Wanted: Vertigo Reprints

I've loved Vertigo since it began, way way back in the day. DC has no problem reprinting most of the current Vertigo titles into trade form in a relatively timely fashion, but what about some of the old books? A new audience could be found for all of these, along with many more that I don't have time to discuss. This is my short list of Vertigo back issues that need/should be collected.

Children's Crusade 1999
Back in the day, DC and Marvel both, used to have "themes" for the annuals they published. Usually, it was some kind of crazy cross-over story, and most of the time they were just throw-aways, but this was an exception. The two book-end issues were written by Neil Gaiman, so really what is the hold up? In between these two issues, were the annuals from the various ongoing Vertigo books that crossed-over into the story: Black Orchid, Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Doom Patrol and the Arcana Annual (essentially Timothy Hunter, Books of Magic). It was a great idea, and worked pretty well over all. I think this could sell rather well as a graphic novel. In fact the one time I was able to make a story pack for it, it sold very quickly. It's easy to find the two book-end books by Gaiman, it's the rest of the annuals that are hard to find. So collect this already damn it!

House of Secrets 1996-98
25 issues total, plus a 48 page epilogue
I LOVED this series. Written by Steve Seagle, of Sandman Mystery Theatre fame, with moody,pitch-perfect art by regular series artist Teddy Kristiansen. Many years ago, DC collected I believe the first story arc and that was it. They could reprint them all into 3 or 4 graphic novels. This would make me immensely happy and I'm betting our chain alone could sell quite a few. I think I've managed to make 2 story packs of the whole run and again, they sold right away, illustrating how highly-sought after this series is.

Mnemovore 2005
6 issue mini-series written by Hans Rodionoff with art by Ray Fawkes.
This was a FUN little series. Essentially this is Vertigo's take on a cthulhu type of story. In a typical Lovecraftian style, the main character slowly loses her sanity. Dig for this series in the quarter books at shops or cons, it's worth checking out.

Beware the Creeper 2003
5 issue mini-series by Jason Hall and Cliff Chiang
It's funny, it's not like this series sold SUPER well when it came out, but it comes through fairly often as back issues, and therefore the whole darn things ends up on the sale table as a story-pack pretty darn often. I recommend it all the time, so it sells pretty well. They never collected this, which makes me sad. This is another classic Vertigo re-imagining of a old DC character. This time around, the Creeper is female and resides in Paris in 1925. Cameos by some great historical figures like Hemingway, Man Ray, and of course Josephine Baker, because this story couldn't take place in Paris in 1925 without her, let's be honest here.

Blood and Water 2003
5 issue mini-series by Judd Winick and Tomm Coker, covers by the unsurpassed Brian Bolland. 
As I've mentioned before, I'm not a huge Judd Winick fan, but this I liked. It's yet another vampire story, dear god everyone has written a vampire story at this point. Why has DC not collected this, what with all the vampire-crazy folks out there, thanks to Twilight, I can't really say.

Jonah Hex 1993, 1999
You know, since the movie is being filmed right now, you would think that DC would reprint the Vertigo version of this western character. I love the current DCU Jonah Hex, great work Justin and Jimmy, but I got a kick out of this supernatural version. 2 mini-series, both written by western-horror master Joe R. Lansdale, art by the Tim Truman. Good stuff.

Midnight Mass. 2002, 2004
Two great mini-series that I can't imagine why they haven't collected. Apparently it did well enough for a sequel, but somehow did not warrant a graphic novel tpb? I give up, sometimes the powers that be make no sense to me. Written by John Rozum, art by Jesus Saiz, and Paul Lee. Both series are about a paranormal married couple investigative team. This could have been an ongoing series, it had so much potential. I guess I have to be happy with the two series they did publish.

Mythos 1996
3 issue mini-series by John Ney Rieber, art by various
The main reason I mention this is because this is the only comic I make an appearance in, lol. In issue #1, the artist Gary Amaro was kind enough to take some pictures of me when he was out here for a signing and then drew me into the comic. So this series will always hold a special place in my heart. So collect it damn it, give me my moment of comic-book fame!

The Trenchcoat Brigade 1999
4 issue mini-series, written by John Ney Rieber with art by John Ridgeway, covers by Glen Fabry.
If you read the original Books of Magic mini-series by Neil Gaiman, I would recommend this series highly. Starring the same characters: John Constantine, Dr. Occult, Phantom Stranger, and Mister E. Love these four characters, I think I just have a thing for trenchcoats.

Vertigo Pop: London 2003
4 issues mini-series by Peter Milligan (one of my favs) and Philip Bond (another fav of mine)
This was imo the best of the Vertigo Pop series. They've collected the other two Vertigo Pop series into one volume, so why did this they leave this gem out? Please DC reprint this!


So all of the above mentioned should be collected. There are more titles I could mention, but this is a good first batch. Go search these out in quarter bins or better yet send DC an email that they need to go back into the archives more often.