Black Label

Search "Black Label" and you get a collision of unrelated products: a 12-year Scotch, a bacon line, a comic imprint, a rock band. This page covers DC Black Label, the publishing imprint, but it helps to know the field. Johnnie Walker Black Label is Diageo's flagship blend of more than 40 whiskies aged at least 12 years. Hormel Black Label is a premium bacon brand. Black Label Society is Zakk Wylde's band. DC Black Label is the one that lives on a comic shop shelf.

The imprint opened in 2018 as a home for standalone, mature-readers stories that did not need to fit monthly continuity. Batman: Damned by Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo arrived September 19, 2018, in prestige format, and its boundary-pushing reputation started almost immediately: the first issue briefly showed Batman nude, and DC edited the scene afterward. That flashpoint shaped how readers talked about the line. The books run without crossovers or tie-ins, which lets creators treat each series like a graphic novel.

Villain perspectives became a specialty. Azzarello and Bermejo followed with Joker, and Stjepan Šejić's Harleen reimagined Harley Quinn's origin. The line also reprints older mature-readers stories in new presentations. At New York Comic Con 2026, DC announced a fresh slate of Black Label projects, including titles built around Zatanna, Poison Ivy, and O.M.A.C.

DC sits under Warner Bros. Discovery, headquartered in Burbank, California. Black Label has no separate revenue disclosure; its sales fold into DC's publishing division. The competition is Marvel's MAX and Epic imprints, Image Comics, Dark Horse, and BOOM! Studios. Readers who came looking for whisky or bacon should head to those brands instead. [edit]