Top Ten Vertigo Series Most Ripe for TV or Movie Treatment

I know superhero comic book movies are all the rage now, but with so many streaming services looking to develop original material, I figure there's no time like the present to mine the glory of Vertigo's primo series that defy the superhero tropes and gimmicks. So, here is my list of the top ten Vertigo series that should become TV series or movies.  

Transmetropolitan

This mind-warping series from Warren Ellis broke brains all over the reading public with its prophetic look at the role renegade journalism needs to play in standing up to the powers that be. Information as currency. Narratives as truth. Facts as malleable. It's scary how prescient Ellis was with this one. 

Punk Rock Jesus

What if scientists cloned Jesus Christ and created a reality show around the idea? What if the new Jesus wanted to be more than a patsy or symbol for his corporate owners? What if he really identified with the punk aesthetic?

The Invisibles

Everything is a conspiracy. Grant Morrison perfectly captured the post-postmodern zeitgeist in this one. 

American Virgin

A beautifully irreverent story of how belief can be a problem, a solution, and something that changes as humans grow into better people. 

Coffin Hill

Cops and horror. A classic combination. Throw in some Gothic family secrets and this one could be the next season of Hill House or Bly Manor... easily. 

The Crusades

This one totally deconstructs the idea of a costumed antihero by putting an actual armored knight in the urban blight and having him dish out Batman and Punisher style justice. But is he crazy?

Death: The High Cost of Living

There's really nothing more that can be said about this one. Death takes the day off to appreciate the joys of life. Neil Gaiman's magnum opus, this one. 

House of Secrets

Perhaps my favorite work by Steve Seagle. I love how this series updated the old horror anthology book by exploring the idea of secrets and how they affect the intrinsic sense of justice and our own ideas about justice. And can even the ultimate judges be biased? Plus it has one of the coolest art styles I've ever seen. 

Angeltown

Black detective drama (both racially and tonally) that pretends to be hard-boiled but comes off far more noir than at first glance. Some of Gary Phillips finest work. 

Effigy

A former child star is disgraced over a sex tape. She becomes a cop, but her past won't stop following her. Then people start to die and it looks like it ties into the series she starred in all those years ago. 

Gary Phillips -- The Pulpster Soul of Angeltown

I should have known Gary Phillips and his work for a lot longer. I really, really should have. After all, I've been a fan of both noir and the Vertigo imprint for years, and Gary blended the two seamlessly in his neo-classic comic book series Angeltown. But alas, I came late to the party. In an effort to keep you from the same fate, here's Gary to introduce his work to you. 

Tell us a bit about your latest work. 

I’m very happy with my latest, a collection of six original short stories featuring Nate Hollis, a modern day, rough and tumble private eye in the big, bad City of Angels, Los Angeles.  He began in comics a few years back for a DC/Vertigo miniseries, Angeltown.  In fact that sequential effort was collected under one volume brought out by Moonstone.

But this new prose anthology from our friends at Pro Se, Hollis, P.I., has two new stories by me, one of them featuring not Nate but his sometimes rival, the bounty hunter Irma Ducett, aka Irma Deuce.  But my buddy, New York Times bestseller Juliet Blackwell (the Witchcraft Mystery series) wrote a Hollis story, as did acclaimed young crime writer Aaron Philip Clark (A Healthy Fear of Man) and new pulp heavyweights Bobby Nash (Domino Lady: Money Shot) and Derrick Ferguson (Four Bullets for Dillon).

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

I think genre and so-called mainstream writers wrestle with themes of redemption and sacrifice, selfishness and obsessions.  That all of us are capable of both good and bad, that there are days we might engage in both in big or small way and though writing fiction we capture the big acts in our characters.

What would be your dream project?

Writing the short story, novel, graphic novel, radio script and screenplay, each chronicling a part of the overall adventure of one of my characters – one big story arc across those various mediums.

 If you have any former project to do over to make it better, which one would it be, and what would you do? 


If I could do a reboot of my first novel, Violent Spring, which introduced my other private eye character, Ivan Monk, back in the ‘90s, that’s the one I’d like to write over.  Since I wrote that book I think I’ve gotten a better handle on how a mystery should flow, unfold, and sharper dialogue.


What inspires you to write? 


Writing is therapy.  If I can’t write or think about what I want to write, I’d go nuts.  I guess then keeping what passes for my mental health keeps me writing.

What writers have influenced your style and technique? 


The one that always come to mind are Dashiell Hammett, Richard Wright, Ross Macdonald and Jack Kirby – I mean, the King did write but it was his visuals that inspired me to want to write and draw comics that set me on the road to prose.

Where would you rank writing on the "Is it an art or it is a science continuum?" Why?

That’s an interesting question.  I teach in a MFA writing program part-time.  As I’m the genre guy, I get those who either write that stuff or want to try their hand at it from writing the supposed mainstream work.  As Raymond Chandler advised long ago, there are only something like 8 or 9 plots when you boil it all down.  Then you figure the human factor; greed, lust, guilt, and so on.  We know too a mystery or crime novel or pulp demands certain convention yet you also know you have to make it fresh, somehow different enough so the reader comes away entertained and dare I say, possibly even think about the work afterward..  Now with the aforementioned in mind, since I have to take apart my student’s work and explain what works and what doesn’t, it has forced me to be more critical of what I write.

Part of that can be broken down into an equation, x amount of action versus introspection, how much narrative versus dialogue.  But each story is its own thing, so we also know conventions are made to be broken and should be routinely in writing.  The story’s pace and flow emerges and takes us along and that’s the trick, that’s the art; doe sit feel like it works the way you’ve written the tale?

Any other upcoming projects you would like to plug?

I have a short story, “Bulletville” in the, wait for it, 50 Shades of a Gray Fedora anthology out in e-book initially this February from the newly formed Dagger imprint of Riverdale Avenue Books to capitalize of the infamous 50 Shades movie version also debuting in February.  In March, will have out Day of the Destroyers.  This is a linked anthology I edited featuring Jimmie Flint, Secret Agent X-11 as he battles coup plotters out to overthrow FDR.  The Green Lama,. the Phantom Detective and the Black Bat guest star.  In hardback and trade paperback from Moonstone.

And since I’m plugging, for more of my work, folks can check out my website at: www.gdphillips.com.

“GARY PHILLIPS’ HOLLIS P.I.” DEBUTS FROM PRO SE PRODUCTIONS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE-
COMIC PRIVATE EYE LEAPS TO PROSE IN NEW COLLECTION!

An innovative Publisher of cutting edge Genre Fiction and New Pulp, Pro Se Productions announces the release of a short story collection featuring one of the best modern hard boiled private investigators to ever grace a page. Birthed full-blown several years ago in the comics mini-series Angeltown, L.A. private eye Nate Hollis, created by noted Genre Fiction author Gary Phillips, makes the jump to prose in six new short stories in Gary Phillips’ Hollis, P.I.

“I couldn’t be more pleased that Hollis returns in prose from Pro Se Productions,” Phillips said. “Readers are in for some hardboiled thrills as we put the redoubtable private eye through his paces -- from a ritual killing, the hunt for long-hidden swag, attack dogs in the dark, to the machinations of crooked politicians…tough guys and tougher women.”

Gary Phillips has penned short stories for Moonstone’s Kolchak: The Night Stalker Casebook, the Avenger Chronicles, the Green Hornet Casefiles and The Spider: Extreme Prejudice anthologies. His most current novel is Warlord of Willow Ridge. He also has out the eBook novella, The Essex Man: 10 Seconds to Death, a homage to ‘70s era paperback vigilantes. Additionally he is one of the editors for Pro Se's BLACK PULP volume, and any and all follow ups to that collection. In addition to editing and contributing to Hollis, P.I. for Pro Se, he also has for the press stories upcoming in Asian Pulp and Black Pulp II. He recently wrote the graphic novel Big Water, about the fight by a municipality to save its water from privatization; has a steamy story not for kids in 50 Shades of a Fedora; and is editor and contributor to the upcoming Day of the Destroyers, a collection of linked stories wherein Jimmie Flint, Secret Agent X-11 battles to stop internal forces out to overthrow the presidency of FDR during the Great Depression.

New York Times bestseller Juliet Blackwell (the Witchcraft Mystery series), acclaimed up-and-coming crime writer Aaron Philip Clark (A Healthy Fear of Man) new pulp luminaries Derrick Ferguson (Four Bullets for Dillon) and Pulp Ark award winner Bobby Nash join Phillips in penning these new gritty tales. Five stories feature Nate Hollis with a sixth featuring his sometimes ally, bounty hunter Irma Deuce. The streets are mean, but they don’t hold a stick of dynamite to Gary Phillips’ Hollis, P.I.

“PI Nate Hollis,” says T. Jefferson Parker, author of The Famous and the Dead, “originally sprang from the rich imagination of LA-based writer Gary Phillips, but he’s so real and tactile he could climb off the page and buy you a bourbon. Now, four other authors are getting a piece of Nate, too, and this latest collection of Nate stories is wonderful. This is contemporary noir at its best, offering all the familiar pleasures of the genre, but giving them a modern makeover. Yes, this is a violent world that Nate inhabits, but he steers a true and moral course through the layers of deception, skullduggery and sometimes worse that make these stories such high-density entertainment. Nate’s a great character and these stories do him justice and more. “

Gary Phillips’ Hollis P.I., features evocative and action packed cover art and logo design by Jeffrey Hayes. With print formatting by Percival Constantine, the collection is available from Amazon and Pro Se’s own store for $12.00. This modern mystery collection is also available as an eBook for the Kindle http://tinyurl.com/nje4y36 and in most formats from Smashwords for only $2.99.
For more information on this title, interviews with the author, or digital copies for review, contact Morgan McKay, Pro Se’s Director of Corporate Operations, at directorofcorporateoperations@prose-press.com.

To learn more about Pro Se Productions, go to www.prose-press.com. Like Pro Se on Face book at www.facebook.com/ProSeProductions.

PRO SE ANNOUNCES LICENSING DEAL WITH NOTED CRIME AUTHOR

Pro Se Productions, a Publisher specializing in Heroic Fiction, New Pulp and multiple genres, announces today the licensing of a modern hard boiled PI Character originally appearing in a DC Vertigo mini series and created by one of the leading writers of modern Crime Pulp Fiction.

“Pulp is associated with many genres,” Tommy Hancock, Partner in and Editor in Chief of Pro Se stated. “None, though, probably as much as the Crime/Mystery field, particularly the PI tale.   That’s why Pro Se is proud to announce that Nate Hollis, a character created by Gary Phillips for the 2005 Vertigo miniseries ANGELTOWN is now a part of Pro Se’s future prose lineup.”

Angeltown

The Nate Hollis Investigations

Moonstone 2011

A noted crime and mystery writer, Gary Phillips is the creative mind behind the Ivan Monk series as well as books featuring Las Vegas’ showgirl-turned- courier, Martha Chaney.  Phillips has also contributed to multiple collections, including one of Moonstone’s AVENGER CHRONICLES, and is one of the two driving forces, along with Hancock, behind Pro Se’s upcoming major release BLACK PULP.

“ANGELTOWN,” said Hancock, “introduced the world to Nate Hollis, as hard boiled and two fisted as any detective that came before him.  Not only does Nate have all the classic attributes of a Pulp PI, but he’s set squarely in the modern era and is also enhanced by all that comes with that.   Pro Se is excited about the future of Nate Hollis, including new anthologies and even novels written by the best authors in New Pulp, including Gary himself.”

Hollis’ creator, Gary Phillips added, “I’m jazzed that Tommy and the fine folks at Pro Se Press have taken on producing the further outings of Nate Hollis and the other characters in his orbit.  Tough customers such as shotgun-wielding female bounty hunter Irma Ducett aka Irma Deuce, and Nate’s ex-pro football playing granddad, Obadiah "Clutch" Hollis, current owner of a neighborhood dive frequented by the squares and the strange.  Certainly I’m looking forward to seeing how other writers will devise cases for Nate and, of course, I’ll be penning some new stories too.  It’s going to be a blast.”

Nate Hollis Creator

Gary Phillips

Hancock stated that announcements would be forthcoming concerning publication of the first Nate Hollis book from Pro Se, fully expecting a book to be published in the first half of 2013.

Nate Hollis originally debuted in Angeltown, a five-part miniseries from DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint, January-May 2005.  The strip was then collected and reprinted in hardcover graphic novel form as Angeltown: The Nate Hollis Investigations, with two new prose short stories added, by Moonstone Books in 2011. 

For more information concerning Nate Hollis and Pro Se, email Hancock at proseproductions@earthlink.net.

Gary Phillips – www.gdphillips.com

Pro Se Productions- www.prosepulp.com

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