DC Vertigo Announces Two New Ongoing Series From Writers Tim Seeley And Gail Simone [NYCC]

As Vertigo's two currently longest-running series head to a close -- Bill Willingham's Fables and Mike Carey and Peter Gross's The Unwritten -- the DC imprint is doubtless looking for new series with long-term potential to run alongside FBP, Astro City, and American Vampire.

At New York Comic-Con on Friday the publisher announced two titles that might fit the bill, both from DC writers making their Vertigo debut. Grayson writer Tim Seeley will team with former Madame Xanadu artist Marley Zarcone on Effigy, while once and future Secret Six author Gail Simone and former 2000 AD artist Jonathan Davis-Hunt are the team behind Clean Room.

Both books have a cultish inclination. Seeley and Zarcone's Effigy tells the story of a former child star who uncovers a cult that worships celebrities in effigy -- and makes ritual sacrifice of unbelievers. The story will apparently have roots going back far before the birth of celluloid, as the book is said to take its lead character, Chondra Jackson, to famous burial sites around the world, including Stonehenge and the Nazca Lines of Peru.

Simone and Hunt-Davis's Clean Room tells the story of a charismatic church leader whose secret high-tech "clean room" may be the key to her church's miracle cures -- and of a reporter who picks up the threads of her lover's investigation of the church when her lover is murdered. In addition to both dealing with religious themes, both books have female lead characters -- not unusual for either author, but not the norm for DC Vertigo titles.

You can see a cover and first page from Clean Room and covers and preview pages for Effigy below.