“Is this a book?” DC Vertigo and the Redefini-tion of Comics in the 1990s

Abstract

In 1993, DC Comics launched its Vertigo imprint using six popular series from the 1980s as a conscious move away from superheroics. All six series were reworkings of older DC supernatural or horror characters: The Sandman, The Saga of the Swamp Thing, Hellblazer, Animal Man, Shade: The Changing Man, and Doom Patrol. This chapter examines the technological changes and marketing innovations that helped redefine comics at the end of the twentieth century, focusing on the role of DC Vertigo and the emergence of graphic novels and trade paperbacks in the 1990s. It looks at how factors such as digital production and computerized printing, distribution via bookshops, expensive and permanent binding, pricing, and franchising have shaped the medium by bringing the graphic novel closer to the aesthetic of the literary text, while maintaining the status quo of the comics market in some respects. Finally, the chapter discusses other aspects that have affected the ways in which comics are created, produced, and received, including the redefinition of the audience and emergent intellectual property and copyright laws.

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