"Second Chance in Hell."

Issue #1 of Criminal, Volume 2, is in stores tomorrow: "Second Chance in Hell," a stand-alone story focusing on Gnarly during his days as a boxer, and the first of three interlocking stories set in the 70's. As part of the promotional campaign, "Criminal Week" at myspace.com/comicbooks wrapped up, and there was more than just the issue-length previews of "Coward" and "Lawless." Bill Hader had a rather odd video interview with Ed Brubaker, Michael Lark interviewed Sean Phillips about his stunning artwork, and there's a substantial black-and-white preview of the new issue, here.

Over at his blog, Sean relays that his studio will soon be featured at Comic Book Resources.

And, I forgot to mention this earlier, but late last month Newsarama published a Word Balloon podcast with Ed Brubaker, about Criminal along with his recent work in Captain America. Ed discusses the double-edged sword of creative freedom that he has with Criminal, especially in the complexity of these three stand-alone "novellas". He talks about the informal community of writers and artists that has emerged around the extra content in the monthly issues, and he and John Siuntres even discuss recent crime movies like Eastern Promises and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

During the interview, Ed briefly mentions that Criminal doesn't have a concise "hook", but I think his summary of "Lawless" is an perfect high-concept description of the entire series.

What is Criminal? "A character exploration with random moments of crime and violence."