Reckless: Brief Biographical Timelines

Note: If you've received a copy of the Neo Noir comic book, see my previous post for more info.

Our friend Robert Watson has just posted the latest episode of the Undertow Podcast, where we focus on Follow Me Down, the fifth book in the Reckless series. This is the final book in this particular run as Brubaker and Phillips take a break to publish Night Fever and possibly other books, including perhaps the long-awaited follow-up to The Fade Out.

This seems as good a time as any for me to summarize some notes I've taken, to produce a timeline (or three!) for the main characters and the central location in the series. I'll try to avoid serious spoilers for the Reckless books.

Ethan Reckless

1950-1951, born

With his father in Naval Intelligence, Ethan lived in Sterling Park, Virginia; Berlin, Germany; Oahu, Hawaii; and "half of the 60's" in Gitmo -- Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Ethan was recruited by the FBI to infiltrate radical groups in college, using the alias "Donovan Rush" and working with Special Agent Frank Hancock.

1967-1968, ~age 17, spent his first year in college at UC Berkeley

1971, June, ~age 21, while working undercover, suffered a serious head injury from an explosion

Ethan soon left the FBI, and Ethan's father was never again promoted after 1972.

1975, ~age 25, began working for hire, as an unlicensed private investigator and fixer of problems

1979, ~age 29, befriended Anna

1981, ~age 31, Reckless (book 1)

Ethan revisits coastal town Santa Teresa, an apparently fictional town that was mentioned as a "vacation village" in the Criminal novella My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies.

Ethan stopped speaking with his father around this time; his father died before Christmas, 1984.

Frank Hancock retired from the FBI and suffered a stroke.

1985, Summer, ~age 36, Friend of the Devil

1988, April-August, age 37 (stated explicitly), Destroy All Monsters

1989, November, age 38, The Ghost In You & Follow Me Down

2004, Summer, age 54, concluding chapters to Follow Me Down

c. 2021, about age 71, during the pandemic, Ethan types his memoirs

Anna

1962, born

Anna's father worked as the projectionist at the El Ricardo theater.

1968-1972, ~age 6-10, watched Evilina on local channel 14

1975, age 12 (stated explicitly), father died

Anna's mother Sharon would have a series of unhealthy relationships with boyfriends and husbands.

1979, age 17 (stated explicitly), befriended Ethan; was previously a runaway

1988, age 26 (stated explicitly), had a brief falling out with Ethan, moved to east LA and then back

1989, age 27, works first case as the primary investigator, for Lorna "Evilina" Valentine

Christmas Eve, Sharon marries for at least the third time, with Anna as a bridesmaid.

the El Ricardo theater

The El Ricardo is located on Strand Street in Santa Monica.

1974, closes for the first time

1979, is given to Ethan Reckless by a client; Ethan moves into the theater

1988, is damaged and renovated; Ethan gives the theater to Anna, who reopens it for curated showings

c. 1999, closes for the second time

This second closing may have been prompted by the tragedy mentioned at the end of Destroy All Monsters.

FRIDAY and the Rest of 2020: New Podcast, Newsletter, Deluxe Editions, AND a Digital Book from Brubaker!

Early April saw the release of the latest Undertow Podcast, featuring our review of Criminal #12, the explosive finale of the sprawling "Cruel Summer" arc.  We hope our listeners enjoy the discussion even half as much as Robert and I did.

During the podcast, we raised some questions we had about Amazon listings for upcoming releases, and we happened to get some answers last week from an email newsletter sent out by Ed Brubaker.

That newsletter opened with bigger, MUCH more immediately pressing news, and we'll follow suit here, with the Criminal news at the end of the post.

Ed Brubaker's Brand New Comic FRIDAY

In the last few years, a handful of high-profile creators have released works suddenly, without any prior press or announcement.  Beyonce famously did this in December, 2013, with her self-titled "visual album," and U2 infamously did something similar the following September, "gifting" their album Songs of Innocence to a half billion iTunes customers.

With hardcopy comic books generally requiring solicitations and retailer pre-orders, such surprise releases are quite rare: the only example that comes to mind is Robert Kirkman's July, 2018, release of Die! Die! Die!

(Kirkman avoided the usual process by giving copies of the debut issue to retailers, matching the number of copies ordered for March's Oblivion Song #1. The writer followed up the surprise debut the very next July with the sudden end of The Walking Dead at issue #193).

Digital comics are an entirely different animal, and on April 15th, Ed Brubaker announced the immediate release of the first "chapter" (or issue) of FRIDAY, a new series with Spanish artist Marcos Martin.

Marcos Martin has spent more than twenty years in the industry, primarily for the Big Two publishers.  Martin and writer Brian K. Vaughan created Panel Syndicate to distribute "digital comics directly from creators to readers."  In 2013, the pair debuted the first title for the site,The Private Eye, with coloring by Muntsa Vicente.  The series won both an Eisner and a Harvey, and the site has since expanded to feature other series, other creators, and a one-shot for The Walking Dead.

Now, Martin and Vincente are joining writer Ed Brubaker to create FRIDAY.

In his newsletter, Brubaker relays that he's been working on this project for nearly a year: "Close readers will have noticed me mentioning a secret project with one of my favorite artists here and there, and this is it."

(We're not sure what's become of the "top secret" project with Steve Epting, post-Velvet, mentioned almost five years ago this month.)

Along with Ed's email newsletter, a few news sites announced the book Wednesday morning. The AV Club includes the same four-page preview found in the newsletter and at Panel Syndicate.  Meanwhile The Hollywood Reporter quotes Brubaker on how the series originated in a request from Martin to work on "his next big thing for Panel Syndicate," followed by Brubaker's immediate and enthusiastic response.

That same Wednesday, CBR published the official press release, the source of those quotes from the creators.  Martin elaborates that the pair previously collaborated for a Captain America annual (evidently the 65th Anniversary Special), a brief but satisfying experience.

The press release also gives us the title of this first chapter: "The Girl in the Trees."

CBR has since posted a few more articles on the new series.

• Thursday, Aaron Fentress provides a spoilery look at the first chapter, suggesting that the series aims to deconstruct YA fiction much the way Watchmen deconstructed costumed superheroes, causing the characters to age and leave their comfort zone in a manner similar to the humorous Adult Swim cartoon The Venture Bros.
• Friday, Sam Stone previewed an "upcoming exclusive interview" with Marcos Martin, explaining that the recent health crisis briefly delayed the series' release and simultaneously motivated its immediate publication: the quarantine "was a determining factor to put it out now instead of waiting around until later because we felt it would be good for the industry and most definitely, our mental health."
• Saturday, Collier Jennings previewed an upcoming interview with Ed Brubaker, discussing the Young Adult genre and its strange but comforting trope of "kids just living this endless youth as the decades around them change."  In what the writer has coined "post-YA," Brubaker is "just taking those same types of teen heroes, and allowing them to grow up and exist in the real world around them, to allow the strange occult mysteries they investigate to become actual horror stories."
• Sunday, Fentress drops even more spoilers to compare the series to True Detective, with both evidently having roots in the same kind of horror stories.

(Also, on Friday, CBR published Ed Brubaker's response to the rumor that Shang-Chi's parentage has been changed for the upcoming MCU release.)

Just today, CBR published the complete interview they previously teased, an exclusive, joint interview with Brubaker and Martin.  Brubaker traces the lineage of horror and occult stories in YA fiction and children's stories, and he elaborates that the pair's earlier collaboration was very brief indeed:  "He and Javier [Pulido? Rodriguez?] jumped in at the last minute when an artist blew a deadline on a Cap annual, and they saved us by alternating chapters."

The process for the new book has been much more deliberately paced, and Martin says that he especially enjoyed "the mixture of the Lovecraftian New Englandish town and the early 70s," the latter caused Muntsa Vicente to change her approach to coloring "with no use of gradients at all and limiting her palette to just 128 colors like the old comics of the late 70s."

The interview closes with Martin's hopes for Panel Syndicate, and we can't help but think Friday will help the site expand its readership.  Yesterday, Brubaker sent out a "quick note of thanks" for the overwhelming response to the book -- and he linked to two additional stories.

• Calling the book a "gripping read" with special praise for the artwork, Volume 1 Brooklyn apparently conducted their own interview with the creators: Brubaker notes the freedom in page length which the digital format affords him, and Martin relayed the positive response to Panel Syndicate, even from retailers and publishers who can "make more sensible and informed decisions in regards to the product they wanted to print and put out physically.
• Giving a rating of 10 out of 10, Comics Bookcase calls Friday "damn good," and "the best debut issue of any comic I’ve read this year."

The Bottom Line on FRIDAY

There's a lot to read about Brubaker's new series, but it may be useful to highlight the main points.

The Panel Syndicate page for the series provides an excellent summary of its premise (emphasis mine).

Friday Fitzhugh spent her childhood solving crimes and digging up occult secrets with her best friend Lancelot Jones, the smartest boy in the world. But that was the past, now she's in college, starting a new life on her own. Except when Friday comes home for the holidays, she's immediately pulled back into Lance's orbit and finds that something very strange and dangerous is happening in their little New England town...

This is literally the Christmas vacation from Hell and neither of them may survive to see the New Year.

What do we know about the comic's format and availability?

• Chapter One, "The Girl in the Trees," is out now, in multiple formats -- "No DRM, no encryption, just plain files optimised for on-screen viewing" -- and is available in English and in Spanish.
• In line with Panel Syndicate's publishing model, you PAY WHAT YOU WANT for the book, including the option of not paying at all: PayPal used for payment, and you do NOT need a PayPal account to complete the purchase.
• This first issue is listed at 30 pages, with 26 pages of story and concluding with a two-page note from the writer.
• Per Ed Brubaker, "The plan is to release the chapters digitally as we finish them, and then put out the whole graphic novel from IMAGE in a beautiful hardback edition (with lots of extras) for comic shops and bookstores."

We suspect that the title alludes to the 1995 comedy starring Ice Cube and Chris Tucker the 1940 screwball comedy His Girl Friday.  Citing a book of essays on the director Howard Hawks, Wikipedia helpfully explains that the title is ironic "because a girl 'Friday' represents a servant of a master, but [ace reporter] Hildy [Johnson] is not a servant in the film, but rather the equal to Walter [Jones, editor and ex-husband]."

And this isn't the first time that Ed Brubaker has riffed on Encyclopedia Brown -- or YA fiction for that matter, if you count Archie Comics.  "The Last of the Innocent" introduced Britt Black, but since Lancelot Jones is different prodigy P.I., all grown up (or growing up), we might not be in the same world as Criminal, and we certainly can't be sure who might or might not make it to the story's conclusion.

CRIMINAL Collections, Coming Soonish

In that newsletter from last week, Ed Brubaker relays that the upcoming hardcopy books are "sitting in limbo" at the printer, both Pulp and the "oversized hardback of CRUEL SUMMER."

While we're waiting for Pulp, Brubaker has treated newsletter readers with a new but brief, three-panel preview of the story, but it's the "Cruel Summer" collection that intrigues us most.

So far as we know, that book has not yet been officially announced.

As we mentioned in the Undertow Podcast, James Joshua Hall reached out to us through Twitter to direct our attention to a few new listings on Amazon.

For posterity's sake, and in case the listings change, here's what we currently have:

Cruel Summer hardcover

expected July 21, 2020
list price $34.99

BRUBAKER and PHILLIPS' CRIMINAL epic, collected in a gorgeous hardback edition.

In the summer of '88, Teeg Lawless comes home to plan the biggest heist of his career. But Teeg's son Ricky and his friends are starting down the same dark path their fathers are on, and this is about to become the worst summer of their lives.

An epic tale of tragedy handed down from generation-to-generation, CRUEL SUMMER is a crime comic masterpiece from the most-celebrated noir masters in the industry, creators of CRIMINAL, FATALE, KILL OR BE KILLED and THE FADE OUT.

Collects CRIMINAL issues 1 and 5 - 12 in a beautiful new hardback edition, with additional behind the scenes material.

Criminal Volume 8: Three Sharp Knocks paperback

expected December 29, 2020
list price $16.99

The debut appearance of one of the most important characters in CRIMINAL history, RICKY LAWLESS, in three heartbreaking tales of crime and family.

Collects CRIMINAL (Image Comics) #1-4.

The June solicitations were (and still are) the most recent solicits for Image Comics, and the list of upcoming books did not include any advance solicitations for Criminal books, for July or later.

We found these two Amazon listings quite odd.

We're not sure why the "Cruel Summer" collection would include the untitled issue #1 but not "Orphans" from issue #4: both served as a kind of prologue to the "Cruel Summer" arc, explicitly looking forward (or backwards) to the violent death of Teeg Lawless.

We also can't quite understand why the next numbered TPB for Criminal would overlap with this "Cruel Summer" collection (with issue #1) and the "Bad Weekend" expanded hardcover (issues #2-3).

While we pondered those questions, JJH reached out again last Monday, pointing us to yet another new listing on Amazon, albeit one with "no image available":

Criminal Deluxe Edition, Volume 3 Hardcover

expected October 27, 2020
list price $49.99

BRUBAKER and PHILLIPS' hard-to-find CRIMINAL hardbacks are finally back in print, and joining them is the long-awaited CRIMINAL: DELUXE EDITION, VOL. 3.

This oversized deluxe hardback collects several short stories and novellas from the most award-winning team in the history of comics in a fantastically-designed book full of extras -- illustrations, selected articles, interviews, behind the scenes looks, painted covers... and much much more! Collects the SAVAGE SWORD OF CRIMINAL and DEADLY HANDS OF CRIMINAL magazines, the novellas MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN JUNKIES and BAD WEEKEND, and issues 1 and 4 of the newest run of the CRIMINAL monthly series, two full length short stories about the LAWLESS family.

A true collector's edition must-have for any fan of the best in crime comics.

Effectively, the book would appear to collect Volume 7 ("Wrong Time, Wrong Place"), Junkies, the forthcoming Volume 8, and presumably the ten new pages in the Bad Weekend hardcover.

(Would the book also include the extra material from the two magazine-sized variants for the "Savage Sword" and "Deadly Hands" one-shots?)

If we were compiling the next deluxe edition, we're not sure we would separate the stories in issues #1 and #4 from the "Cruel Summer" arc since, again, we find that they serve as excellent prologues to the sprawling death-of-Teeg story.

Presumably the "Cruel Summer" arc is too long for inclusion in the third deluxe volume, and since a return to the world of Criminal has already been promised, perhaps the story would kick off an eventual fourth deluxe edition.

In the meantime, Brubaker's newsletter has shed more light on the upcoming releases, even if there's still some uncertainty.

Ed writes about (quote) "our oversized hardback of CRUEL SUMMER" and we wonder if this larger size matches the deluxe editions rather than the slightly smaller hardcovers for Junkies and Bad Weekend.  If so, and if the Amazon listing is right that the book includes "additional behind the scenes material," this hardcover is EFFECTIVELY a thinner Deluxe Edition, Volume 4 -- or perhaps a Volume 3 1/2, a placeholder for the next few years.

(It may be a while. The oldest story expected in Volume 3, the Special Edition "Savage Sword" one-shot, was originally released in early 2015. It's taking more than five years for the story to find its way into a deluxe edition.)

And, Ed treats fans to Sean Phillps' brand-new wraparound cover art for Criminal: The Deluxe Edition Volume 2, shown above.  It's gorgeous, a montage combining elements from the volume's three story arcs.

He confirms that these new editions are scheduled for the fall, and he confirms Volume 3: "We've got new designs [emphasis mine] and covers for the first two books (out of print for nearly a decade now) and a new third volume to join them, finally."

So, two out of the three Amazon listings have been partially confirmed by Ed Brubaker to one degree or another, with the 8th TPB "Three Sharp Knocks" not yet addressed.

We can't wait to open up the new deluxe editions and see what's changed.

In the meantime, we'll keep an eye out for any new information on these collected editions, and we'll pass them along as quickly as our hectic lives allow.

---

UPDATE, 4/23:   On Twitter, Sean Phillips kindly answered the lingering questions we raised here.

First, he tackled the mysterious Amazon listings:

That paperback listing is incorrect, we don’t have another Criminal trade planned. Cruel Summer is out first followed by the three Deluxe Editions, all over-sized hardcovers.

Then, he answered my follow-up question about the relative sizes of the upcoming hardcovers:

Cruel Summer is the same size as the Deluxe Editions

That does make the "Cruel Summer" hardcover a kind of Volume 3 1/2.

So, in summary, Brubaker and Phillips will release four oversized hardcovers in the remainder of 2020.

• Criminal: The Deluxe Edition Volume 1, 2nd edition
• Includes a new design AND a new cover
• Collects Criminal (2006) #1-10 & Criminal (2008) #1-3
• "Coward" 
• "Lawless" 
• "The Dead and the Dying"
• Likely still includes the short story "No One Rides for Free"
• Criminal: The Deluxe Edition Volume 2, 2nd edition
• Includes a new design AND a new cover
• Collects Criminal (2008) #4-7 and two mini-series 
• "Bad Night" 
• "The Sinners" 
• "The Last of the Innocent"
• Likely still includes the short story "21st Century Noir"
• Criminal: The Deluxe Edition Volume 3
• Brand new collection 
• Likely collects two one-shot issues, one OGN, and Criminal (2018) #1-4
• "Wrong Time, Wrong Place" (Special Edition & 10th Anniversary Special)
• "My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies"
• Untitled Teeg & Ricky story, set in 1987
• "Bad Weekend"
• "Orphans"
• Not clear how much will be included from the one-shot magazine variants and the expanded OGN HC edition of "Bad Weekend," which included ten extra pages
• Criminal: Cruel Summer
• Brand new collection
• Collects Criminal (2018) #5-12
• Might also collect at least one of the related prologue issues, #1 & #4

All four hardcovers will be the same size, comprising a complete library of the first 18+ years of the Criminal comic book.  The "Cruel Summer" hardcover will come first (possibly late July), followed by the three deluxe collections perhaps around October.

And all this is in addition to the brand-new collaboration Pulp, a hardcover, original graphic novel originally scheduled for May 20th.

KOBK Deluxe and Criminal Reprints.

I've been AWOL for far too long, having missed both the recording and the release of the latest episode of The Undertow Podcast, reviewing Criminal #7 back in September.  Life is hectic even at its best, but we're hopeful that we're getting back in the swing of things.

Dipping our toes in the water, we find that the big news this week is the release of the oversized, deluxe hardcover of Brubaker and Phillips' vigilante thriller, Kill Or Be Killed.  The book arrives a week past its original solicitation date, and it's the largest deluxe edition released by the team, with more than 600 pages collecting all twenty issues along with Sean Phillips' artwork for the covers, the bonus essays, and more.

In a newsletter sent out this week, Ed Brubaker writes that the book has a sewn spine and doesn't feel too big despite its page length -- and he has nothing but praise for the final product.

Honestly, I can't express how well this book came together. From cover-to-cover, just a gorgeous package. Sean really outdid himself on the design.

As my wife has already been gently reminded, the book will make a great Christmas gift for the hardcore fan of Brubaker and Phillips, but we also have a few other Criminal-related reprints on our radar.

Earlier this month, Image Comics released its third Image Firsts Compendium, a trade paperback collecting a handful of its $1 reprints -- evidently as just a bundle of the individual dollar printings.  As with the first volume and its inclusion of The Fade Out, this collection features Brubaker and Phillips, this time with August's reprint of the debut issue of Criminal from 2006, whose now iconic cover art graces the top half of the trade collection's cover. Collecting eight first issues and retailing for only $5.99, the collection is an even better bargain than the individual Image Firsts reprints, and so it makes a great introduction to some of the publisher's high-profile creator-owned comics.

In his newsletter, Brubaker relays that the original hardcover release is now out of print(!), so the softcover edition of My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies is on its way.  This Criminal novella is currently scheduled for a December 4th release, moved from the original solicited date of November 13th.  Brubaker says this new printing is still special despite its soft cover, with the same "raw paper stock" and French flaps on the covers -- and the newsletter's small image of the cover suggests that branding will emphasize the book's Eisner Award for Best New Graphic Album.

And, one thing I haven't seen Brubaker mention is a very interesting, exclusive news item from The Beat: on October 22nd, the site posted a press release from Dark Horse Books, announcing a new hardcover printing of its Noir anthology.  Originally published as a trade paperback in 2009, Noir: A Collection of Crime Comics featured 120 pages of original black-and-white crime stories, including a six-page Criminal "emission," the first and (so far) only such story without a colorist.  "21st Century Noir" was included in the second deluxe hardcover collection for Criminal, but it has otherwise been hard to track down, and this printing -- in hardcover, and scheduled for a July 22nd release -- will introduce new readers to this rather brutal story, along with quite a few gems from other great creators.

And those looking for new material from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips won't have long to wait.   Criminal #10 is scheduled to reach stores this Wednesday, and Brubaker has already shared four preview pages; after that, issue #11 is scheduled for a Christmas release, and the almost certainly bloody conclusion to "Cruel Summer" is scheduled for the middle of winter, specifically the last week of January.

We're quite looking forward to it.

Criminal #7 Out Today, An Undertow Review of Criminal #1-6, and More!

We've been expecting another email newsletter from Ed Brubaker -- so far, nothing yet -- but we have plenty to cover as the latest issue of Criminal reaches stores today.

Yesterday, Newsarama posted an extensive preview of Criminal #7, a six-page preview supplementing the three pages already seen at Image's website. The preview focuses on four very familiar faces, and we believe this is the first time we've seen the entire group of friends together -- Leo Patterson, Ricky Lawless, Jacob Kurtz, and Jenny (Jen) Waters.

(L-R) Jenny, Leo, Jacob, Ricky

(Tracy continues to be MIA; he's been mentioned in narration, but I don't believe we've seen him at all in this new ongoing series.  I wonder what the surly but capable older brother has been up to.  Since it seems their father's murder led directly to Tracy's less-than-voluntary military enlistment -- and another stay in juvie for Ricky -- we strongly suspect that we see Tracy's return before Teeg's tragic end.)

Much like characters in Stranger Things, also set in the mid-1980's, our quartet has a now-strained Sunday routine playing Dungeons & Dragons; naturally, Jacob is the DM. The title for this chapter of "Cruel Summer" -- "Must Be This Tall to Ride" -- may hint at the transition from childhood to adulthood, from relative innocence to a life of crime.

(It's the same transition Jacob noticed in "Bad Weekend," in a long narration that was entirely reworked for the expanded hardcover release.  In both versions, Jacob took two very different paths to note how Ricky had changed over the years, following in his father's violent footsteps.)

The title also reminds us of the amusement-park sign which was prominently featured in The John Larroquette Show, in the office of the sardonic main character, a recovering alcoholic:

"This is a Dark Ride."

That pretty much sums up Criminal, for that matter, and Robert and I recently reviewed the entire first half of 2019 in an extensive, two-part episode of The Undertow Podcast. 

• Episode 33 came out at the beginning of the month, covering the latest news, looking back at the first four issues -- two of which serve as a kind of prologue to "Cruel Summer"; the other two having been collected and expanded in the "Bad Weekend" -- and looking closely at Criminal #5, "Night of the Hunter."
• Out just last week, Episode 34 provides a similarly in-depth review of Criminal #6, "Song to the Siren," and concludes with recommendations for a couple recent films, both featuring Liam Neeson.

In the news, we covered Deadline's July 17th article announcing Ed Brubaker's deal with Legendary TV Studios adapting his creator-owned comics, and we mentioned the most recent award for those comics, the Best (New) Graphic Album Eisner for My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies, announced at the San Diego Comic-Con.

We also took a look ahead, first at Image's October solicitations and then at some very exciting news for 2020.   The former includes a 10/23 release for Criminal #9 as well as advance solicitations for TWO collections, both due on November 13th: the softcover for Junkies, retailing at $13, and the deluxe single-volume hardcover for Kill Or Be Killed, retailing at $50. 

Separately, Bleeding Cool's San Diego Comic-Con coverage made note of a few special projects from IDW, and the most eye-catching announcement was for the four Parker adaptations from the late, great Darwyn Cooke:  the first two books had already been collected in the deluxe Martini Edition, and it's going back to print next year alongside a new "Last Call" Martini Edition for the final two books, with design and additional writing coming from Sean Phillips and Ed Brubaker!

 We couldn't conceive of a better way to conclude the "Martini" editions of these instant-classic comics, brilliantly adapting the best novels from the late Donald Westlake, aka Richard Stark.

Since then, we have seen that Junkies has been nominated for a 2019 Harvey Award, announced just  last week.  Comprising just six categories, the awards will be announced on October 4th during the New York Comic Con, and My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies is one of ten nominees for "Book of the Year."

We also saw the August 7th release of the "Image Firsts" edition of Criminal #1, and we confirmed that the issue -- explicitly designed by Sean Phillips -- is a bare-bones reproduction of the very first issue of the creator owned series, chapter one of "Coward" from late 2006.  The issue omits the bonus essay, a marvelous journal entry written from Gnarly's point of view, and instead the issue includes ad pages for the entire, sprawling Criminal saga.

(We wonder if "Coward" ties into "Cruel Summer" more than we expect:  the current story is leading up quite explicitly to Teeg's murder, and we wonder if we'll see a few more familiar faces on the way.)

Finally, we've also seen a few recent interviews from Ed Brubaker, resulting from his San Diego appearance.  On July 30th, Newsarama posted a text interview, discussing screenwriting and his exclusive deal with Image, how the Lawless family is an effed-up "funhouse mirror reflection" of his own family(!) and how Criminal #8, still due on September 25th, is the approximate midpoint for "Cruel Summer." 

On August 7th, SyFyWire published a three-minute video interview with Brubaker at Comic-Con, about the origins behind "Bad Weekend," namely the great comic-book artists and their tragic histories, including the fatal car accident that is fictionalized in his recent Criminal tale -- a 1956 accident, in which 46-year-old Alex Raymond died while driving Stan Drake's Corvette. 

We see that Cerebus creator Dave Sim began telling the story of "The Strange Death of Alex Raymond" in his self-published book Glamourpuss, from 2008 to 2012.  By 2014, Sim was seeking support through Patreon for the work-in-progress, with plans to publish through IDW, but the latest update I could find is from 2014:  with about 90 pages complete, enough for two volumes, the book may be legally unpublishable because of copyright concerns, but Sim continues working on it, "a strictly creative, non-commercial thing to noodle away at for the rest of my life."

Apparently Sim isn't the only person fascinated by the tragic tale, an extreme example of what Brubaker calls the "tragic limbo" in which great artists have hardly prospered from their much beloved work.

Bad Weekend Exclusives at England's OK Comics and San Diego's Comic Con!

Last week we mentioned how had real trouble tracking down the signed bookplate included with Bad Weekend for retailers ordering a particular number of copies.  There are four stores on our own internal "radar" for the Atlanta metro area, and none had ordered enough.

(I have no doubt that more than enough had been ordered between them, and this would have been a perfect opportunity for the stores to have pooled their resources.)

But we noticed that a few exclusives have been offered through OK Comics out of Leeds, England:  their copies of Bad Weekend have included the bookplate we've already noted, a second bookplate -- a store-exclusive, also signed by the three creators -- and a store-exclusive postcard advertising Jacob Phillips' Past is Prologue, expected from Image Comics next year.

As of last week, they also still had signed copies of Criminal #1.

That second bookplate is apparently limited to 100 prints, and it bears a close resemblance to the candidate cover which Sean Phillips preferred but was rejected for a color scheme too closely matching the previous hardcover novella, My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies.

OK Comics has been advertising the book on its A-frame sidewalk sign, shown below.  Apparently they originally ordered sixty(!) copies, and more than three-fourths of the store's initial stock sold that Wednesday. Even with putting a hold on mail orders that Friday, the store quickly sold out of its initial stock by Sunday.

The store now has more copies in stock and they're once again taking new orders by mail. We can confirm that they accept PayPal and they DO ship internationally.

If you're interested in ordering Bad Weekend from Leeds' OK Comics, email Jared at shop@okcomics.co.uk.

On the other side of the pond -- and a couple mountain ranges past that -- there's another Bad Weekend exclusive being offered at San Diego's Comic-Con International, which has a preview tonight prior to its official opening tomorrow.

Image Comics announced their con-exclusive merchandise, panels, and signing schedule just last Friday.  Among the exclusive items available at booth #1915 is a "jacketed hardcover" edition of Bad Weekend, with jacket art by Sean Phillips, for the usual retail price of $16.99.

Shown above, the jacket art simulates a "special collector's edition" collection of Danny Dagger stories from Hal Crane, the subject of Bad Weekend.  The jacket wraps around the covers, with the fake book's description and its author's bio folded inside, and the jacket features the same worn look -- and, we suspect, the exact same digital weathering effect -- found on previous magazine-sized variants for Criminal and The Fade Out.

Ed Brubaker is attending the convention this year, on its 50th anniversary, and he sent out a newsletter late yesterday with the schedule for his appearances at the Image booth.

It's mostly the same schedule as last week's press release -- with one additional 10:00 am signing on Saturday, July 20th -- and the Image story notes that the signings are 45-60 minutes, and are "ticketed" events requiring wristbands given out on a first-come, first-served basis.

Brubaker also notes that the jacketed copies of Bad Weekend will be available to people who buy the book "while they last."

Please note: there are only a few hundred of these printed for the convention, I believe, so they will go fast - I don't even have one yet. I hope to escape with a copy or two when no one at the booth is looking.

By our watch, the first signing is just about to begin.

It's worth mentioning that Friday night, July 19th, is awards night at Comic-Con, with the 31st annual Eisner Awards.  Image Comics made history sweeping the "Best New Series" category, and a couple other nominations caught our particular attention.

• My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies was nominated for Best New Graphic Album.
• Sean Phillips was nominated for Best Penciller/Inker for his work on Kill Or Be Killed as well as Junkies.

We're sure we'll have more later about the Eisners and a few other items from Brubaker's newsletter, which includes a three-page in-progress preview of Criminal #7, details on a couple August appearances, and a link to a his recent commentary-track podcast for Bad Weekend.

Criminal #4 Out Now: A Podcast, A Preview, and A Close Look at Coloring.

The next issue of Brubaker and Phillips' new ongoing Criminal comic is out today, and we have a few interesting links for the occasion.

It feels like we can't truly close the book on the previous issue without The Undertow Podcast, and, over the weekend, Episode 31 was released, featuring a review *Criminal* #3, the conclusion to "Bad Weekend" in its original "theatrical cut."

We also had a few recommendations.  Mine were short stories, starting with Lawrence Block's "One Thousand Dollars a Word," about a crime writer weary of being paid the scant rate of five cents a word, incidentally the same rate that Block was paid when the story first appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine in 1978.  More substantially, I also recommended Kwik Krimes (note the spelling), a 2013 anthology edited by Otto Penzler, featuring 81 crime stories, each in a bite-size length of no more than 1,000 words.  Both recommendations are currently available in Kindle format; Block's story sells for $2.99, and the Kwik Krimes anthology is on sale for the astounding price of $1.49.

Robert recommended a brand new crime comic from Titan Comics, Tyler Cross Volume 2: Angola, a self-contained sequel to another "Tyler Cross" comic, Black Rock.  Both comics are from Fabien Nury, the French writer of The Death of Stalin, a graphic novel adapted in a 2017.  Titan Comics has published the English-language translations of these comics, and the two Tyler Cross books have been released under the label of Hard Case Crime, the must-read imprint specializing in classic and new hardboiled crime fiction.

(In the podcast, I noted that HCC editor Charles Ardai contributed to Kwik Krimes, along with a couple other familiar names, such as Ken Bruen and Christa Faust -- both published by Hard Case Crime -- but I just noticed that Ardai actually contributed a second story under a familiar *cough* alias.)

Next up is info straight from the source, a new email newsletter from Ed Brubaker, sent out Monday.  It begins with an extended, six-page preview, which we exercpt above.

This preview is longer than what we saw in the newsletter from last month (still worth a look for in-process art from other pages), and we learn that this self-contained story is ominously titled "Orphans."

(EDIT: Also on Monday, Kim Morgan gave Twitter followers a look at Sean Phillips' illustration, below, for the issue's bonus essay, on "William Wellman's depression-era pre-code [film], the tough and sensitive and beautiful, 'Wild Boys of the Road'," from 1933.)

Brubaker also relays that the following story has a new title, just as the previous story's title changed from "The Longest Weekend" to "Bad Weekend."  This upcoming arc was referred to as "The Summer of '88" in the solicitations for issues #5 and #6, but it's now titled "Cruel Summer."

(That's the title of a top-ten pop song by Bananarama, released in 1983 and peaking in the U.S. in 1984, after its inclusion in The Karate Kid.  Ace of Base covered the song in 1998, and the cover also reached the top ten in the UK and the US.  But the closest tie to this long Criminal arc might be a "new jack swing" makeover by Bananarama, which charted throughout Europe.  That song was released in -- you guessed it! -- 1989.)

...now that we think about it, the newsletter didn't begin with "Orphans," it began with the artwork shown above, which we haven't seen before.  It appears to be an upcoming cover, and its monochrome coloring and black background fits with what we've seen for the first two covers to "Cruel Summer," repeated below.

We wonder if the image is of Ricky Lawless from that fateful summer of 1988, and I'm sure we'll find out soon enough; the August solicitations will likely be released in the second half of May.

Brubaker continues his newsletter with some inside info on the Bad Weekend hardcover.  The announcement seemed to come out of nowhere, and that's because the idea wasn't from the team, it was from Image Comics publisher Eric Stephenson.  It sounds like the book is already complete -- finished very quickly during the production of issues #4 and #5 -- and Brubaker includes a few panels from the new content, which includes revised dialogue and narration.

Ed Brubaker is practically gushing over the upcoming hardcover, writing, "the book is gorgeous, and we're really proud of it, to the point we nearly killed ourselves getting it done in time."

He also discusses the other big project in the news, Too Old To Die Young, revealing that the Cannes screening will be of episodes 4 and 5 under the single subtitle of "North of Hollywood, West of Hell," and not as separate episode titles.

He also warns fans about the new series and has some recommended viewing in advance of the "hypnotic and surreal" Amazon series:

"Watch VALHALLA RISING, watch DRIVE, watch NEON DEMON, and ONLY GOD FORGIVES. Refn's movies are very divisive, and he's completely fine with that. They're more like insane European midnight movies from the 60s and 70s than anything you'd normally see on TV or a streaming platform, and this show is not in any way like a typical streaming show."

And, in addition to sharing a few random links -- some, very random -- Ed Brubaker strongly recommends that fans not take any chances in hunting down Criminal...

"[Criminal #4 is] out this week, and sadly, I've been getting a lot of emails from readers having trouble finding the issues. Lots of reports of first-day sellouts. So you may want to call your comic shop and make sure they hold one for you or place a standing order.

"I hate to be that 'pre-order your comics' guy, but the market is tightening its belt right now, and many retailers are ordering to sell out immediately. So if you want CRIMINAL every month, make sure your shop knows. Even comics' smartest retailers cannot read your mind."

...and he has a similar request regarding Bad Weekend, asking readers, "Please order it from your local comic shop or bookstore."

Finally, there's a great YouTube video from February that we had overlooked, and we can't recommend it enough:  Strip Panel Naked has a nine-minute video, embedded below, on the history of colorists in the collaborations of Brubaker and Phillips.

It's not comprehensive -- Dave Stewart isn't mentioned, nor is every work analyzed, including Incognito and Fatale -- but the video is surprisingly wide-ranging, from Tony Avina and Sleeper to Val Staples and early Criminal, to Elizabeth Breitweiser with The Fade Out and Kill or Be Killed, and now Jacob Phillips with Junkies and the newest incarnation of Criminal.

Strip Panel Naked takes a very different approach from The Undertow Podcast. While we tend to focus on individual works, Hassan compares and contrasts more than fifteen years of content, and while we're limited to audio discussions, he can show as well as tell, with eight example pages.

In short, the inks and the colors have slowly become less realistic and more impressionistic, but they continue to complement each other. 

(I would add that these different approaches have never been at the expense of clarity in storytelling and characterization, and the work of these talented colorists argues against any future black-and-white reprints.)

It's a helluva video, and we hope that we can get a few more eyes to this channel, which we're just beginning to explore for ourselves.

Bullets: Catching Up on the Last Two Months

Someday I'll actually have enough of a routine in my life that I'll be able to blog consistently, without these long pauses.

(Someday, yeah, I'll get it right...)

In the meantime, here's a brief look back at the last ten weeks or so, put together while we were prepping for the next episode of The Undertow Podcast and gearing up for the next issue of Criminal.

• February 21st, Image's May solicitations were released, with nothing listed for Brubaker and Phillips.  We were surprised to see a "skip month" this soon, as the team's five-week schedule had us expecting a new issue on May 29th, and we wonder if the timing had anything to do with the  previously announced appearances at NCSFest in California, over the weekend of May 17th.

(The May solicits weren't a complete wash for us.  As big fans of the sci-fi book Planetoid, we're thrilled to see that creator Ken Garing is back with Gogor, described as a high-fantasy series for teens and announced with its own press release and, earlier, an interview with Garing.)

• March 7th, Sean Phillips announced the single-volume deluxe hardcover for Kill Or Be Killed, with a simple tweet pointing to an Amazon listing and posting the cover art, shown below, reusing the artwork from issue #5 and the second trade collection ("Volume 2").

The Amazon listing describes the book as "'Catcher in the Rye' meets 'Death Wish' in a dark take on the vigilante genre that became a cracked reflection of the world around us."

The description confirms that the single-volume hardcover "contains the entire KILL OR BE KILLED story, as well as the behind the scenes extras and artwork."   The page notes a total of 584 pages, a retail price of $59.99, and a scheduled release date of November 19th.

The 24 issues of Fatale were ultimately collected in two deluxe-edition hardcovers, and the 12 issues of The Fade Out are found in a single hardcover, so we were wondering how many deluxe editions would comprise the single story of Kill Or Be Killed, originally told in 20 monthly issues.

• Also on March 7th, the Word Ballon Podcast posted a wide-ranging two-hour conversation with Ed Brubaker. The interview is the writer's first appearance on the podcast in about six years -- the last appearance we noted was in October, 2012, and host John Siuntres mentioned Velvet, which was announced in July, 2013, the same year in which the podcast ceased being published at iFanboy.

Brubaker discusses his work both in comics and in television.  Comic fans will be interested in the history behind My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies; Sean and Jacob Phillips were supposed to be co-colorists, but an unexpected time crunch arose for printing the original graphic novel, so Jacob Phillips became the sole colorist after just a few pages.  And, Brubaker reveals upcoming plans for Criminal, which we've already begun to see in recent announcements.

He also reveals an incredible bit of personal history, which a Bleeding Cool article recounts from the podcast.  DC asked Brubaker to follow-up on Alan Moore's famous comic The Killing Joke, he directly quoted a couple pages in flashback, and he tried to have Moore credited for his writing.  Failing that, he sent Moore a check for his page-rate, Moore then called Wildstorm editor Scott Dunbier and recommended Brubaker for work, and that led quite directly to *Sleeper*.

And the rest is history.

(That follow-up story was part of the mini-series Batman:Turning Points, which I personally remember reading back in 2001. It served as a kind of prologue to Officer Down, which established what would be an interesting status quo for Gotham Central, with Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock both absent from the GCPD's Major Crimes Unit.  Ed Brubaker and Gotham Central co-creator Greg Rucka were writers for the entire span of stories -- including the Turning Points mini-series and the Officer Down crossover, and for the "big two" main titles of Batman and Detective Comics generally  -- and it was Gotham Central that first made me pay serious attention to Brubaker.)

("Turning points," indeed.)

The writer also hints at another upcoming comic-book project, "an R-rated version of a young adult book," a first-time large-scale collaboration with a favorite artist of his.

Brubaker compares writing for comics and for film -- the script for the latter remains a "living, breathing thing" that is always only "good enough" -- and he observes that all writing is calling B.S., where you have to keep moving forward, "sitting down and facing yourself."

In addition to talking about his work on Westworld and Too Old to Die Young, Brubaker mentions progress on the film adaptation for Kill Or Be Killed; he thinks the film might go into production later this year, and it's the first such project that closely hews to the source material.

• March 11th, Sean Phillips and Jacob Phillips both attended an Image Comics panel in London, at a Waterstones bookshop on Tottenham Court Road. The panel also featured Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Jock, Alison Sampson, and Lee Garbett, and a few days afterwards Tripwire Magazine posted 80 minutes of audio and a half dozen photos.

On Twitter, Jacob Phillips shared his own "family photo," shown below.

We plan to listen in to the conversation, so as to report on anything of interest to our readers, but unfortunately that remains on our to-do list.

(Hat tip to Joel Meadows, retweeted by Sean Phillips.)

• March 15th, our good friend Robert posted episode 30 of The Undertow Podcast, focusing on a brief review  of Criminal #2, the start of the two-part story centered on the comics industry, "Bad Weekend."

• March 20th, Criminal #3 was released, completing the two-part story "Bad Weekend" (or so we thought; see below). 

The story had a low-key ending -- but quite tragic despite that -- and the back matter includes letters from readers and Kim Morgan's essay on The Color of Money.  That film is quite unique, a 1986 sequel to The Hustler from 1961, and the essay features two illustrations from Sean Phillips.

• Also on March 20th, Ed Brubaker sent out a pair of email newsletters, the first of which featured process work on a single page of issue #3 -- from script to inks to colors -- and preview pages and unfinished panels for issue #4, a story set in 1993, starring Ricky Lawless, and evidently featuring old friends such as "Genuine Jen" Waters and the "coward" Leo Patterson.

We're particularly intrigued by this upcoming issue, as this would be the first "period piece" set after the consequential death of Teeg Lawless.

(Brubaker also mentioned The Undertow Podcast, and we appreciate the shout-out!)

In the second newsletter, Brubaker elaborated on a comment he had just made that had prompted quite a few questions:  in short, for two of these first four issues of the new ongoing Criminal arc, it may be a while before we see the stories republished in a trade collection.

He also says they have a Criminal book coming out in July, but he didn't reveal the details.  From what we now know, it seems that issues #1 and #4 -- the Teeg and Ricky stories -- might be the ones that won't soon be collected for those who "wait for the trades."

• March 21st, Image released its June solicitations, including the next issue of Criminal.  What Brubaker seemed to describe as a connected series of one-shot stories, the June solicits describe as "the long and winding tale of THE SUMMER OF '88... the story of the last days of Teek Lawless."

The cover to issue #5, shown below, apparently features a new character, Dan Farraday, a PI and bounty hunter on the trail of a "dangerous woman" who is evidently central to issue #6.

The usual five-week schedule was evidently extended by only a single week, as this next issue is scheduled for a June 5th release.

• April 3rd, the trailer for Too Old to Die Young dropped along with a release date, both sent out through social media, including the Twitter accounts for the television series, director Nicolas Winding Refn, and star Miles Teller.  /Film was one of the first sites to report on the trailer, citing an earlier article quoting writer and co-creator Ed Brubaker, as "the most Nicolas Winding Refn thing that ever existed, honestly."

Going by the trailer, it seems the newer /Film article describes the series well -- as "a pulpy, stylish nightmare featuring amoral weirdos inhabiting a dreamy, deadly Los Angeles landscape" -- and the article notes the release date for the Amazon Prime series, to air on June 14th.

• April 15th, Deadline released an exclusive story, announcing that Too Old to Die Young would screen at the Cannes Film Festival in mid-May, ahead of its June 14th premiere on Amazon Prime. 

This is evidently only the third episodic television series to screen at the famous festival, at the time it wasn't clear how many episodes would be featured, and the writer thought that a "special screening slot" was most likely.

In the subsequent lineup, announced on April 18th, two episodes were listed for the series:  "North of Hollywood" and "West of Hell."

• April 16th, The Hollywood Reporter broke the news of an expanded Bad Weekend hardcover, due in July.  The book is described as an "expanded and remastered" version of the "comic convention crime thriller" that appeared in Criminal #2 and #3, evidently in the same format as last year's original graphic novel, My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies.

The cover art, shown below alongside the Junkies cover, is certainly in the same vein, with a pastel color scheme and a portrait of the protagonist, complete with a dangling cigarette. 

The font is different, but -- as before -- the book's cover omits the Criminal branding.  That is  perhaps because, despite the criminal element at the center of each story, the premise (romance and addiction, comic conventions and mentors) has a wider appeal beyond the duo's usual readership.

On Twitter, Sean Phillips explains that it "took a while" to decide on the cover's color scheme, and he treated fans to a photo of several candidate covers, very reminiscent of Andy Warhol's pop art.  He relays that he preferred the third cover on the top row, but it too closely resembled the last hardcover.

• On April 18th, Image Comics released its July solicitations, including the expanded hardcover edition of Bad Weekend and the next issue of the monthly series, Criminal #6.

The solicits on the official site list a page count of 72 pages for Bad Weekend, which may imply as many as 18 new pages, enough for a short third issue.  Since the span between issues exceeds the usual five-week gap only once, and for a single week -- six weeks between the scheduled release dates for issue #4 and issue #5 -- that's not a lot of extra time to create this additional content. 

(We've noticed that Jacob Phillips' Twitter feed has included ink work, evidently of his own projects.  Perhaps he could help ink Sean's pencils.)

On the Newsarama page listing Image's July solicitations, the description for the Bad Weekend hardcover mentions a special trim size of 6.625 by 10.1875 inches, but that's practically the size of a standard U.S. comic book.  On Twitter, Sean Phillips relays that the book will be a "standard" size, "same as the Junkies book," and with the same type of paper.

The next issue of Criminal will be continue Teeg Lawless' last story, "The Summer of '88," and the story's description repeats what we learned from issue #1, that Teeg "falls in love for the first time."  That's a very intriguing development for the widower, implying that he didn't really love his wife, Tracy and Ricky's mother.

Both books are scheduled for the same day, July 10th.

• And just today, April 22nd, Image Comics issued a press release for the Bad Weekend hardcover.   The news item quotes Ed Brubaker that the story is both an "exposé of the industry" and a "love letter to the medium," and along with praise for the comic, the press release summarizes the book's contents:

Bad Weekend features an expanded and remastered version of the story recently serialized in issues #2 and 3 of Criminal, with several completely new scenes, and presented in the same gorgeous hardcover format as Brubaker and Phillip's bestselling graphic novel My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies. And like every Criminal graphic novel, Bad Weekend is a stand-alone story that works as a singular reading experience.

As before, the book is being described as released ahead of the San Diego Comic-Con, but Sean Phillips has already confirmed that the hardcover will be "available everywhere" and not exclusive to the SDCC or any other convention.

The Upside of Social Media: Sean Phillips Cover for Thunderbolt #1 and More.

Social media is, at best, a very mixed bag indeed -- Brubaker closed his Twitter feed a while back, and I've heard the whole thing is more accurately described as "anti-social" media -- but we do strongly recommend that fans of Brubaker and Phillips' crime comics "follow" the latter either on Instagram or especially on Twitter.

Again:  follow Sean Phillips on Twitter.

We say that because, between retweets and original posts, some of the more obscure or time-sensitive bits of news end up in his feed -- and that's to say nothing of the excellent preview art, the nature photography, and the vintage soundtrack selections.  We have a few examples of news items just from this past week.

• We saw and retweeted the announcement, but we didn't have the bandwidth to blog about a one-day sale at Phillip's Big Cartel online store; the sale took place on Sunday commemorating the artist's birthday.
• On his currently pinned tweet, Phillips notes that his online store includes books in which he has included a signature and a sketch, specifically My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies and the recent omnibus trade paperback for The Fade Out.  Just yesterday he announced that his store now includes signature-and-sketch copies of the first trade collection for Fatale, as this volume "has gone back to print."
• Sean's Big Cartel store isn't the only place to find signed items online, as England's OK Comics is now using their eBay store to sell books signed by Sean Phillips and Jacob Phillips; the easiest way to find all the books is to sort by "newly listed."
• Finally, Dynamite's Peter Cannon Thunderbolt #1 reaches stores this week, and one of its multiple variant covers -- one listed as Cover A, the apparent standard cover -- is by Sean Phillips.  I believe it's his first non-Brubaker comic cover since the series of six Hellblazer variants released in the early months of 2018.

Phillips' distinctive cover art, shown at the left above, heralds the second volume of this title, the first volume being a ten-issue mini-series from 2012 and 2013.  This new issue is written by Kieron Gillen and drawn by Caspar Wijingaard; described as a "dark, humorous and relentless love song" to superhero comics, the issue marks Gillen's return to the genre.

Looking at the issue's webpage on the official site, we find a virgin variant of the cover, shown above on the right.  From the image's filename, we think it might be offered as a retailer incentive, and we see that ComicList identifies this "Sean Phillips Virgin Variant" as "Cover G" with no set price -- the price is marked "AR" for "Ask Retailer."

Bleeding Cool has a 12-page preview of the comic, composited from multiple previews for an story described as being 20 pages in length. In a blurb that Phillips has retweeted, Dynamic Comics hints that Watchmen fans might be particularly interested in this comic book.