New Fatale Out Today: Previews, Interviews, and More.

After a brief delay of a couple weeks, Fatale #16 is in stores today.  A five-page preview of the latest issue can be found all over the place, including Comic Book Resources, Geekality, Rockin Comics, and Comicsity.

Keen-eyed readers might spot a revised cover for the issue.  At his blog, Sean Phillips explains that, since Nicholas doesn't appear in this issue, they'll save the original cover for another time.

Sean Phillips is also spending the next few months highlighting "reject" images that didn't make the final cut for The Art of Sean Phillips, due in October.  Fans of his collaborations with Ed Brubaker will be particularly interested in two pieces from Sleeper: a preliminary pencil of the cover art for issue #2 and a rough demonstration image for the colorist.  More is sure to come.

Speaking of Brubaker, he announced on his Twitter feed that his upcoming comic Velvet made the October cover of the solicitations magazine Previews.

A few weeks ago, I belatedly mentioned an interview with Brubaker at MTV Geek.  The interview focuses on Fatale and Velvet, I noted a few tidbits about the former.  The next arc will include an experimental issue and a "really weirdly experimental storyline" -- both the result of the freedom inherent in creator-owned comics -- and there are events set in the 1960's that we'll get to, eventually.

MTV Geek subsequently posted a brief video interview with Brubaker at San Diego Comic-Con, focusing on "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," the upcoming movie based on his recent run at Marvel.

Finally, the horror magazine Rue Morgue published an interview with Brubaker and Phillips this past June, promoting Fatale's third trade paperback "West of Hell" and the new story arc "Pray for Rain".  The creators go into what makes the medium effective for horror, and Brubaker discusses the benefits of reading the monthly issues.

"...the best benefit of getting the single issues is that you ensure we get to keep making comics. We earn most of our living on single issue sales, because there’s no big company backing us. The way Image works, you’re basically publishing with them, not working for them, so those single issue sales are what keeps this train running, and our readership has really supported us over the years when our projects weren’t as successful as Fatale has been. It’s important to point that out from time to time, because I feel like sometimes we take stuff we read for granted, not realizing our patronage is what makes those books possible." [emphasis mine]
 

Sean discusses his goal as an artist -- "to make the reader forget they're reading a comic, to get totally involved in what is happening in the story" -- and the two relish the immediacy and the artistic control that comes with their creator-owned work.

Criminal fans will be most interested to read what Brubaker says about their upcoming plans.

"The plan is to either do a sci-fi or a period piece crime story after this... depending on what feels most ready whenever we get to the end of Fatale."
 

I'd love to see my favorite comic return with a period piece, but I'm also keenly aware that, in our world, Leo has been languishing in prison for more than six years.

I dig all their collaborations, but the sequel to "Coward" cannot come soon enough for me.