I first met Karen Berger at one of the early MoCCA Festivals, back when it was still in the Puck Building, but I didn’t really have a conversation with her until the following summer, at the massive San Diego Comic-Con that year. I was hanging out with then-up-and-coming writer Jason Aaron and we were both waiting to head over to a Vertigo Comics panel, he was scheduled to attend and I was scheduled to cover it for a comic book news outlet.
I knew Karen Berger before that, but only through her astounding resume, one that, for many readers who grew up reading comics in the 1980s and into the 1990s, carved a path toward the best kinds of comics available. It’s not just that she had good taste—though that was part of it—what’s more unbelievable is that she was able to shift the direction of the comic book industry towards smarter, more literate stories. She changed the course of the entire industry.
[You’ve probably read something that Karen Berger willed to life, even if you don’t know it.]