It’s been said before, but I’ll say it (at least) one more time: the publishing company that gave us John Constantine: Hellblazer, Sandman, Shade the Changing Man, Preacher, The Invisibles and many, many other titles that transcended the comic book genre and changed it for all time – has been at an all-time low for the better part of a decade.
Vertigo Comics, the mature, sophisticated imprint of DC Comics has floundered in the space it helped to create in the late nineteen eighties and the decade that followed.
With the increasing number of creator-friendly comic book publishers in the marketplace and with Hollywood developing (and paying for) more and more, once-obscure sequential, story ideas, into the film and television art forms, Vertigo became a shadow of its former self. No longer a leader in the industry, Vertigo Comics is indeed trying to find an identity for itself.
And maybe that search ends this month, an important month for the company. Today, it publishes the first issue of The Twilight Children, a four-issue mini series from two of the biggest creators that the comic book industry has ever produced.
Follow me after the jump where I’ll shed some light on the new series.
Twilight Children #1
Written by: Gilbert Hernandez
Illustrated by: Darwyn Cooke
Published by: Vertigo Comics
A few weeks ago, Vertigo Comics released a free sampler in comic book stores everywhere, revealing the creators and the titles of their latest re-launch, which will see twelve new publications over the next three months.
The Twilight Children has a lot going for it. Namely, “a lot” means its two creators, writer Gilbert Hernandez (Love and Rockets) and illustrator Darwyn Cooke (DC: The New Frontier, and the Parker series of graphic novels). They are as close as you get to contemporary comic book creator royalty. Here, their union tells the story of a white orb that mysteriously washes up on the shore of a remote Latin American village. It’s a surreal take on innocence, love, neighbourhood gossip, government conspiracy and alien invasion and it’s fascinatingly written and beautifully illustrated. It’s exactly what you’d expect – and much more – from two masters of the medium!
So. It’s a re-launch, then.
We’ve been here before with the vertigo Comics imprint, but The Twilight Children and the other books that will be coming out between now and the end of the year do look interesting. Expect to see more of those titles in this very column, very soon.
Until then, make the run to your local comic book shop and see the dawn of this new era with The Twilight Children #1.
