Vertigo Loses Three Key Editors

I'm coming terribly late to all of this, about four geologic eras in Internet time, but apparently DC's meetings have concluded and there's been one firm set of announcements: that Vertigo editors Joan Hilty, Pornsak Pichetshote and Jonathan Vankin have all been laid off. On the one hand, the outside observer might be surprised that the line had that many editors to fire, and the imprint's success with stand-alone graphic novels has certainly been hit and miss, and some of the biggest misses seems to have had a more direct and controlling editorial hand. I couldn't tell you a single name of one of their crime books, and I cover comic books for a living.

On the other hand, is it my imagination, or hasn't Vertigo had a pretty good year since the naming of Geoff Johns, Dan DiDio and Jim Lee as the publishing house's executive-level Cerberus? A DC mainstream universe comic generating the good will of The Unwritten or the sales oomph of that Stephen King vampire thing fails to spring to mind. If the new publishing paradigm is about building relationships with IP-generators, I think a lot of them would want to do work for a vigorous Vertigo imprint. WildStorm's departure seems to open up more such opportunities for that imprint rather than less. And while you can't always trust those "rising star" rumors, Pichetsote was even to my tin ear regarded as someone with bright career prospects in general and DC in particular, a place that doesn't have a whole lot of star editors in key positions past the top tier right now. One might be forgiven hoping that Bob Harras' purported skills at working with younger talent and nailing down core concepts is something he can employ on the editorial side of things as well.

I also wonder if the line is still supported at DC. If the two panels I saw at WonderCon were any indication, those books were completely cut out of the DCU baseball cap backwards direct sales push made at public events, except for a cursory mention when someone from the audience brought something up. There are also the long-term implications involved in how a company like DC wants to shape the industry as opposed to just responding to it. If the publisher's goal is to have more stores like Brian Hibbs' fine San Francisco shop Comix Experience out there in the future, those stores are the ones that are going to do well with Vertigo books. So I'm confused. I know that there's certainly a negative picture that can be painted of Vertigo, and if you gave me five minutes, I could probably come up with a dire portrait of my own. But again, with the absence of a positive message about that imprint from here on out, these dismissals just sound like a big thumbs-down for that corner of DC's operations.
 
posted 8:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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