Karen Berger, Jonathan Vankin and Joan Hilty on Vertigo's forthcoming Original Graphic Novel Production
By Martijn Form
Dear Vertigolovers,
Did you decipher last week’s cryptic tease? Well if you didn't, no problem, because I'll tell you now what it is. My dear CB colleague Keith Dallas interviewed DC Comics' Senior VP-Executive Editor, the Vertigo guru herself, Ms. Karen Berger as well as two of Vertigo's editors Jonathan Vankin and Joan Hilty.
As I leave the stage, let me hear a loud and warm round of applause for the people responsible for making Vertigo the most sophisticated and compelling line of books in the comic book industry!
This past April at a Vertigo panel during the New York Comic Con, Karen Berger revealed Vertigo's plans to significantly increase their production of original graphic novels. Ms. Berger also announced that Jonathan Vankin and Joan Hilty would be the principal editors overseeing Vertigo's graphic novel line. Recently, the three editors graciously took some time to discuss Vertigo's future direction in some more detail: the fate of their monthly serials, the kind of graphic novels they're hoping to publish, the kind of creators they're hoping will consider Vertigo as a home.
Karen Berger has been working for DC Comics since 1979. Due to the success of such books as Alan Moore's Swamp Thing and Neil Gaiman's Sandman, DC Comics created its Vertigo imprint in 1993 and put Berger in charge of it. It's a responsibility she's never relinquished, and in 2006 DC Comics promoted her to Senior Vice President – Executive Editor.
Keith Dallas: Back in April I attended the New York Comic Con panel that focused on Vertigo's graphic novel plans, and I just wanted to ask you about a few of the comments you made then.
Karen Berger: Sure!
Keith Dallas: During that panel you made clear that Vertigo has no intention of abandoning the monthly serial. I frequent a lot of comic book focused messageboards, and I'm constantly seeing readers say that Vertigo shouldn't even bother publishing monthlies and that the imprint should devote itself solely to the publishing of graphic novels, but during the panel you provided an in-depth explanation as to why Vertigo will continue to publish the monthly serial, and I'm hoping you can reiterate it for this interview.
Karen Berger: Vertigo is greatly committed to publishing comics in varied forms and in varied frequencies. We think a story can be told in different ways and in different styles. I like to use the television vs. feature film approach.
There are some ideas that really work better episodically, and those stories deserve the monthly comic approach. Sometimes the story itself just works better being told episodically. Perhaps it's a very long story that can go on for years and years, which would, again, work better as a monthly comic rather than, say, a 140 page graphic novel.
On the other hand, to use the feature film--or novel length--approach, there can be a long story that has a beginning, middle and end, and when the story is over, it's done with. There's no "next issue."
So it's not a matter of Vertigo being in favor of one approach over the other. It's just that because comic books historically have been released as monthly serials, the original graphic novel has been something that the industry has been slow to adapt to, either because of habit or cost or distribution or not being used to telling a story in that format. The fact though is that more and more people are reading comics who never used to read comics. And these people tend to gravitate first to the book form. So in many ways we're just amping up our graphic novel output to satisfy not only those who are already reading comics but to attract that "elusive" audience--
Keith Dallas: To target that segment of the audience who don't frequent comic book retailers but who make their purchases at book stores or Amazon.com.
Karen Berger: Exactly.
Keith Dallas: Is there a target number of graphic novels you're hoping to publish in a calendar year? I'm wondering if you have a set budget that allows you to publish a specific number of graphic novels or if you can publish as many as you want in a given year.
Karen Berger: I think we'll be at a point where we'll be publishing one original graphic novel a month. We're not at that stage yet. But if all things go well in terms of our acquisitions and getting the right properties and connecting with the right talent, we hope to be at the point where we can release a new original graphic novel every month.
Keith Dallas: Now as you have announced, Jonathan Vankin and Joan Hilty have been appointed Vertigo's graphic novels editors--
Karen Berger: Well, the other Vertigo editors can still acquire and edit graphic novels, but they'll be doing that in addition to handling the editing of their monthly titles and mini-series. Jonathan and Joan, on the other hand, will be 99.9% focused on graphic novels.
Keith Dallas: Was there a specific reason why you chose the two of them to spearhead the graphic novel line?
Karen Berger: Absolutely! Jonathan has edited a number of graphic novels for us: Incognegro, The Quitter, the upcoming Jonathan Ames book The Alcoholic. He's editing the Peter Straub/Michael Easton graphic novel that John Bolton is painting as well as a number of other things that are in the works that we haven't announced yet. In a short period of time Jonathan's made a great impression in terms of the type of projects he's acquired and the type of authors he's been able to attract and develop, particularly the original graphic novels. So I felt he was perfect to lead the charge in this area.And Joan Hilty edited Cairo, which came out last year, and it's one of my favorite books that we've published in the past few years. I've known Joan for years. She was my former assistant ten years ago before she moved on to editing in the DCU. She also has a great feel for sophisticated stories and for working with writers. Like Jonathan, she's great at working with people from different fields..
Both Joan and Jonathan are creative people outside of their day job, too. Joan is a cartoonist in her own right, and Jon is a writer himself of novels and some comics work for Vertigo and Paradox Press Big Books..
[Corrects herself] Not novels, but non-fiction.
Keith Dallas: Right. The conspiracy books.
Karen Berger: Yes, the conspiracy books. That's his thing.
And sports. Conspiracy and sports. The two seem to go together.
Keith Dallas: [laughs] Yes!
Okay, one last question. What I found particularly interesting during the New York Comic Con Vertigo panel is that you very specifically appealed to creators who would normally submit to--well, you specifically mentioned Oni Press and Top Shelf--and you asked them to first consider Vertigo as a home for their works. I was wondering what the impetus was for that kind of specific appeal. Is there a dearth of submissions? Or are there specific Oni Press or Top Shelf books that you read that you feel would have been great Vertigo publications if only you had reached out to those creators?
Karen Berger: Vertigo is known for publishing genre fiction, and I think many people assume that Vertigo acquires only certain types of books. Creators might not realize that Vertigo would be in the market for something that's maybe more of an intimate story or a memoir or even a story that has no genre aspect. I wasn't really thinking of any particular Oni or Top Shelf book, but in our amped-up efforts to acquire more graphic novels, we're casting a wide net, and want creators with independent sensibilities to know that we’re open to hearing from them.
I think a lot of new creators might not think that they can necessarily get a foot in the door at Vertigo. Maybe they think they have to be more seasoned in terms of how much they've published. But my feeling is if you have a great story to tell and you're great at story-telling, then I don't care if you have or haven't been published. Of course, it's always easiest to look at creators' prior work in terms of judging what they can do.
I'll put it this way: Vertigo is known for helping writers and artists with their books from the developmental stage, but what I want to stress here--that I should have stressed [at the New York Comic Con]--is that if you have a graphic novel that you have been working on that's half completed, send it to Vertigo and let us look at it. But don't send the whole thing in blindly. First contact Jonathan or Joan with a short pitch and the opening scene to see if they're interested. If they are, they'll certainly ask to see more.
Keith Dallas: I attend a lot of comic book conventions, and it never fails at a DC Comics panel for someone to ask Dan DiDio how he can submit his story idea to DC, and DiDio consistently tells the audience that a writer needs to be previously published in order to submit to DC. Maybe people assume Vertigo has the same kind of submission policy.
Karen Berger: Well, I would feel that way if I was working just solely with a writer. But what I'm describing applies to the writer/artist. The auteur who is writing and drawing an original graphic novel. In that case it's okay if you haven't had anything published because you can show us samples of your work in one fell swoop, and we can see right then and there if it blows us away.
But on the normal Vertigo publications, if you're just pitching as a writer--
Keith Dallas: Like if someone was pitching you a Hellblazer story arc.
Karen Berger: Exactly. In that case we would need to see your previous publications. So I do agree with Dan in that respect.
And that's the distinction I wanted to make about an original graphic novel project. If you are a writer/artist creating your own story, and you intend to show it to another publisher, show it to us as well--or show it to us first--because we will look at a project that's already in progress.
A prolific author and journalist, Jonathan Vankin became a Vertigo editor in 2004. Since then, he has edited such Vertigo titles as Hellblazer, Testament, The Exterminators, and The Un-Men, among others. He has also already edited several Vertigo original graphic novels, including Incognegro and The Quitter.
Keith Dallas: Karen Berger said that 99.9% of your workload will now be focused on editing original Vertigo graphic novels.
Jonathan Vankin: Right. Obviously, I love doing the monthlies, but at the same time, if you look at my output and the type of material that I've written and edited, I think it's kind of clear the "literary" graphic novel is closer to my heart than anything else.
It's really what I always wanted to do: to try to expand--in my own small way--what a comic book is and what the medium is and all the things that can be done with the medium. That's what makes Vertigo such a great place because that's what Vertigo is trying to do as an imprint.
Keith Dallas: How differently do you approach editing a graphic novel than editing a monthly serial?
Jonathan Vankin: Well, monthlies are serialized story-telling, so there's a certain restriction that's placed on how you can tell the story. Obviously, it has to be told in installments. I mean, it's fairly self-explanatory. You have to give the readers a reason to keep coming back every month.
Keith Dallas: So every issue needs "the hook" and the "cliffhanger"--
Jonathan Vankin: Yeah, exactly. Now I don't want to be construed as saying that one form of story-telling is better or worse than another. They're just different. But for me, I just love the idea of a story being condensed into a single statement. I mean, I can take Incognegro, put it on your desk and say "here's a statement about race relations." It's all right there. Keith Dallas: I think you make a great point that the on-going goal of the monthly serial is to retain readers.
Jonathan Vankin: Obviously that's the goal. If you don't retain your readers, your monthly book gets cancelled. In some ways though, the graphic novel inherits a greater risk because once the graphic novel gets published, it either succeeds or it doesn't. With the monthly, in theory, you can build an audience over time… or lose an audience over time. But the graphic novel is just there on the store shelf, and people are either going to buy it or they're not.
Plus, comic books have traditionally been published as monthlies. Right now there's really no place for people to buy the monthly comic other than the comic book store, which is a great place, but still when you go to Barnes and Noble, you don't see the Vertigo titles in the magazine rack. When you go to the bookstore, you will though find the graphic novels, so potentially graphic novels reach a wider audience.
And it's been proven. Look at books like [Mariane Satrapi's] Persepolis and [Alison Bechdel's] Fun Home and many others that have already reached audiences that wouldn't really consider themselves to be comic book reading audiences. And that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to reach the comic book reading audience and also reach beyond it. We actually have been trying to reach beyond it for a while, but now we're going to place a very strong emphasis on doing so with our increased graphic novel output.
Keith Dallas: I want to ask about managing the production of a graphic novel as opposed to a monthly serial with specific regards to deadlines. Obviously, when you're editing a monthly serial, you know that every 30 days you need to have produced a new issue or someone didn't do his job. For graphic novel production though, are the deadlines more relaxed or do you still set in place an inflexible timetable?
Jonathan Vankin: You definitely want deadlines, but obviously with a graphic novel you don't have to get something out and printed and published every 30 days. It is different in that respect. I wouldn't say it's necessarily more relaxed. It's just a longer term deadline. Of course, there's only one script, and the deadline for that will probably be a few months. And then the artist usually takes about a year on most graphic novels.
But certainly you want the work coming in regularly. You don't want to sit around and do nothing for a year and then suddenly 120 pages of art appear on your desk. You definitely want to keep the artist on a schedule… or try to. Again, the difference is if a creator blows his deadline one time right in the middle of production, it doesn't mean you have to ship the book late. There is some flexibility in letting a creator catch up. But other than that, it is fairly similar. A graphic novel is just as labor intensive as a monthly. It's just produced at a different pace.
Keith Dallas: I told Karen Berger that I was struck by her specific mention of Oni Press and Top Shelf at the New York Comic Con Vertigo panel, and she said she wanted to correct creators'--and readers'--perception of the kind of books Vertigo publishes.
Jonathan Vankin: Yes, at that panel Karen was saying that the identity of Top Shelf and Oni is something different than people's perceptions of Vertigo. And while we're not saying that we want to imitate another publisher's style, what we are saying is we are going to be publishing more books with the kind of material that you wouldn't have expected to see from Vertigo in the past. More writer/artist type books. More personal stuff. More non-fiction. More memoirs. Of course, we've published these kind of books before, but not as many as we will be. Something like a Fun Home you wouldn't necessarily have expected Vertigo to publish in the past. Our hope is that now you will.
Take, for instance, The Alcoholic, the Jonathan Ames/Dean Haspiel book that's coming out in September. That's a book that just a couple of years ago most people wouldn't have expected from Vertigo. I don't think people would ever have expected Harvey Pekar to be landing at Vertigo. So things have changed.Now obviously, Pekar is an established name, and Ames is an established name. But we're trying to expand further by not only looking for creators who have proven themselves, but also those who just have a great story to tell and have talent.
That's not to say that we're going to accept every project. We're still going to be highly, highly selective.
Keith Dallas: Right. That was going to be my next question: are you ready to be bombarded with submissions? Because you are going to be bombarded.
Jonathan Vankin: Well, yeah, but at the same time, remember: Vertigo still doesn't take unsolicited submissions. I guess what I would say to someone who has a graphic novel that they've written and/or drawn that hasn't been published already is to try going to a literary agent and then they'll get it to us. Or send an email--or query letter--with a really good pitch. Explain your idea as best as you can.
In a way, it's kind of a self-filtering system. If you're driven enough to get your work out to the public, you'll be driven enough to get it to us.
Keith Dallas: My last question is a bit of a change of pace. Near the end of the New York Comic Con Vertigo panel you stood up and asked the audience for suggestions on how Vertigo can promote itself better. I've never seen you do that at a Vertigo panel. What was your impetus for that appeal?
Jonathan Vankin: Well, the impetus was just that I want more people to read our books. DC has a great marketing department, but they have a lot of product to market. Despite being overwhelmed, they do a tremendous job.
There's always a value in asking your audience, asking your customers, what they want to see from you, what they think you should be doing. So that's really where it came from. I just want our books to be selling more.
You know, more people should be reading Incognegro, and more people should have read The Quitter, and more people should have read Cairo.
It was just an honest question that came from my heart.
Obviously though, there's no one thing that can be done to make a book sell 100,000 copies, but that's why we're doing this increased emphasis on graphic novels. We're doing it to build the awareness. If it has to be done by critical mass, by putting more graphic novels out there, then I think that in and of itself will create much more awareness.
An accomplished cartoonist whose work has appeared in Village Voice and Ms. magazine, Joan Hilty assisted Karen Berger as a Vertigo editor starting in the late 1990s. By 2000, she was editing DC Comics' kids line of titles (Looney Tunes, Batman: Gotham Adventures, The Powerpuff Girls) and then in 2004 she was editing DCU titles like Birds of Prey, Manhunter and Outsiders.
Keith Dallas: Since Karen Berger declared that 99.9% of your editorial workload will be devoted to Vertigo original graphic novels, I'm assuming your editorship of DC Universe titles has come to an end (or is about to come to an end). Is that correct?
Joan Hilty: More or less. I've stepped down from most of them, and I won't take on any new ones, but I get to take a couple of my favorites with me -- Manhunter and a miniseries about which I can't say anything yet, except that it's going to be cool.
Keith Dallas: Can I have your thoughts and feelings then on your editorial tenure on the DCU books? Can you pick a favorite?
Joan Hilty: That's tough. They were a lot of 'em, first of all, and secondly, while Manhunter's probably at the top, it's easier to pick a favorite thing about each one. OMAC Project is where Greg Rucka and I developed the great working relationship that led to Checkmate, and it was just sort of a fairytale book. It started out as this thing we thought would never work and it turned out fantastic. I got that same sort of rush from Marc Guggenheim and Tony Daniel's brief run on Flash. Birds of Prey was a terrific run with Gail Simone. I loved seeing how she inspired artists. But Blue Beetle was total creative mind-meld of the best kind; Keith Giffen, John Rogers and Cully Hamner did all this remarkable world-building and then the book didn't miss a beat when first Cully and then Keith left. In some ways, it got even better. Hard Time was a great experience, one I obviously treasure even more now that Steve Gerber's gone. And so on.
Keith Dallas: Since you've known Karen Berger for a while (and worked with her previously), have you been hoping for the opportunity to edit Vertigo again? I guess what I mean to ask is, when you learned about Vertigo's plans, how eagerly did you accept the role of graphic novel editor?
Joan Hilty: This all came about in large part because I wound up acquiring and editing Willow Wilson and M.K. Perker's Cairo for Vertigo while I was still in the DCU. I enjoyed that so much that I'd been jonesing to do it again, and thinking a lot about OGNs in general. So it was really almost like Karen was reading my mind when she approached me about the job.Keith Dallas: Obviously, when you're editing DCU titles, you're handling a corporation's trademarked properties. But when you're editing a Vertigo book, you're mostly handling someone else's personal creation. Do you perceive that as a signficiant distinction? Or does it still really come down to editing "Other People's Property"?
Joan Hilty: That's a pretty reductive way to think of editing, isn't it? I mean, if I've done my job right, it's a collaboration between me and a creative team around an existing concept, regardless of where the concept came from. But yes, there are distinctions. I used to say that a DCU property's biggest pro & con are mirror images of a creator-owned property's biggest pro & con; with the former you've got built-in popularity with creative limits, with the latter you've got creative freedom but you struggle to build popularity.
I think, though, that's become less true given the success of creator-owned properties like Ex Machina and Y: The Last Man. Original graphic fiction is finally getting the kind of exposure from retailers and media-- and traction among readers-- that it deserves.
Keith Dallas: How much of an editorial adjustment do you feel you need to make as you transition from the DCU to Vertigo?
Joan Hilty: The main difference for me is the pace. With monthlies and miniseries, it's obviously a much more compressed process in terms of story development and production. With graphic novels, story development takes longer and deals with a more sprawling structure, and the production process is more spread-out but has its own kind of intense pressure, mainly in the form of having full galleys ready up to 6 months in advance for reviewers and book buyers. It's a whole different kind of crazy, but I'm very up for that.
Keith Dallas: Final question: how far along are you editing new Vertigo graphic novels?
Joan Hilty: I've got two new OGN projects greenlit and 3-4 more in development. And, since a big part of this initiative involves reaching out to the wider book biz, I'm in talks with a few different literary agents about specific projects. So much of this is about getting book agents and creators to think of DC first when they're approaching publishers.
Thanks to Keith for conducting those interviews!
Before I leave you, I wanted to show you some excellent preview art from the upcoming new Vertigo series AIR.
I have said it before, and I can't really explain it yet, but looking at the art from AIR #1, I get the same great tingling feeling that I got when I read the first issue of Y: The Last Man.
AIR #1's tagline is so promising, that the only downside to this new series is the fact that I have to wait until August 20th to get my own copy. Patience is a virtue, right?
AIR #1For more AIR preview, check out Vertigo's official website and MySpace.
Written by G. Willow Wilson ; Art and Cover by M.K. Perker
Ladies and gentlemen, there's been a change in our flight plan. You may have heard of a group called the Etesian Front--vigilantes dedicated to taking the skies back from terrorism. Sounds like a noble cause, right? But there's more to them than meets the eye. They're after someone I know. Someone who is either an average frequent flier--or a terrorist. And he's got a secret. Something that will change the way we fly--and the way we see technology--forever.
To find him, we've altered course. We're en route to a country that doesn't exist on any maps. Only one person knows how to get us there: me. My name is Blythe, and I'll be your stewardess today. So buckle your seatbelts--this will be the flight of your life.
40pg., Color, $2.99 US, Mature Readers
ON SALE AUGUST 20!
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