DC Entertainment has promoted longtime Vertigo editor Shelly Bond to executive editor of its Vertigo imprint, succeeding former senior v-p and executive editor Karen Berger, who is stepping down after directing Vertigo for nearly 20 years. DC has also promoted Will Dennis to group editor at Vertigo and Mark Doyle, who has been promoted to editor, Vertigo. All three have worked for years at Vertigo under the leadership of Berger and their appointments seem geared to reassure fans and artists that Vertigo will have some level of editorial continuity.
Bond has worked at Vertigo since the imprint launched in 1993. She began her career as an assistant editor at Vertigo and over the years has worked on some of the imprint’s biggest series and original graphic novels, including Bill Willingham’s Fables, Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles, Paul Pope’s Heavy Liquid and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman: Endless Nights.
Bond described working with Berger since the launch of Vertigo as, “a great privilege, both personally and professionally,” and said, “I look forward to honoring her legacy by continuing to push the imprint to arresting new heights ably abetted by a fiercely talented editorial team.”
Berger announced that she was leaving DC Comics after 33 years and after running Vertigo since the imprint was launched in 1993. During Berger’s tenure at DC and at Vertigo in particular, she published a succession of acclaimed writers and artists, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, Brian K. Vaughan, Bill Willingham, Brain Azzarello, Scott Snyder and many more. During her time running Vertigo, the imprint was noted for publishing award-winning non-superhero genre comics and its pioneering line of comics can be credited with help ushering in the current period of original graphic novel publishing across a wide variety of genres.
In a prepared statement, Berger praised the promotions of all three editors, emphasizing that “Shelly has been by my side since the beginning of Vertigo, so I couldn’t be happier about passing the baton to her.” Berger also noted that Dennis is a “a highly regarded story editor of many critically acclaimed series including 100 Bullets, DMZ and Scalped, and has procured many European and South American artists for our titles.” She also credited Doyle with a “great eye for new writing talent” and an “avid interest in up-to-the-minute fiction that has been a real asset to line.”
“I look forward to reading many great comics and graphic novels from these three for many years to come,” Berger said, “Vertigo is in the best of hands.”
