Vertigo originated in 1993 under the stewardship of Karen Berger, a former literature and art-history student, who had joined DC Comics in 1979 as an assistant editor. In the mid-1980s, Berger was editor of such DC titles as "Wonder Woman" and "Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld", and began recruiting writers from the UK, including Neil Gaiman, Jamie Delano, Peter Milligan, and Grant Morrison. She "found their sensibility and point of view to be refreshingly different, edgier and smarter" than those of most American comics writers.