touchmark

At this stage, the Crown & Rose touchmark is applied by hand.

When they died their touchmark was destroyed.

For quality control, Parliament in 1503 required all London-made pewter to be stamped with the maker's symbol or touchmark.

In London, only Englefields survived, and it therefore has exclusive use of the Crown & Rose touchmark.

A similar tradition is found with blacksmiths who use their "touchmark" (a stamp used on the hot metal to show who made it) on whatever they made.

A second imprint, Touchmark Comics, was actually announced, with former DC Comics editor Art Young at its head.

Editor Art Young moved back to DC, and many of the unpublished Touchmark titles were published as part of its new Vertigo imprint.

Among the scripts Touchmark acquired was Enigma by Peter Milligan and Sebastian O by Grant Morrison.

Berger notes that "when Art Young became available with the Touchmark properties... that helped facilitate the line," and the influx of projects allowed Berger to "double [her] proposed publishing plan."

Several of the earliest new Vertigo series derived from Disney Comics' aborted Touchmark Comics imprint, a line announced before the so-called "Disney Implosion" of 1991, and subsequently abandoned.

Having inherited some projects from Disney's aborted Touchmark project, Vertigo was able to plan a first year in which they were to publish "two new series [per] month in a variety of formats, either one-shots or miniseries or ongoing monthlies."

Sebastian O was originally commissioned by editor Art Young for Disney's proposed Touchmark imprint, along with Peter Milligan and Duncan Fegredo's Enigma and J.M. DeMatteis & Paul Johnson's Mercy.

Enigma was initially "going to be the launch book of [Disney's] Touchmark," but became the second new Vertigo title, written by the author Shade, the Changing Man, and drawn by the artist from Grant Morrison's earlier Kid Eternity miniseries.

J. M. DeMatteis began his comics career on DC's House of Mystery title over a decade before the formation of Vertigo, and later became one of the earliest Vertigo creators thanks in large part to his proposed Touchmark projects.