addressed one important aspect of this situation that I keep seeing brought up (seriously, do a search on “DC cannot reprint Flex Mentallo” and you’ll get tons of hits) and that is that DC Comics is prohibited from reprinting Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s Flex Mentallo.
Based on the facts that are available to us, I do not believe this to be the case. However, while not PROHIBITED, it does seem like there are reasons why they would not want to.
As you may or may not know, the problems began in 1998 when DC was sued by Charles Atlas,Ltd. over DC’s character of Flex Mentallo.
Here’s one version (perhaps the most famous version) of Charles Atlas’ ads that appeared in many comic books over the years…
In 1998, Atlas was notified of the existence of Flex Mentallo (a fan had written to the company to tell them how Flex Mentallo turned him on to the existence of Charles Atlas – that’s precisely the sort of thing that companies who want to sue for infringement want to hear) and sued DC Comics for trademark infringement (and various other related causes, including trademark dilution, etc.).
DC was planning on releasing a trade paperback collection of the Flex Mentallo series but scrapped their plans when Atlas sent their cease and desist letter.
Well, in 2000, after a number of affadavits were collected from both sides, United States District Court Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald granted DC’s motion for summary judgment.
Besides some procedural issues (the time between the alleged infringement and Atlas filing suit), Buchwald ruled that the chance of dilution were slim (as the typical comic book reader would not confuse Atlas with Mentallo) and that Mentallo would be covered as a parody anyways.
So DC “won.”
However, one aspect of the case involved DC asserting in an affadvit that they had not reprinted Flex Mentallo and had no plans TO reprint Flex Mentallo.
And in her ruling, Buchwald addressed that fact:
Plaintiff’s argument that DC’s bad faith is evinced by its decision to forgo publication of a planned Flex Mentallo paperback after receiving plaintiff’s cease and desist letter is unavailing. We refuse to infer bad intent from DC’s decision to accommodate Atlas’s request. To the contrary, since DC has represented that it has no intention to use the Flex Mentallo character again, the likelihood of confusion in the future is even further reduced.
​
So even though they “won,” a couple of things are worth noting…
1. The fact that they said that they did not intend on reprinting Flex Mentallo was specifically noted in the judge’s ruling as something that helped DC’s case.
and
2. This case only deals with DC’s alleged trademark infringement ALREADY. Therefore, if DC were to release Flex Mentallo AGAIN, it would be considered a NEW possible infringement, and Atlas could sue again (only now with DC’s past affidavit saying that they were not going to reprint it, which certainly could and would be held against DC).
Very quickly, too, let me note that by saying “the information available to us” I mean that we don’t know if DC secretly settled with Atlas after the case. Quite often parties will settle AFTER a case to avoid the case being appealed. Heck, the party who most recently “won” is usually in a very good position TO settle the case. So we don’t know for sure that DC did not have some secret settlement where they agreed never to reprint Flex Mentallo. Nothing that I’ve ever seen or heard over the years suggest that they DID make any sort of settlement like that, but it’s possible.
More likely (heck, a lot more likely) is what I mentioned before – reprinting Flex Mentallo would open DC up to being sued again, and a lot of corporations tend to be averse to being sued, and if they can avoid it by simply not reprinting a comic book, well, that is often exactly what they will do.
That said, stating that you do not intend to reprint a comic book back in 2000 is not a binding statement (particularly because it only speaks to INTENTIONS – and since DC has had many editorial changes since 2000, the statement could very well still be true and simply irrelevant because the people making the decisions are different now). It might help a “bad faith” claim, but it does not specifically prohibit DC from going back on what they said at the time.
In addition, in 2006, DC reprinted Doom Patrol #42 (among other issues) in a Doom Patrol trade paperback collection and even included Flex Mentallo on the cover!


While obviously a comic book STARRING Flex Mentallo would be a worse possible infringer than the Doom Patrol issues, it still remains true that Doom Patrol #42 is clearly the work that most closely resembles the Atlas ads (in the Flex Mentallo mini-series there are barely any references to associate Flex with Charles Atlas as opposed to any other “muscle man”). So DC reprinting #42 without any problem is certainly notable.
So while there certainly are legal obstacles to reprinting Flex Mentallo, I don’t believe that there is anything specifically prohibiting DC from doing so. So when Grant Morrison says that DC WILL reprint it, he is likely not blowing smoke (although it is almost certainly going to be a long process before we ever see it, so don’t hold your breath).
Click here if you would like to read the decision from 2000.
Click to expand...
 
Watchman said:
Can't wait for The Extremist and I hope they speed up the Shade trades. Milligan has done an ungodly amount of great work for Vertigo. I'm holding my breath for reprints of The Minx.
Click to expand...

:up:

His Vertigo work is really fab

Is Greek Street worth picking up

It looked neat
 
You'd probably dig it. I was a little turned off by the sexual gruesomeness in every issue. The art's gorgeous, though, and it seemed like an interesting enough spin on mythology.
 
Tron Bonne said:
http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2010/10/29/comic-book-legends-revealed-284/

Here's a piece from CBR's ongoing Comic Book Legends Revealed by Brian Cronin that talks about Flex Mentallo, it's copyright situation (from what is known to the public), and a possibility as to why it's not been reprinted. There's a lot of pictures at the link that'll be referenced, but I'm not going to put them up, just check it if you want them:
Click to expand...

:csad:

Personally my favorite work of Morrison and probably favorite comic of all time. I really hate reading it on my computer and hope they reprint this soon. All of Morrison's superhero ideas and philosophy wrapped up in one book.
 
I kind of gave up hope and acquired it through special ways recently, looking forward to finally reading it. Still hope for a reprint of some sort in the future, though.
 
I bought the back issues

It is a pretty neat story but not Morrisons best
 
That's probably good. It's really lost its focus. Even the Babe segments are pretty stale at this point.
 
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