Vertigo Launches 6 New Titles, Confirms New Sandman Release Date

DC's mature-readers imprint, Vertigo, has been going through some big changes in the last year or so. With the reorganization of DC Entertainment, Vertigo had noticeably cut back on launching new ongoing titles and even ended its longest-running title, Hellblazer, earlier this year. Additionally, Vertigo's longtime Exectutive Editor Karen Berger left her post and was replaced by Shelly Bond.

However, all of that news came after last year's San Diego Comic-Con, where the imprint revealed that Neil Gaiman would be making his return to his signature series Sandman with a brand-new prequel mini-series alongside artist J.H. Williams. Today, the New York Times confirmed that this new Sandman series is officially titled The Sandman: Overture and will launch, fittingly, on October 30.

"This is the one story that we never got to tell. In Sandman #1 Morpheus is captured somehow. Later on in the series, you learn he was returning from somewhere far, far away - but we never got to the story of what he was doing and what had happened. This is our chance to tell that story, and J.H. Williams III is drawing it. It’s the most beautiful thing in the world," Gaiman told the Times.

Despite the shifting climate of Vertigo, it seems the return of Sandman -- along with Vertigo's best-selling issue in over a decade, The Wake #1 -- bodes well for the future of the imprint. Alongside the Overture reveal, the Vertigo blog unveiled six new books slated for later this year.

Here are the new titles, which will start launching in October, as described by the Vertigo blog:

• Hinterkind – Decades after “The Blight” all but wiped out the human race, Mother Nature is taking back what’s hers and she’s not alone … all the creatures of myth and legend have returned and they're not happy. After her grandfather disappears, Prosper Monday must leave the security and seclusion of her Central Park village to venture into the wilds to find him, unaware of how much the world has changed. An epic fantasy adventure set in a post-apocalyptic world, Hinterkind is written by Ian Edginton and illustrated by Francesco Trifogli, and debuts this October.

• The Discipline – Launching this December, The Discipline is a dark, erotic thriller about a privileged young woman named Melissa who is thrust into a centuries old battle between good and evil. She begins an affair with a mysterious man named Orlando who opens her eyes to a sexually sinister world she never knew existed. Through this ritualistic seduction (“The Discipline”), Orlando unlocks Melissa’s inner power and then enlists her into a shadowy war that has been fought for centuries. The Discipline comes to you from writer Peter Milligan and artist Leo Fernandez.

• Dead Boy Detectives - Spinning out of the pages of Neil Gaiman's Sandman, two dead British school boys star in their own monthly series and solve crimes in the 21st century with the help of a new female accomplice. Premiering in November, Dead Boy Detectives is written by noted British novelist Toby Litt with layouts and painted covers by Mark Buckingham (Fables).

• Suiciders – Hitting the spinner rack this December, this new series marks the incomparable Lee Bermejo’s (Joker; Batman: Noel; Before Watchmen: Rorschach) debut as an ongoing series comic book writer and artist. Suiciders follows the lives of two futuristic boxers – one on top of the world, the other trying to fight (and kill) his way there. Set in Los Angeles after “The Big One,” “Suiciders” is the wildly popular reality sport that contestants are literally dying to be a part of … and to be the best, you have to murder the best.

• Coffin Hill – When she was 15, Eve Coffin summoned a darkness that had been buried since the Salem Witch Trials. Now Eve’s back to harness the evil that destroyed her friends and is slowly taking over the sleepy town of Coffin Hill. This is a series full of magic, madness and murder via a twisted family of New Englanders. Arriving in stores this October, Coffin Hill combines the talents of artist Inaki Miranda (Fairest: The Hidden Kingdom) with writer Caitlin Kittredge, a young, dark fantasy author whose writing includes the Nocturne City, the Black London, and the Iron Codex series of novels – which include the recently published titles Dark Days and The Mirrored Shard.

• The Witching Hour – Just in time for Halloween, this anthology-style one-shot collects short stories exploring witchcraft written and drawn by some of the most talented veterans and newcomers in the business – including Kelly Sue DeConnick, Cliff Chiang, Lauren Beukes, Emily Carroll, Matthew Sturges, Shawn McManus, Tula Lotay and many more.

Vertigo also unveiled the covers for Hinterkind, Coffin Hill, The Witching Hour, and Dead Boy Detectives, which you can see below.

Joey is a Senior Editor at IGN and a comic book creator. Follow Joey on Twitter @JoeyEsposito, or find him on IGN at Joey-IGN. He's finally seen Man of Steel. So, um, now what?

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