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).
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.
We actually have much, much more to cover here on the blog, but perhaps we'll get to the other items later this week.
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.
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.
Labels: bullets, Kill Or Be Killed, Maniac Cop, previews, Sleeper, Too Old To Die Young, Undertow Podcast
posted by Bubba at 2:00 PM
4 Comments:
Hey, guys. Thanks for you hard work on the blog.
Just wanted to share, that the new book by Ed and Sean has already appeared in recent Diamond catalogue.
Here is the screen - https://pp.userapi.com/c830308/v830308419/d6155/_DDis5XAcD8.jpg
VERY, VERY AWESOME!
What a great find -- thank you so very much for the heads-up!
You're welcome :)
Keep up the good work!
P.S. Now it's available on the Amazon as well: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1534308466/
Thanks, and a quick Google search shows that the only other reference -- for now -- is a short Reddit post noticing the Amazon listing.
From his email newsletter and the back pages of the comic, it's clear that Brubaker plans to announce the novella later, closer to the finale for Kill Or Be Killed.
I think he should probably move up his plans, but either way, we'll probably wait for that announcement to post about the book.
But, really, I cannot thank you enough for the tip -- and I'm sure neither can any of our readers who dig into the comments. :)
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