Rapid Fire: Fatale #14 Preview and More.

No time, so just the highlights.

Fatale #14 is in stores this week; the final stand-alone issue brings Jo to Nazi Germany, and Geekality has a five-page preview.

Ed Brubaker has had recent interviews with Comic Book Resources, Paste Magazine, and The Outhousers.

The Brotherhood of Evil Geeks has taken a closer look at Book One of Fatale.

Sean Phillips tweets that he and Brubaker will appear together at October's Lakes International Comic Art Festival in Kendal, England.

And Brubaker has followed up on a secret project he's been hinting about for at least eight months, a second creator-owned comic he's been planning to write alongside his regular collaborations with Phillips.  Brubaker tweets that the announcement will come at Image Expo, on July 2nd in San Francisco.

[Update, 12:45 am] One last thing, comic fans of all stripes should be interested to know that a new, free mobile app is available, on all major platforms, distributing a stunning array of comic strips.  While The Far Side remains available only in hardcopy, the GoComics app includes Peanuts, Get Fuzzy, and the complete run of Calvin & Hobbes.

SIX.

The nominees for the 2013 Eisner Awards were announced today, and Fatale has a stunning six nominations, which we believe is a record for the team of Brubaker and Phillips.

• Best New Series
• Best Continuing Series
• Best Writer, Ed Brubaker
• Best Penciller/Inker, Sean Phillips
• Best Cover Artist, Sean Phillips
• Best Coloring, Dave Stewart

Stewart's nomination is also for his coloring work on Batwoman, BPRD, Conan the Barbarian, Hellboy in Hell, Lobster Johnson, and The Massive.

Winners will be announced on Friday night, July 19, at Comic-Con International.

Congrats to Ed, Sean, and Dave!

Brubaker, on the Coward Film.

It looks like the film adaptation for the first Criminal arc continues to wind its way through production, and Bad Ass Digest has a video round table with Ed Brubaker and Scott Pilgrim's Bryan Lee O'Malley.  Brubaker talks briefly about "Coward," the Captain America sequel, and his favorite comic-book film adaptation.

What's Next? A Fatale Preview, and More.

The latest stand-alone issue of Fatale is in stores this week, and Paste Magazine has an exclusive five-page preview of issue #13, set in the Wild West.  It's not the only thing on my pull-list, as we also see the long-awaited fifth and final issue of the first mini-series of Ken Garing's spare sci-fi comic Planetoid, for which iFanboy has a preview.

Image Comics has been putting out a lot of interesting creator-owned titles in the past couple years, for a wide range of tastes, and late last month Image Comics publisher Eric Stephenson addressed the ComicsPro trade organization about Image's 20th anniversary and "What's Next."

Some of our new books were by today's biggest stars, others were by artists and writers with the talent to become the stars of tomorrow.

Because as proud as we are to be associated with the Ed Brubakers, the Grant Morrisons, the Robert Kirkmans, and the Brian K. Vaughans of the world, and as happy as we are to publish titles like Saga, Happy!, Fatale and The Walking Dead, we are always on the lookout for what's next.

It's a good, healthy attitude to have on both sides of the industry, and I hope our readers can find a couple titles to support, especially creator-owned works that fit the reader's particular interests even if that's outside of some synergistic marketing strategy.

Our readers might be interested to know that one upcoming Image title is from some names that are quite familiar to fans of Ed Brubaker and especially Gotham Central:  Greg Rucka and Michael Lark's Lazarus.  In a move that isn't a million miles from the trailers we've seen from Brubaker and Phillips, the two have produced a four-page short story that won't appear in the first issue.

Bullets: Fatale Preview, Deluxe Sleeper, and Catwoman Collected.

Good stuff this week.

• Fatale #12 Preview.  Both Comicosity and Comic Book Resources have a five-page preview of the latest issue of Fatale.  The stand-alone issue takes us all the way back to the Middle Ages, and it reaches stores this Wednesday, February 13th.
• Sleeper Omnibus Photo.  On Twitter, Ed Brubaker recently posted a grainy image of the upcoming Sleeper Omnibus, writing that DC/Vertigo did a "great job" on the collection.  Fans will be happy to hear that the hardcover's dimensions match the deluxe editions of Criminal.  Featuring plenty of extras, the book collects all of Point Blank and Sleeper, including the Coup D'Etat one-shot and afterward, the former of which had not been collected under the Sleeper banner.  The 720-page hardcover is due in stores on March 6th.
• Catwoman Volume 2 in June.  Finally, CBR has DC Comics' May solicitations, which include an advance solicitation for Catwoman Volume 2: No Easy Way Down.  The trade paperback follows up on the first volume, "Trail of the Catwoman," released early last year.  The two books collect Darwyn Cooke's tale Selina's Big Score, Secret Files #1, and the first 24 issues of Ed Brubaker's run on Catwoman.  This second volume is due out on June 12th.

Brubaker has recently tweeted that the first 18 issues are the high watermark of his run on Catwoman, and those who don't have the issues or the earlier trade collection should put this second volume on their to-do list.

Bullets: New Colorist, New Art from Sean, Etc.

The next issue of Fatale is currently listed with a February 13th release date -- just in time for Valentine's! -- so here are a few brief news items in the meantime.

• AV Club looks at Fatale #11.  The Onion's AV Club takes a closer look at the latest issue, praising the single-issue story for capturing the dread of Lovecraftian horror.  The article ends by highlighting a detail in the art that I missed the first time through:  we could use more thoughtful essays like this one.
• New Colorist for Fatale.  In his Twitter feed, Ed Brubaker relays that Elizabeth Breitweiser will be the new colorist, beginning with Fatale #12.  Replacing Dave Stewart, Breitweiser has already worked with Brubaker on Captain America and Winter Soldier, and he has praised her as a "genius."
• New Artwork from Sean Phillips.  Finally, Sean Phillips' blog was quiet in December, but the artist has been featuring quite a lot of new work lately, including thumbnails, art for an upcoming essay, and  cover art for Fatale #15 and the third trade paperback, "West of Hell." (In contrast with East of Eden?)

Going by that cover, issue #15 returns us to the main narrative.  On Twitter, Ed Brubaker is somewhat ambivalent about the series' status as an ongoing title:  "There's still an end in mind, but I decided to let the story have more space and not specify its length."

We're hopeful that the return of Criminal won't be indefinitely postponed, but we're looking forward to this horror story unfolding at its own pace.

Preview of Fatale #11.

The new year begins with a double dose of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' Fatale.  New readers can catch up in a hurry as Wednesday sees the release of the second trade paperback, "The Devil's Business," and the next issue in the noir-horror series.  Fatale #11 is the first of four stand-alone issues, and Comic Book Resources has just posted a five-page preview.

Warm Christmas Wishes from A Criminal Blog.

Brubaker and Phillips' Fatale didn't quite catch up with the original schedule, after all.  The original solictations had a December 19th release date for the 11th issue and the second trade paperback, "The Devil's Business" -- which would have been just in time for Christmas -- but the Image Comics website now lists January 2nd as the sale date.

The new year will begin with the collection of the most recent arc and the first of four stand-alone issues.  We'll link to any previews that we see, as we find them.

Until then, A Criminal Blog wishes everyone a very safe and happy holiday season.