The Fade Out Single-Volume Softcover -- and More Kill Or Be Killed?

With the new issue of Kill Or Be Killed, we got some news on what comes next.  We still have other news we'd like to cover, but they'll have to wait -- hopefully not too long.

The Fade Out returns to stores this fall, perhaps October or November, this time in a single-volume trade paperback.

We guess that, around the same time of this new collection, we'll see the sequel to The Fade Out, as the team's next monthly title.

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While we were finishing our most recent blog post, Ed Brubaker was sending out his latest email newsletter, the first in just over four months.  There's a ton worth reading there, in addition to an extended, five-page preview of the new issue, KOBK #18.

Revealing nothing else about the upcoming project, Brubaker writes, "today I will finally be reading the script for the KILL OR BE KILLED movie adaptation."

He also briefly mentions Too Old To Die Young -- now at the midpoint of its ten-month shoot, "which is I believe the longest shoot ever for a ten episode show with a single director" -- and he directs readers to the show's Instagram feed, which is now quite active. 

And he addresses a reader's question on the changing (and possibly declining) retail market of local comic stores, in a slightly longer answer than what he gave in the back pages of the new issue.

(In the email and in print, he concludes the mini-essay in almost exactly the same way, assuring readers, "Sean and I will keep doing our books as long as people keep buying them... And I hope that’s at least another decade or two.")

The biggest reveal is about this new single-volume softcover for The Fade Out.

I've been researching and planning for a new book, a follow-up to THE FADE OUT for the past six months or so, and I'm happy to announce that in the fall (in time for Christmas shopping even) we'll be releasing a complete edition of THE FADE OUT in paperback. This will collect all 12 chapters under one cover, and a lot of extra stuff, as well... 

This should be out in October or November this year, and I just love this cover Sean did. So keep your eyes peeled and tell your retailers if you want it.  

We previously reported, from his December newsletter, research into the 1950's and television's early golden age for the unconventional sequel to The Fade Out, and, in a subsequent interview, Sean Phillips revealed that this would be the first of two follow-up stories set in the same fictional universe.

If the team's next monthly title starts no earlier than October, it will presumably carry over into the new year.  We seriously doubt Ed Brubaker would commence lengthy research, at the end of 2017, for a book to be created in 2019 or later, so we think it's very reasonable to conclude that their next monthly title is this first follow-up to The Fade Out.

Since this new single-volume trade paperback would be a great way to promote the new series, we'd further speculate that the new title's first issue will come out no more than a month afterward -- and perhaps as early as the very same day.

But even apart from that, we're thrilled to see the story collected as the single graphic novel which it comprises, in an softcover edition presumably priced for a wider readership.

And while the choice of characters and their position is a bit surprising, Ed Brubaker is quite right that the new cover is gorgeous, as is the new design for the title.

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In the newsletter, Ed Brubaker also writes about the project preceding this next monthly title.

As I mentioned in the recent issue's text pages, KILL OR BE KILLED is ending with issue 20 and we'll be announcing our next thing very soon (you'll in fact probably hear of it in issue 20 or this newsletter first). I already have said before one of the things Sean and I have started working on is an OGN - which will be an original hardback, novella length. But I don't want to reveal anything more about it yet.

We're looking forward to the announcement.

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And, in the back pages of KOBK 18, Ed Brubaker drops one more bit of interesting news.

...I think it's been announced already, but some of you may have missed that issue 20 is our final issue (for now, at least).  This arc is actually where a lot of the threads come together, as you'll see the next three [sic] issues.  We may return to KILL OR BE KILLED at some point down the line, but it's time to move on to other stuff.  We have two new things coming out later this year -- first an OGN hardback and then the launch of our next monthly serialized thing.  I'll have more information about this stuff in issue 20.

The planned film adaptation would presumably be limited to this first volume of twenty issues, and we're quite intrigued about the possibility of returning to this world. 

Dylan's story might not end in June -- and even if it does, we may not have seen the last of that demon.

Either way, we do look forward to "another decade or two" from Brubaker and Phillips, reading whatever stories they'd like to tell.

Bullets: New Kill Or Be Killed, New Undertow Podcast, New Edition of Sleeper, and News on Maniac Cop!

Regular readers know the drill:  a new podcast, a new issue from Brubaker and Phillips, and an online preview.

Details are below.

• Undertow Podcast 22 on Kill Or Be Killed 17.  A new episode of The Undertow Podcast was recently released, with a focus on the most recent issue of Kill Or Be Killed.  We covered a few recent news items, specifically the June solicitation for the KOBK finale (which we blogged about last month) and confirmation of the Maniac Cop reboot (covered below).

Robert and I also had some very unconventional recommendations.  We'll come back to those at the end of this post.

As always, The Undertow Podcast is available on iTunes and at Podbean.  We GREATLY appreciate our listeners' giving us feedback and letting others know about the show. 

• Kill Or Be Killed 18 In Stores Today.  Just yesterday, Image Comics updated its page for KOBK 18 by adding a three-page preview.  As shown above, the issue's apparent first page provides a more naturalistic reiteration of the striking cover art, which we now know features the slain body of the copycat vigilante.

This new issue is in stores today, and it seems to feature the return of Detective Lily Sharpe.  We wonder if her investigation of the copycat leads her back to Dylan -- that person of interest she saw at Rex's funeral -- and to his current predicament in a mental institution outside of the city.

One thing we do know, from a tweet from Kim Morgan ten days back, is that the bonus essay is on the 1949 film Too Late For Fears, "one of Lizabeth Scott's greatest roles."  The essay includes a moody illustration from Jacob Phillips, shown below.

• Sleeper Book  In Stores Today.  Serendipitously, KOBK isn't the only new book from Brubaker and Phillips.  From DC Comics, there's the softcover Sleeper Book One, which features what I would classify as the team's first major collaboration -- and it's their only series that has been work-for-hire rather than creator-owned.

Advanced solicited back in December, the book now features a "WildStorm Classic" trade dress, and while the book certainly qualifies as a classic for that larger superhero universe, we also found it to be a remarkably self-contained story. 

The series has been reprinted a few times, along with the prelude story Point Blank, with art by Colin Wilson (though using Sean Phillips' design for the protagonist Holden Carver).

• Originally, the 2003-2005 series was collected in four 6-issue trade paperbacks, with the Point Blank TPB being treated as a separate work. 
• In 2009, the series was collected in two 12-issue TPB's -- Season One and Season Two (for volume two, issues 1-12, with a newly collected Coup D'Etat prologue) -- and Point Blank was officially repackaged as a separate prelude story.
• In 2013, everything was collected in a single, 720-page hardcover omnibus.

Book One collects Point Blank and Season One, and we're sure that there will be a Book Two to complete the series.

I would have guessed that this new trade collection was a bare-bones combination of the two 2009 trade paperbacks, but I've confirmed that includes a few additional features, including an old essay by Brubaker and the complete set of issue-one layouts from Phillips.

Though at some point even we are loathe to collect every new printing of a Brubaker/Phillips work, we're happy to see that the series remains popular enough to justify a new printing every half-decade.

Its super-powered trappings perhaps make it the most accessible Brubaker-Phillips story for fans of the "Big Two" publishers, and fans of the pair's more recent, creator-owned crime comics should definitely check out Sleeper.  I think it's still one of their best works, and I know readers won't be disappointed.

• Exclusive Sleeper print -- and Auctioned Original Artwork! -- at OK Comics.  It'w worth a separate bullet to note that Leeds' OK Comics announced an exclusive print by Sean Phillips, to accompany their copies of the Sleeper Book One softcover.  The print is evidently limited to 50 copies and is signed by the artist.

The online pre-order page hasn't yet been updated, so it's possible the book and print can still be ordered online.

Even better, the page mentions that every order comes with an opportunity to place a blind bid for the print's original artwork from Sean Phillips, signed and framed.

• Maniac Cop Reboot Still Underway.  As we mentioned on the podcast, Birth.Movies.Death. published part of a conversation with director John Hyams on the subject of the Maniac Cop remake, in response to last year's comments from Larry Cohen, the writer of the original cult classic.  Along with some _very_ critical comments about the new screenplay by Ed Brubaker, Cohen made clear his belief that the remake was dead, but Hyams flatly contradicted the assertion.

In short, "it is going to happen."

More specifically, the remake is going to happen after Hyams' eight-episode series in development for Netflix and Too Old To Die Young, the Amazon series now in production from the remake's writer Brubaker and its producer Nicolas Winding Refn.

• Online Curiosities.  Podcast listeners will find that Robert and I had a few, somewhat unusual recommendations this month -- online gems that deserve wider recognition -- and I'd like to close this post with the relevant links.

• Cocaine and Rhinestones is what Robert recommended, "the podcast about the History of Country Music."  It's about the truth "that country music is wild and it is amazing because the people who made it were wild and they were amazing."
• The Auralnauts and their heavily remixed Star Wars Saga was my long-form recommendation.  Not officially part of the three-hour playlist is a Youth Biology PSA featuring their alternate-dimension take on the droids as "mentally unstable sociopaths."
• A mash-up music video from the mysterious YouTube user Isosine is my short-form recommendation:  its brilliance can hardly be described.  It's a perfect earworm, and it's almost impossible to shake it off.

We actually have much, much more to cover here on the blog, but perhaps we'll get to the other items later this week.