Problem: How do you entice readers to start reading a monthly comic with issue #21?
Solution: Make it look like #1.

Brian gets a lot of well-deserved praise for being a great writer. From the damaged streets of the DMZ to the frigid wastelands of Northlanders, Brian brings heart, drama and truth to all of his stories.

But he doesn’t get enough praise for being a great designer and artist too. The first 34 issues of DMZ? Those covers were all Brian. That bold logo? Brian. And the new trade dress for Northlanders? That’s Brian too. He really wanted readers to know, “yes, it’s okay to start here!” We knocked around a few different ideas, but ultimately what did he do? He took the Northlanders logo, kicked it to the side, designed a new logo for “The Plague Widow” and put that front and center. Slipped a “1 of eight” in there and suddenly you’re thinking, “Hey, what’s this comic? I’ve never seen this before, maybe I’ll give it a shot…”

See Brian thinks about this stuff. He talks to retailers and readers, finds out what works, what doesn’t, and incorporates all of it into his work, sucking you in to a unique comic experience from the logo to the last line of dialogue. Start to finish, you know you’re in the hands of an artist. Enjoy it.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

HOW TO BREAK INTO COMICS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING

On the eve of SCALPED VOL 5 coming out next week and as the editor credited with “discovering” writer Jason Aaron, I thought it’d be cool to tell the tale of how it all began…cue wavy flashback camera shot…

Sometime in 2003, when Jason first approached me (literally out of the blue) with what would become THE OTHER SIDE, he was very polite, persistent without being annoying, professional in his correspondence (too much alliteration!) and all the other things you need to be to “break in”…but I still was putting him off since I had no idea if he could actually write.

And given the number of writers who pitch me stuff every week (right now I have a stack of about 10-15 pitches I still need to answer post SDCC), I have to make decisions based on what I know of their work. Easier said than done.

But here’s the difference with Jason…he actually WROTE it. His last ditch effort was, “I know it’s long shot but I wrote the first script cus I HAD to and I think it’s pretty good. If you read and like it, cool. If not, thanks for your time.” So I read it and I LOVED it and that was that. Now he’s a big star and I look like a genius…ok, not really. I mean I am a genius but he’s only a medium-size star. heh heh.

But that’s the EXCEPTION.

You might be shocked how often new writers tell me that they either haven’t written the script or haven’t planned on writing it yet or don’t want to write it on spec. When you’re at that “starting out” level, my advice is always, “Look, you’re gonna have to write this thing sooner or later so if it’s a question for me, write it and I’ll have more to go on. Worse case, you’re gonna have a legit editor give you unbiased feedback.” That falls on deaf ears (or worse people get combative) more often than it doesn’t.

Bottom line — you need to do the work. Then do it again. And again. And again. Sitting in a bar calling yourself a writer is not the same thing as BEING a writer. Writers write. End of story.

And yeah…it has to be effin GREAT…so, as Jason often says, stop worrying about playing the game/breaking in/getting ahead and just focus on the WORK. Make it kick ass. It WILL find a home somewhere.

Will Dennis

“The most important thing is WORK” – Lou Reed

Can you believe it’s October already? Where did the summer go? Well, now that there’s a chill in the New York air and Halloween is around the corner, only one word springs to mind. Most of you are thinking “miniskirts,” and with the amount of promiscuous costumes that get paraded around on October 31, I don’t blame you for that guess. But I was actually thinking about masks. In particular, one very special mask that’s the centerpiece of the very first Vertigo Halloween special, THE HOUSE OF MYSTERY HALLOWEEN ANNUAL.

First it becomes stuck on Fig’s pretty mug like an alien face hugger, but then you’ll learn the back story of this mysterious artifact as it weaves its way through time on a journey that encompasses other Vertigo characters - including the venerable John Constantine and the monsterific cast of the upcoming I, Zombie. Did I mention the motley assemblage of creators that put this Frankenstein of an issue together? If names like Bill Willingham, Matt Wagner, Mike Allred, Mark Buckingham, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Matt Sturges, Kevin Nowlan, and Peter Milligan don’t put your fingers on a mad dash to your wallet, then you’re a flatlining zombie.

And as a special treat, you’ll get to see what these comics perpetrators have looked like on past Halloweens, in a feature called “Wicked Games.” Even better, you’ll get to see the super-accurate Dutch girl get-up I was adorned in as an 8-year-old. It very nearly got me sold as child slave labor in downtown Philly. Thanks Mom!

FAME!

While it may seem daunting to anyone who has ever attended the San Diego Comicon, you can get discovered and procure actual work from a major publisher in the same century. Or in this case, the same summer.

I met the extremely talented painter Chrissie Zullo at the San Diego Comicon of 2008 through the DC Portfolio Review. I repeat: I met extremely talented painter Chrissie Zullo at the San Diego Comicon of 2008 through the DC Portfolio Review.

Upon following the rules that she observed at the Annual Portfolio Review Orientation, Chrissie submitted her portfolio. And then, along with a handful of my colleagues, I reviewed the hundreds/thousands of submissions and found somewhere between 8-12 people whom I wanted to meet over the course of the weekend. Chrissie was definitely at the top of my list and when we met face-to-face for a 15 minute chat, she revealed her passion for FABLES.

I remember commenting on how much I liked her painting style — specifically the balance of the pretty and the “don’t think you’re going to take me home just yet” power. Chrissie has a mercurial charm, evident not only in the alluring execution of her figure work but also in her choice of rich, traditional color palettes. She finds inspiration from classical painters such as Jean Honore Fragonard and Francois Boucher, and modernists alike, including comic book artists Winsor McCay, James Jean and Adam Hughes.

I challenged Chrissie to send me a few “mock” FABLES covers on spec in the months to come to see how her sense of composition could vary as well as to see what she could do when presented with the design challenges of working the necessary text elements into her cover art.

When her camera-ready samples came in a few weeks later, I couldn’t believe my eyes. And strangely enough, at that very millisecond, I was looking for a cover artist for the new CINDERELLA: FROM FABLETOWN WITH LOVE miniseries. One of Chrissie’s images in particular happened to look like Cinderella so it seemed like there was more than a good chance that she could handle this fantastic first assignment. Upon showing Chrissie’s samples to Bill Willingham, he replied “Hire that woman!” on the spot. And let me tell you: I can count the number of times Bill has uttered those three words on one pinky. When my boss Karen Berger concurred, the rest became, shall we say, art history. CINDERELLA: FROM FABLETOWN WITH LOVE with covers by Chrissie Zullo will be in stores beginning November 4th.

So, to those of you aspiring talents who think it’s impossible to win the lottery, reread the above. And if you still find it too hard to believe straight up, chew on this: Not only is Chrissie one of the most talented new cover painters of her generation, one of us is only 22.

Shelly

I continue to be amazed at the synchronicity of life’s moments, especially when it comes to being an editor in this wonderfully weird world of Vertigo, where strange connections just seem to happen.

One of the first biographies I remember reading that really made an impression on me was about Amelia Earhart. Going back to my ten-year old mind, it wasn’t her bravery, daringness, or pioneering aviation feats that left its mark on me, it was the mystery of her disappearance in the open sea of the South Pacific that resonated most. Was she eaten alive by cannibals, left to wander alone on a deserted island, did she have amnesia and was living as a tribal shaman in the jungles of Africa? I never thought she was dead. She had to still be alive. Whenever I thought of Amelia the same haunted feeling crept over me. How could someone just disappear, without a trace, with nothing left behind?

“We are running North and South.” —the last recorded words of Amelia Earhart. Decades later, sitting at my desk, reading the first line of the pitch for AIR from G. Willow Wilson, and I’m immediately enthralled. In this new series about an acrophobic, insecure stewardess with an incredible untapped and unique power to explore the magic and mystery of flight—who does her mentor turn out to be? None other than the great Earhart herself… Willow describes her Amelia as being in her early sixties, having aged slowly (she would really be over 100 years old today) while stuck between the real and unreal world she’s inhabited. Her first appearance from issues #6-7 is collected in FLYING MACHINE, on sale this coming month. And even more of Amelia’s life is revealed in issue #15 in November. “At once earthy and otherworldly” the Amelia who Willow has given life to, is at once everything and nothing like I could’ve imagined. And the fourth grader in me is obsessed again.

THE UNWRITTEN is about the stories behind stories, so how’s this for appropriate?

Issue 5 is a one-off focusing on Rudyard Kipling, and while most people think The Jungle Book when you mention him, Mike and Peter thought Just-So Stories.

In that anthology of children’s tales, there’s a story called “How the Alphabet was Made.” It’s a whimsical tale about how a girl and her father invented the alphabet to be used as a secret code between them. But check out the poem at the end of the story:

OF all the Tribe of Tegumai
Who cut that figure, none remain,–
On Merrow Down the cuckoos cry
The silence and the sun remain.

For far–oh, very far behind,
So far she cannot call to him,
Comes Tegumai alone to find
The daughter that was all to him.

The first time Mike Carey read it – I believe as a kid – he had no idea what it meant, but he knew it was about a helluva lot more than the alphabet.

It was. Kipling’s daughter died at some point before he wrote the book. Read it again with that in mind.

It’s amazing what you find in these little kid stories.

And that’s only the tip of how fascinating Kipling’s life is. THE UNWRITTEN 5 – “How the Whale Became” – gets into all of that and the mysterious unwritten conspiracy that’s got its eyes on Tom Taylor. It features cameos by Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde and might cause you to take rethink some of the things you saw in the first 4 issues – or things you’ll see in the next storyline – which maybe we should have titled “The Song of Roland.” Everyone on board took extra time on this one. Don’t believe me? You can check out Peter’s extra care on the black and white art in this issue.

When you’re a big-time comic book editor, such as myself, you get to know more about the writers and artists you work with than you ever thought you would. A lot more.

That’s because this job is kind of a cross between high school basketball coach and psychotherapist. The creative existence isn’t easy, especially when you’re relying on it to pay your rent. It attracts a lot of insecure, needy people. (Trust me — I am one.) The people who get into it without being insecure and needy, become so in short order.

That means, when you’re trying to get people to give you their best work (and give it to you on time) your job requires an endless quantity of listening, understanding, sympathizing and cajoling.

Funny thing was, I never had to do any of that with Jonathan Ames. Already a thrice-published novelist, widely-read essayist and all-around literary celebrity before ever entering our magical world of the graphic novel, I found Mr. Ames to behave as the consummate professional. Never missed a deadline, took every editorial suggestion in the most constructive possible spirit. Even his spelling and punctuation were impeccable.

Yet, I learned more intimate, embarrassing details about Jonathan Ames than I ever cared to know.

I learned about his insecurity and neediness. And more. I learned about his baldness-anxiety, his spastic colon, his bouts with premature ejaculation, and of course, since the book he was writing for me was called THE ALCOHOLIC, his struggles with booze and dope.

I never asked him any of this stuff, believe me. Look, I was raised an uptight New Englander. I’d rather lick the side of a steel dumpster in February than question a guy about his sexual dysfunctions. But I didn’t have to. It was all in his damn script!

Oh, but wait a minute. The “Jonathan A.” in THE ALCOHOLIC wasn’t the REAL Jonathan Ames. It was an incredible simulation. Or something. At least that’s what Jonathan told me after he turned the script in and I felt the need to inquire whether the other characters in the book would object to their depiction.

Anyway, the point is, Ames keeps his distance from the “Jonathan A” who appears in THE ALCOHOLIC. I assume the same is true for the character of “Jonathan Ames” in the spankin’ new HBO series “Bored to Death,” which Ames created and which premieres right around the time the ALCOHOLIC paperback hits stores this month.

For all of his serial confessing and the fame and riches that he’s earned by it, Jonathan Ames still wants to be sure that when you’re reading his books (or watching his TV shows - whatever), you’re learning more about yourself than you are about the semi-fictional “Jonathan” who exists in his self-created purgatory between life and literary invention. That’s Ames’ real secret. “Jonathan” is all of us.

Pick up THE ALCOHOLIC, now in softcover for these difficult economic times, and you’ll learn more than you thought you’d ever know — about yourself.

Now, here’s a peek behind the scenes, some never-before-seen sketches from artist Dean Haspiel, including Dean’s original cover sketch, actually drawn on a shred of paper towel.

SWEET TOOTH #1 is now here.

With smash reviews of Jeff Lemire’s OGN THE NOBODY now out there and everywhere, the anticipation has gotten intense. Creators who’ve sneaked a peek, fellow Vertigo editors, and other DC people from all kinds of departments can’t wait to see what’s going to happen. And I can’t blame them. I’ve been with SWEET TOOTH a long time, and it blew my mind that long ago. Seven issues are in the can of this very different ongoing. You clock the difference in style as soon as you see it—and there are plenty of pages and images around the web that I’m sure you’ve previewed. But it’s also a different kind of challenge to publish, month in, month out. Having a sole creator as both writer and artist is a difficult balancing act—harder than the team approach. You need to be lucky enough to be working with someone who’s mastered both and can produce 22 pages every month; moreover—and this isn’t so easy to clock, but it’s key—someone whose whole is even greater than the sum of his own parts.

With a writer/artist, you have a single vision driving the story. But you can also watch the creator reinvent himself over the long road. In the typical monthly the writer and his or her artist collaborators invariably challenge one another—it’s either supportive, or competitive, or contentious, but that creative friction leads to sparks or fires or disasters that change the book. Jeff would be the first to credit my input as well as original editor Bob Schreck’s, Jose Villarrubia’s on colors, Pat Brosseau’s on letters—but there’s a reason he gets the above-the-title cover credit. It takes a certain nerve flying solo: to believe in oneself or conversely doubt oneself enough to pull the trigger; to never rest on laurels (or antlers, as the case may be); to make what was once new, new again. And this doesn’t even consider the amazing daily page production—being both the sprint and the marathon as issues run on and on. Like I said, I’ve seen seven issues and pieces far beyond that number. Whereas THE NOBODY had a conscious unity, SWEET TOOTH is taken down and rebuilt every issue—sometimes every page. And as far down the road as I can see, who knows where Gus’ journey ends. Not even Jeff knows yet, although it’s in his head somewhere.

Now to reveal an inked spread from issue #5:

Now, once you’ve read Vertigo Crime’s FILTHY RICH and DARK ENTRIES be on the lookout for Jason Starr’s first graphic novel THE CHILL with art by Mick Bertilorenzi coming in January 2010.

THE CHILL is bound to heat up the winter.

Blame The Killer Inside Me.

It’s spring of 1991 — well, really winter since I was living in Ithaca, NY where it’s warm likes two weeks out of the year — there was a big recession on, a war in Iraq, I was only working part-time (some things never change, right? jk) and I’m standing in an independent bookstore and this scary-ass face is staring back at me. It’s the cover to The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson. Never heard of him. But loved the jacket design (Day-Glo orange stripes with black type and a creepy black lizard on it) and so I picked it up.

Now, I’d read my share of Chandler, Hammett, Conan Doyle and even James M. Cain, and considered myself a mystery fan…but this book was CRIME. This was a twisted book about a deputy sheriff who had some serious problems. I read half the book standing in the store and the rest that afternoon. I read it again the next day and knew I needed more…

And holy hell, there was more…Willeford, Goodis, Williams, MacDonald, Himes and on and on. It was grimy, sexy, visceral, mind-blowing work and I felt like a poseur cuz I’d never heard of any of them. But I trusted whoever these Vintage Black Lizard geniuses were and I was never the same. The one time in my life when you really could judge a book by its cover.

Which brings us to VERTIGO CRIME…where we’re trying to capture that same flavor. A line of books by some of today’s best crime writers – IAN RANKIN, BRIAN AZZARELLO, JASON STARR, PETER MILLIGAN, CHRISTOS GAGE, DENISE MINA, MAX ALLAN COLLINS and many more – that we believe can proudly sit alongside the best “regular” crime fiction out there.

The first two – DARK ENTRIES by Rankin & Dell’Edera and FILTHY RICH by Azzarello & Santos – drop today in comic shops and next Tuesday in bookstores. They’ve got eye-popping covers (from Lee Bermejo of JOKER fame) and I really hope you’ll take a taste.

Cuz who knows…maybe in twenty years, you’ll be blogging about how VERTIGO CRIME changed your life forever.

God help you.

will dennis