6 Books Published by Vertigo on AALBC — Book Cover Collage

The Oscar-winning screenwriter of 12 Years a Slave returns for an all-new chapter in his alternate history of The American Way!

In 1962 Jason Fisher was given astonishing powers by the United States government—powers he used to defend the nation as the New American. He and his teammates in the Civil Defense Corps were real-life superheroes.

Except that it was all a fraud. A conspiracy. And now, 10 years after the CDC was torn apart by racism, infighting and murder, the Corps’ surviving members find themselves pulled in very different directions. Missy Devereaux—a.k.a. Ole Miss—is transitioning from the First Lady of Mississippi into a candidate for governor and defender of a vanishing and hateful way of life. Amber Eaton—formerly known as Amber Waves—has become a domestic terrorist, using her powers to infiltrate and destroy the country’s centers of power.

Somewhere in the middle stands Jason Fisher, who has remained a crime-fighter even as evidence mounts that he is accomplishing nothing besides propping up a system that’s rigged against him as a black man in America.

In a nation being torn apart, what does it mean to fight for the American way?

A decade after the debut of their groundbreaking WildStorm series The American Way, Academy Award-winning writer John Ridley (12 Years a Slave, American Crime) and artist Georges Jeanty (Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8) revisit their parallel Earth for a look at its gritty 1970s—a time frighteningly like our own—in The American Way: Those Above and Those Below. Collects issues #1-6.

Just in time for the fall election, this race-against-time political thriller follows an ex Special Forces commando who goes undercover with a militia group that’s plotting to assassinate the second African-American President of the U.S.

In the week leading up to a major campaign speech, the Secret Service discovers that an extremist militia group is plotting to assassinate America’s second African American President. The best chance to advert this crisis is to infiltrate the group using an ex-Special Forces war hero turned conservative media pundit named Ted Akers. While Aker’s politics make him a hero to the right-wing fringe and no friend to the current Administration, he takes the assignment and what follows is an adrenaline fueled race against time to stop a President from dying and a country from being ripped apart.

An original graphic novel by Mat Johnson (INCOGNEGRO, DARK RAIN) and Andrea Mutti.

From the author of the Ivan Monk detective series comes a riveting original graphic novel about violence and race in modern society.COWBOYS revolves around a racially motivated police shooting of Deke Kotto, a young African American man, by Tim Brady, a white undercover cop, inside a swanky club frequented by hip-hop stars, gangsters, Hollywood celebs and the drug kingpins that finance the whole operation. But the victim is actually an undercover officer on the trail of the gangsters, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In the days after Hurricane Katrina, two men who fell through society’s cracks travel to evacuate New Orleans to pull off the bank heist of a lifetime. Up against the clock and eluding armed competitors, the men find themselves in the middle of one of the greatest humanitarian disasters in American history. All around them, the institutions that form the pillars of our society are falling apart. Surrounded by death and misery, the men face a moral challenge greater than any other obstacle they’ve had to overcome. Is it possible to beat the system, even when it lies in ruins? Can they save even one person—or themselves? Or will those institutions come crashing down right on top of them?

Writer Mat Johnson, winner of the prestigious Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for fiction, constructs a fearless graphic novel that is both a page-turning mystery and a disturbing exploration of race and self-image in America, masterfully illustrated with rich period detail by Wareen Pleece.

In the early 20th Century, when lynchings were commonplace throughout the American South, a few courageous reporters from the North risked their lives to expose these atrocities. They were African-American men who, due to their light skin color, could "pass" among the white folks. They called this dangerous assignment going "incognegro."/p>

Zane Pinchback, a reporter for the New York-based New Holland Herald barely escapes with his life after his latest "incognegro" story goes bad. But when he returns to the sanctuary of Harlem, he’s sent to investigate the arrest of his own brother, charged with the brutal murder of a white woman in Mississippi.

>With a lynch mob already swarming, Zane must stay "incognegro" long enough to uncover the truth behind the murder in order to save his brother ’ and himself. He finds that the answers are buried beneath layers of shifting identities, forbidden passions and secrets that run far deeper than skin color.

Written by Mat Johnson Art by Tony Akins & Dan Green Cover by Ronald Wimberly The King of Voodoo has a long history, but where did it all begin? The answer can be found in HELLBLAZER: PAPA MIDNITE, collecting the acclaimed 5-issue Vertigo miniseries that follows the story of the curse that made Midnite immortal, from its origin in 1712 through the failed slave rebellion of 1741 and into the present day, where he continues to pay the price for his original sin.

"I grew up reading comics’the first thing I ever read on my own was a reprint of Hulk #1 (minus cover, ghetto style). In college, I started reading Sandman and from there got hooked on Vertigo Books. When an opportunity arose to write for Vertigo, I jumped at it. I pitched and idea based around my Great Negro Plot research, and Karen Berger went for it, asking that I use Papa Midnite as a character, who came complete with an existing audience (and of course the movie Constantine was coming out). In general, I prefer creating my own characters and stories, but I saw a chance to take a character that was little more than primitive black stereotype (no disrespect to the great Alan Moore) and turn it into something with more depth, reality. Plus, I got to write for Hellblazer on my first dabble in the medium, how dope is that?" ’Mat Johnson

The King of Voodoo has a long history, but where did it all begin? The answer can be found in HELLBLAZER: PAPA MIDNITE, collecting the acclaimed 5-issue Vertigo miniseries that follows the story of the curse that made Midnite immortal, from its origin in 1712 through the failed slave rebellion of 1741 and into the present day, where he continues to pay the price for his original sin.

Check out the entire Papa Midnight: John Constantine—Hellblazer Special Series