3 out of 5

Well well, another fine instance of a company taking my advice.  The 2013 Vertigo preview was dumb as shit – I’m not sure if I just missed the 2014 one or maybe I blocked it from memory – but Shelly Bond and troupe are back on the usual Vgo track for 2015, which is to say… unimpressive and indistinct.  I’m not the only one noticing that it’s been a while since Vertigo felt like a real playground for comics, and with the airing-on-TV Lucifer gracing the cover of the preview, it’s apparent they’re still falling back on old properties to carry the way while stumbling through silly attention-grabbing high concept titles (a pyromaniac firefighter!).  Image honestly isn’t too far from this, they’re just not latched to a Sandman past, so they’re positioned where Vertigo seemed to be in the 90s: mixing fluff with titles of interest, but all of them getting the glow of looking good via good marketing.

But I always blab about Vertigo.  As usual with previews: review the effectiveness of the book.

Meh.

Wisely abandoning the DEFY theme, the preview feels rather wandering, spouting about 12 new #1s but cherry picking three for page previews and just giving us summaries of the rest.  The page previews aren’t bad, enough to get a sense of the look and feel of the titles, but they’re not particularly interesting either – save ‘Unfollow’, which chooses high drama bits to show us, which is what previews should be doing (I know it’s tough to filter comics down to select panels, but it’s weird to me how many previews fail this concept) – and it just imbalances the book when the rest of your titles get the short straw blurb treatment.

Then again, Vertigo just isn’t for me currently.  I’m not sure who it’s for.  They do skirt some current talent (Rob Williams, Si Spencer, Lauren Beukes) but they also have their mainstays, like Peter Milligan, showing up again with references to romantic literature.  …Whatever.  I’m not going to get off on that rant again.

If you like Vgo books, I think this preview is effective.  The summaries are admittedly comprehensive, and the longer previews let you know what to expect.  If you’re just hunting and pecking for new books, though, and you’re a seasoned reader, I think it’s pretty easy to gloss through this without much catching your eye.

What’s that, 350-word review of a preview book?  IT’S JUST A NORMAL FREE PREVIEW DEALY.  THAT’S ALL.