DC's adult-oriented Black Label has a new boss: Chris Conroy

DC senior editor Chris Conroy has taken over management of the publisher's Black Label program. As part of this new position, he also oversees the Milestone and Sandman Universe pop-up imprints, with a team that includes assistant editor Marquis Draper, along with associate editors Andrea Shea and Maggie Howell.

Chris Conroy is a 16-year veteran of DC, joining them back in 2005 as editorial administration operations coordinator in their then-New York City offices. He was promoted to a proper editorial position in 2008, moving up through the ranks from assistant editor, editor, and then senior editor. In 2015, he moved to California as part of DC's relocation of its office to Burbank.

Conroy joined the Black Label program in March 2019, segueing over from the Batman group of titles. Conroy worked under then-executive editor Mark Doyle (founder of Black Label), who was laid off from the company in 2020 as part of a company-wide reorganization. Doyle recently joined IDW as its editorial director of original projects.

Under Doyle (and now Conroy), DC's Black Label is an evolution of the company's line of mature-minded titles, a role previously occupied by its now dormant Vertigo imprint. The informal imprint is a destination for more mainstream/booktrade-oriented fiction with largely non-continuity stories of DC characters, as well as creator-owned series such as The Last God and the recently-announced The Nice House on the Lake.

Notable projects under Conroy's watch include Poison Ivy: Cycle of Life & Death, Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, the Sandman Universe titles, and the recent digital-first Harley Quinn: Black + White + Red.

One of the projects Conroy is working on is a secret Black Label project by Jeff Lemire & Doug Mahnke.

Chris Arrant covered comic book news for Newsarama from 2003 to 2022 (and as editor/senior editor from 2015 to 2022) and has also written for USA Today, Life, Entertainment Weekly, Publisher's Weekly, Marvel Entertainment, TOKYOPOP, AdHouse Books, Cartoon Brew, Bleeding Cool, Comic Shop News, and CBR. He is the author of the book Modern: Masters Cliff Chiang, co-authored Art of Spider-Man Classic, and contributed to Dark Horse/Bedside Press' anthology Pros and (Comic) Cons. He has acted as a judge for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, the Harvey Awards, and the Stan Lee Awards. Chris is a member of the American Library Association's Graphic Novel & Comics Round Table. (He/him)