Cover Art for Criminal Deluxe.

Briefly, I just noticed this afternoon, that over on his fairly new Twitter account, Ed Brubaker pointed out the cover art to the Criminal omnibus at Comic Book Resources, art that has now been added to Marvel's September solicitations at CBR.



It's impressive: it looks more like an art book than does your typical comic book hardcover. It uses a white background on the spine, just like the trade paperbacks. The spine features a detail of the cover for Criminal #9 -- the apparently popular Tracy Lawless at his family's gravesite -- and the front features the part of the painting for the cover for Volume 2, #2.

That painting -- which I think is the best cover art we've seen for this series so far -- is not only striking in its brutal beauty, it features the man who is, in some ways, a key character in the three arcs included in this volume: the sociopath, Teeg Lawless.

The edition isn't listed as "Volume 1," but since "Bad Night wasn't included and "The Sinners" is already on its way, presumably this isn't the only "deluxe" hardcover we'll ever see from this series.

Finally, it wasn't listed in the solicitation, but the artwork indicates an introduction by Dave Gibbons, the artist and writer who's best known for his art on Watchmen.


Buy Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips comics from Amazon.com