Feature

Flashback February: Karen Berger

Published

11 years ago

February 13, 2016

Admin

2016 is an anniversary for Tripwire. It marks the 24th anniversary of the magazine, which began back in February 1992. So for the rest of February, we shall be representing some of our classic moments over the past 23 years. Many people who have been visiting the site will probably be unaware of our print history so we thought this would be a good opportunity to get them acquainted with it. So here is our interview with Karen Berger, former executive editor of DC’s Vertigo imprint, which was intended to run in Tripwire Volume 5#4, our lost issue from 2003 as it was never published

10 Years of Vertigo

TW: How does it feel being in Vertigo’s tenth anniversary year?
KAREN BERGER: Pretty great, and a bit surreal. I know it sounds cliche, but it’s hard to believe that ten years have passed since we launched the line, and even harder to believe that I started working on the “pre-Vertigo” titles fifteen years ago. And it’s still harder for me to believe that I’ve actually made a career in comics, since I was clueless to this medium when I first started working here as an assistant editor. When I got into the field, comics were primarily one genre and one narrow audience – superhero books aimed at males in their teens. I feel proud to have accomplished what we have at Vertigo by publishing smart, edgy, diverse material for people who appreciate that comics are a vital and cool and unique literary art form.
TW: How did you end up at DC in the early eighties?
KB: I had just graduated from Brooklyn College in June 1979, and stretched my last summer of freedom as far as I could into the fall. I had a degree in English Lit (like countless others) and a strong course work in both Art History and Journalism. I was very much into modern and contemporary art, and thought that art publishing or a museum job would be interesting to pursue. I didn’t have much luck in either front – both fields were difficult to get into – and the couple of interviews I did have made me realise that the people were pretty stuck-up, and not where I wanted to be. My good friend, J.M. DeMatteis, had just started selling short horror stories to Paul Levitz, and mentioned that Paul was looking for a new assistant, and that he particularly wanted someone who didn’t have a comics background, since a lot of the job was assisting him in coordinating the editorial scheduling, freelancer deadlines and payments for almost all the books that DC published. It seemed like a cool place to work, and I was really impressed with everything that went into producing the work, and was immediately taken by the creative process.
TW: What advantages and conversely disadvantages do you think the idea of Vertigo as a separate imprint has given you?
KB: Vertigo wouldn’t have worked if it weren’t a separate imprint. The basis of the line started out of the anarchic late eighties comics scene and if we were going to continue to expand the medium into being a form of adult contemporary literature, we couldn’t have done it under the DC bullet. We were clearly starting to carve on our own path, and our self-imposed mission has always been to publish provocative, daring work. The only way to have done that was to go out as a separate imprint, not only to get noticed as the new cool thing, but to proclaim it loud and clear. So, I’d have to say that being separate has been totally advantageous, and I really can’t think of any disadvantages.
TW: How much leeway did you have in 1993 in terms of assembling the line and, in a related question, how much input did Paul Levitz and Jenette Kahn have into the structure and content of Vertigo?
KB: When I was at the end of my first maternity leave in late 1991, Jenette, Paul and Dick Giordano, who was in charge of editorial then, asked me to meet with them to discuss the direction for the mature readers books that I was editing and/or supervised. It had been clear that the many series that we’d published, and primarily the six titles that initially made up the monthly core of Vertigo had made a major impact in the industry. We all thought it was something to build on, and that a separate imprint was the way to go. I proceeded to write a publishing plan that established the framework (variety of formats, frequency and marketing) to encompass what I wanted to achieve creatively, as well as the creative direction and future of the line. I got some good advice from Paul, Jenette, and Dick, but ultimately, I was left to my own devices and I still am. The great thing about working at DC has always been the amount of creative freedom that I’ve been given. I’ve never been told what to publish, and in the ten years of Vertigo, there was only one creator-owned project that Paul felt we shouldn’t acquire because it was too far indie-minded and personal from what we publish, and he was right about it. That’s it. DC has always had the utmost respect for the writers and artists doing our work and has understood the creative risks entailed if you’re going to take comics into a new arena. They’ve given me the opportunity to explore and take chances. And while not every book succeeded in the way I’d hoped, more have, than haven’t, and we’ve had an incredible track record in the last decade.