Ghosts #1 (Vertigo)

(from vertigocomics.com)

writer: various

artist: various

As far as I'm concerned, there are two reasons to read this special, originally released appropriately enough on 10/31/12 (Halloween).  The first is that it features the last original work from the late Joe Kubert.  The second is that is features the first Vertigo work from Geoff Johns.

When I originally sought it out, the second of these selling points was what I thought was my only point of interest.  Johns has now done the majority of his comics work for DC with its superhero comics.  There was also a short piece he did for Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (as well as a number of other comics, including an extended run on Marvel's Avengers a decade ago at this point), and yet he has been so consumed by his various epic visions (on JSA/Justice Society of America, The Flash, and Green Lantern, each of which have lasted for many years) that Johns has very rarely done something other than superheroes.

By now, if you're at all interested in Vertigo you've heard that long-time executive editor Karen Berger recently left the imprint.  Vertigo took shape around the force of the British explosion that hit comics in the 1980s and built itself around Neil Gaiman's Sandman.  It was a featured element of DC's mainstream push in the early 1990s.  Some fans have speculated that Berger's departure signals perhaps the end of the imprint, which has also recently announced the end of the long-running (three hundred issues!) Hellblazer in favor of a DC series for star John Constantine (whom you might know from the Keanu Reeves film Constantine).  I find that to be unlikely.  Vertigo, like everything, is simply in the midst of change.  DC will always find value in a haven for material that plays to a different audience than superhero fans.  Contrary to what Image and other indy publishers may sometimes suggest, the mainstream has room for that stuff.  

I don't always read one-shots, especially anthologies.  It frequently means that they will feature talent a company is trying out, which is fine for that new talent, but it also means that the stories may have little weight to them.  They can certainly be entertaining, but they can also be very throwaway.  Some fans read comics specifically for stories that are anything but.  I happen to be one of those, and increasingly so.  Contrary to that trend, Ghosts features a lot of veterans, not just Kubert and Johns, but also John McCrea, Phil Jimenez, Paul Pope, David Lapham, Gilbert Hernandez, and Jeff Lemire, whose own Vertigo series Sweet Tooth has recently come to an end.  

The first story, "The Night After I Took the Data Entry Job I Was Visited by My Own Ghost" from Al Ewing and Rufus Dayglo, is one of the more memorable and surreal entries, and ironically enough reads very much like an Image series.  As the very long title suggests, it features someone being haunted by their own ghost, who ends up being a lot more popular than them because they're the cool version of the character who's lived the dream (and has no worries).  Gaiman's Dead Boy Detectives, who debuted in Sandman, are the stars of Toby Litt and Mark Buckingham's "Run Ragged," which is apparently the first part of what will be serialized in other Vertigo anthologies.  Cecil Castellucci and Amy Reeder, meanwhile, in "Wallflower" have something that might appeal to romantics.  Neil Kleid and McCrea explore foodies in "A Bowl of Red," while Mary H.K Choi and Jimenez in "Bride" talk about the loss of love.  Pope and Lapham collaborate on "Treasure Lost," features aliens making suspect decisions to preserve themselves, and Hernandez in "The Dark Lady" features a couple of boys you don't realize are dead until the end (so, a little like The Sixth Sense).  

Joe Kubert, who died in August, impressed Berger by sketching "The Boy and the Old Man" within days of her request to participate.  The sketches are what remains of the unfinished work, but a talent like Kubert keeps it worth savoring.  It's eight pages in all.  The old man is dying, but still manages to find the resolve to save the boy from a nightmarish threat.  Very simplistic, very archetypal, and so very much what you'd expect from a master storyteller.  Probably worth the price of admission alone, a testament to Kubert's enduring legacy.

Finally there's Johns and Lemire's "Ghost-for-hire," in which two brothers collaborate on one last prank.  The twist here is that one of the brothers is a ghost, and that they're scamming people with hauntings.  As always, Johns has figured out the elements of an existing story type and used them ingeniously.  It's not just a goof, however.  Johns makes sure to bring the human element to the story, with a twist ending that instead of feeling gimmicky solidifies the value of the whole thing.

Would I say it's worth your while, even if you don't particularly care about Kubert or Johns, that Ghosts truly distinguishes itself from the genre of anthologies?  "Night After I Took..." and "A Bowl of Red" are two other standouts, which makes at least four of nine stories worth reading.  That sound good enough?