“I like to think of it as a bridge across”: The Tight Association between Neil Gaiman and DC’s Vertigo Imprint

Abstract

The association between Neil Gaiman and Vertigo runs deep in the collective imagination, and is as recurring in the press as in academia. Whereas many ascribe such a strong association to the success of Gaiman’s Sandman, which was one of the few DC Comics titles from which the Vertigo imprint was born in 1993, confining this link to financial and historical matters feels somewhat reductive. In such a context, this paper explores the many connections between Gaiman and Vertigo. After examining the eerie resonances between Gaiman’s aesthetics and Vertigo’s editorial ambitions–especially as far as the treatment of boundaries is concerned, I show that these resonances between Vertigo and Gaiman do not only stem from the similarities in the contents of their production, but also from the closeness of their postures, which reinforces their association in the collective imagination.