Earlier this year Dark Horse Comics announced that former Vertigo founding editor Karen Berger would head up her own imprint for the publisher, called Berger Books. Today Vulture revealed the first four titles from the imprint, all due out in 2018.
“Dark Horse has been at the frontline of independent, creator-owned comics for decades,” Berger said earlier this year. “It’s great to be working with a company that has such a rich history of publishing scores of many incredible books by some of the best writers and artists in comics. I’m very fired up about being back in the game in a big way, and to be producing this new line with top, diverse creative talent and exciting, original new voices.”
The new titles, which feel pretty Vertigo-esque so far, are:
Hungry Ghosts by Anthony Bourdain and Joel Rose, who co-wrote Get Jiro! for Vertigo. The four-issue anthology series will feature standalone stories with artwork by Vanessa Del Rey, Leo Manco, Alberto Ponticelli, Paul Pope and Mateus Santolouco. Per Vulture, “The series will be a riff on the Japanese Edo-period game 100 Candles, in which samurai would try to one-up each other with stories to freak each other out. Here, the tellers won’t be samurai; they’ll be chefs from around the world, and their stories will be united by their focus on food.” It comes out in January.
Incognegro: Renaissance by Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece. This five-issue miniseries is a prequel to the Vertigo graphic novel by the same team published in 2008 — Incognegro: A Graphic Mystery, which will also get a reprint under the Berger Books imprint. “The series and the characters are great lenses in which to explore race and prejudice in America,” Berger said. “The polarizing times we live in — you’ve got to tell more and more stories about those issues.” Due out in February.
Mata Hari by Emma Beeby (Judge Dredd) and Ariela Kristantina (InSEXts). Historical fiction featuring the infamous spy of the same name “and the reality of the myths that surround her,” per Vulture. Also due in February.
The Seeds by Ann Nocenti and David Aja, which should be incredible just based on the creators involved. It’s about fake news, mutated plants and a journalist who pitches “the biggest myth of her career” instead of the massive story she discovers. Mark your calendar for March 28.
In addition, the imprint will re-release Dave Gibbons’s out-of-print Vertigo graphic novel The Originals in an expanded edition with 32 pages of previously unreleased development art, process pieces and other extras.
“I plan to have another wave of books later in the year as well,” Berger told Vulture. “It’s not going to be a huge line, because it’s only me editing, which is another reason why I’m excited about doing this: It’s me back to my roots editing comics all the time, which I didn’t get a chance to do hands-on as much as Vertigo grew and grew.”
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