Sebastian O
Steve Yeowell's cover to Sebastian O #1.
Publication information
Publisher	Vertigo
Schedule	Monthly
Format	Mini-series
Genre	Steampunk
Publication date	May - July 1993
No. of issues	3
Creative team
Created by	Grant Morrison Steve Yeowell
Written by	Grant Morrison
Artist(s)	Steve Yeowell
Collected editions
Sebastian O	ISBN 1-4012-0337-X

Sebastian O is a comic book series written by Grant Morrison, drawn by Steve Yeowell and published by the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics in 1993.

Publication history

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. After Disney cancelled the proposed line, Young took the project with him to DC Comics, where Karen Berger's Vertigo imprint was readying for launch.^[1]

Steve Yeowell took inspiration from Victorian artist and dandy Aubrey Beardsley's work when completing the art for the series.

Synopsis

An example of steampunk, Sebastian O tells the story of a young flamboyant assassin in an alternate and technologically advanced Victorian era London and his attempts to track down Lord Theo Lavender who condemned him to prison for his moral crimes and transgressive literature.

The world-traveling Sebastian belongs to the Club de Paradis Artificiel, which included the lesbian George, the pederast Abbe, and his betrayer Lavender. Despite being the central character, Sebastian is a narcissistic sociopath, at various points of the plot killing a police officer and having his remains fed to his cat, cutting off a prison warders hand to allow him to escape a palm-print cell, and cutting a man's throat whilst claiming "He's only stunned".

Collected editions

The series has been collected into a trade paperback:

• Sebastian O (with Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell, Vertigo, 3 issue mini-series, 1993, tpb, 2004, 80 pages, Titan, ISBN 1-84023-996-4, Vertigo, ISBN 1-4012-0337-X)^[2]