Gangland is a Vertigo venture featuring a host of writers and a lot of varied artists. You have your veterans like Jamie Delano, Dave Gibbons, Ed Brubaker, Joe Lansdale, David Lloyd and Frank Quitely along with upcoming artists like Brian Azzarello (Gangland came out in '98, 100 Bullets came out only in '99) and Simon Revelstroke. There are a couple of guest entries too, such as Peter Kuper who is most famous for his unique Spy Vs. Spy specials on MAD magazine. Overall, quite a star-studded roster.

There are in totality 4 issues of Gangland and I think it's available as a hardback collector's edition now. Each issue contains 3-4 mini-stories. As the name suggests, Gangland deals with crime - there are many, many different types of crime-related yarns to be found here. You name it - Italian mafia, Latino thugs, Russian Ganglords, petty thieves, cops gone bad, cavemen crime bosses, gangster robots etc. etc. In other words there is a wide variety of stories with many bringing in a sci-fi/horror aspect to the straight crime tale, ensuring that repetition doesn't become a problem while reading this in one sitting. Aesthetically speaking, since each tale has a different writer and artist, a good mixture is prevalent. But herein lies the problem. Most of the art or even the script for that matter is largely hit or miss material. You invariably end up longing for more from the guys who gave you the stories that you liked. Even a slight hesitation, be it in any form (art or lettering in most cases), makes it an exceedingly difficult task to complete an entry even if it is only 5 pages long. Another peeve concerning the filler stories is that uncalled-for-violence seems to be on overdrive since there is a huge gap in story-telling - that too without detail to back it up.

One story which I particularly enjoyed was The Big Snooze, authored and illustrated by David Lloyd (V for Vendetta). It's a first person narrative of a Mafioso dog trained to kill coppers. After failing in a particular task for the Gangsters the dog is left to die with several cruel wounds. It is picked up and tended to by a policeman who wants to turn the dog into a sniffer. The dog wants revenge, and needless to say, it eventually does get it. The writing is extremely creative and a few more pages would've surely done it more justice. Even with the good stories you somehow get the feeling that the endings are purposefully rushed because the other stories needed to be fit in.

As is the case with most supergroups and anthologies, due to strict limitations in creative space, a damp squib is almost a certain outcome (look at Image's Horrorcide for example). In an industry where most mini-series themselves are lost and forgotten, having short stories in one issue itself is not an enterprising idea I would say. And what do you know? 10 years down the line this is a forgotten comic book. A passionate Vertigo fan would say that they are just showcasing some of the talent that they have through this. Agreed, but there are much better picks from the catalogues of these talented people.