To RZ, AB, & Others: Personal Recommendations & Free Comics!

As I mentioned in the previous post, I'm using the $1 Image Firsts Neo Noir comic book to introduce friends to one of my great interests, the crime comics of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.

I'm sending them the comic book and directing them here for more info, at least to reveal something about my personality and hopefully to get them hooked on my favorite comic books!


What's the BLUF, the Bottom Line Up Front?

1. If a particular book by Brubaker and Phillips caught your eye in that Neo Noir comic or in our bibliography, do check it out: you can't go wrong, their books run from very good to jaw-dropping.
2. My personal recommendation would be Criminal: The Last of the Innocent, and I'll elaborate on my preferences below.
3. Or, you can always pick up the team's most recent book, as they strive to make every project accessible to new readers, even those who have never read comic books before! 

Their latest project is Reckless, a series of fairly self-contained graphic novels, and its most recent entry is Follow Me Down.

(UPDATE, DEC 16. In his email newsletter on Wednesday, Brubaker released the four-page trailer for the team's next project Night Fever, a stand-alone graphic novel expected this June.)

If you're still only half curious, issue #1 for several of the duo's books are available online, absolutely free from the publisher's official website: links are below.

Personal Background

As far as hobbies go, I tend to emphasize depth over breadth. I don't follow all major sports closely, just my one undergrad alma mater in its seasonal athletic endeavors. I don't devour all of Star Trek, just Deep Space Nine (its greatest series) and to a lesser extent The Original Series and The Next Generation. My musical interests focus on the magnificent singer-songwriter David Gray and, somewhat to a lesser extent, vintage U2. And I don't have shelves upon shelves of sophisticated board games, just a handful of games with an overwhelming emphasis on Monolith's Conan board game and its numerous expansions.

I'm a little OCD; I do obsess.

(Here, it's not all Conan games, neither its licensed RPG nor its computer games. And it's not all iterations of Monolith's "Tactical Homeostatic System," it's just the original implementation with Conan's milieu of Sword and Sorcery. Much as I adore Batman, the Gotham City Chronicles game holds no real appeal for me!)

I do enjoy comic books generally, but I adore the crime comics by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. Consistently productive and always bringing new wrinkles to their work, the team is now responsible for two decades' worth of critically acclaimed noir comics.

Separately, Brubaker is a fine writer and Phillips is a skilled artist, but together, it's alchemy.

I didn't closely follow either creator at the time, but I was already a big fan of Gotham Central when Criminal was announced. I was hooked the first time I read the "trailer" for the first arc, and I've been a fanatic ever since, with each new project providing further validation for my enthusiastic support for the team.

I soon became a co-contributor to this blog, then its sole contributor (currently providing infrequent updates), and then the co-host of The Undertow Podcast. I maintain a complete bibliography for the team's collaborative works, and I occasionally(!) share my interest with friends.

My Favorites by Brubaker & Phillips

I recommend The Last of the Innocent as an excellent introduction to the team -- which it certainly is, even though it is, in some ways, a very unusual entry in their bibliography -- but that doesn't mean the book is my all-time personal favorite.

Indeed my favorite series is Criminal, easily, and I'm thrilled that the team keeps coming back to the title over and over again: three ongoing series, mini-series, an original graphic novel, and short stories. It's been close to two years since we've visited that world, but another short story is due before New Year's.

But within Criminal, my favorite book is Wrong Time, Wrong Place, which collects two extra-length one-shots. I particularly love the magazine-sized variant for each story, with covers and bonus material mimicking the vintage comic book that the main character is reading -- the "Savage Sword" of a barbarian pastiche or the "Deadly Hands" of a kung-fu werewolf!

Criminal is their first creator-owned series and my all-time favorite, but their most fun comic might be their first lengthy collaboration Sleeper, a self-contained spy story set in DC's WildStorm universe. It's pure noir, so it's plenty dark in its premise, characterization, and plotting, but it has the most laugh-out-loud moments -- and it has the most innovative page layout, to boot.

And I wouldn't describe The Fade Out as fun, but I suspect that it may be the team's magnum opus. It tells a single lengthy, self-contained story set in Hollywood's Golden Age, and in its scope and focus (movie-making rather than superheroes), I think it compares favorably to that epic from the Eighties, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen. It may not be quite as intricately told, but it may actually be a better story, one with continued relevance for the new century.

Other Recommended Comic Books

There are other books that I adore, beginning with another of Brubaker's frequent collaborators, the late, great, and irreplaceable Darwyn Cooke.

Cooke's DC: The New Frontier is another book that I think demands comparisons to Watchmen; it's a more optimistic book, and I think optimism may be harder to get right. His Catwoman with Brubaker is a great compliment to Gotham Central. And Darwyn Cooke's Parker books are AMAZING, the best comic adaptations of crime novels just as Criminal is the best original crime comic.

As far as adaptations go, I also thoroughly enjoyed Lawrence Block's Eight Million Ways to Die, intelligently adapted by John K. Snyder III.

And a very original, very humorous crime comic I've enjoyed is Chew by John Layman and Rob Guillory: it takes a bizarre food-related premise and runs with it at full speed. (You can read the first issue for free, see below.)

My life with comic books started with Batman and Star Trek, and I can still strongly recommend a few other comics set in Gotham or built on sci-fi premises.

• Batman Black and White is an excellent anthology series, particularly the first volume.
• Batman Year One remains the best Batman story, better than The Dark Knight Returns.
• Planetoid by Ken Garing is a brilliant sci-fi series, a great story beautifully told.
• Strange Science Fantasy by Scott Morse isn't for everyone, but I loved it.

Star Trek: Early Voyages may be the best Trek comic, despite its cliffhanger ending remaining unresolved when Marvel's Paramount imprint closed up shop. Star Wars Tales is an excellent anthology, and the best ongoing series was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, written by John Jackson Miller and quite satisfying from beginning to end.

And if you remember the cartoons from the early 1980's, you might just adore, as I do, the brilliant but bonkers Transformers vs GI Joe by Tom Scioli.

As much as I like Conan and first got hooked thanks to the Dark Horse anthology, Robert E. Howard's Savage Sword, I'm not sure there's a modern story that stands tall as a must-read book. My hopes are high for Titan's new series due in 2023.

And I do like comic strips wholly apart from comic books -- especially The Far Side and Calvin & Hobbes, with a fond spot for Peanuts and (more recently) Shoe.

A Brief Digression on Batman

Batman: Black and White was one of the first comic books I deliberately picked out for myself, and I distinctly remember getting it off a supermarket shelf. Along with Tim Burton's Batman from 1989 and the subsequent Batman: The Animated Series, this anthology kindled my enduring love of the Dark Knight, through Nolan's masterpiece trilogy -- yes, including The Dark Knight Rises -- to today, when just about the only Batman book I get is for the kiddos, the excellent Scooby-Doo team-up.

Gorgeous fan-made Dark Knight Trilogy posters by StudioKXX

Just as one can draw a straight line from Batman through Gotham Central to Criminal, I can see another line being drawn, with Scooby-Doo as the first crime comics for my kids.

FREE COMICS ONLINE!

Many creator-owned comic books find their home outside the "Big Two" publishers of DC and Marvel, and there's probably no bigger home than Image Comics. Image has found a few ways to advertise their books; in addition to their $1 "Image Firsts" reprints of #1 issues, they have an extensive online collection of free first issues, from The Walking Dead and Saga to some quite obscure titles.

Here are the ones I'd recommend.

Brubaker & Phillips

• Fatale
• The Fade Out
• Kill Or Be Killed

Artist Jacob Phillips, Sean's son and the team's current colorist

• That Texas Blood
• Newburn

Other Crime Comics

• Chew
• Gunning for Hits

Miscellaneous: Sci-Fi, Fantasy, & Humor

• Black Science
• Farmhand
• Gogor
• Shirtless Bear Fighter!

Wrapping Up

I certainly read more than just comic books; it was Criminal and Darwyn Cooke's Parker adaptations that led to the hard-boiled crime fiction of Hard Case Crime and Richard Stark's Parker series.

I also thoroughly enjoy the original Conan stories by Robert E. Howard, and I have fallen hard for Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels. And, on a most serious note, my faith has been strengthened by being mentored, in a sense, through the works of C.S. Lewis and John Stott.

But I can hardly overstate how much I love the crime comics of Brubaker and Phillips, and I hope that -- just maybe -- the Neo Noir comic and this little blog post will open the door to your discovering their books for yourself.

If not, at least you've had a glimpse into my little world.

Podcast Addenda as Reckless Vol 4 Hits Shelves This Week.

The Ghost In You, the 4th Reckless OGN from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, arrives this week, and so Robert Watson has released another episode of The Undertow Podcast: this time, Robert and I review the previous volume, Destroy All Monsters.

There were a few more items that didn't make the recording, all worth mentioning briefly.

We recorded Sunday night, and Ed Brubaker sent out another email newsletter Monday with a few of those items.

• Reckless Bookplate. Stores with large enough orders will include an autographed bookplate with The Ghost In You.

For this release, the bookplate features a young Anna with her Black Flag tee-shirt and the "Anna-archy" grafitti she uses to tag the front doors of the El Ricardo theater.

• Parker's Last Call, Long Overdue. Brubaker shares the good news that Parker: The Martini Edition Last Call will finally reach stores in just a few weeks. The ComicList blog has a May 4th release date for the super-deluxe collection of Darwyn Cooke's second set of Donald Westlake / Richard Stark's Parker stories, originally expected September 30th, 2020. (!!!)

Ed Brubaker evidently has his "comp copies," and we're treated with a few interior photos, including one of a group interview with Brubaker, Bruce Timm, and Scott Dunbier.

To our own greatest delight, we get a glimpse of the team's long-awaited contribution to this collection -- "TOMORROW and TOMORROW and TOMORROW, A Grofield Story by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, For Donald Westlake and Darwyn Cooke."

• Gotham Central Ominbus Returning to Stores. In addition to keeping up with Ed Brubaker's newsletter, we have a habit of checking the ComicList blog each week, and along with The Ghost In You, this week sees the release of the 2022 edition of the Gotham Central Omnibus.

The release dovetails nicely with a news item for the podcast, announcing an end-of-year release of the 2022 edition of The Sleeper Omnibus, Brubaker and Phillips' self-contained masterpiece for DC's WildStorm universe.

We list Gotham Central in our bibliography for Brubaker and Phillips, but it is an oddity in that list: the latter only worked on cover art for seven of the last eight issues, and the former stopped writing for the 40-issue series with issue #36.

Nevertheless, Gotham Central is one of the best books set in Batman's hometown. The omnibus is well worth the $100 retail price, but we're sure you can find the book for less.

• Brubaker Working on Hollywood Adaptations. Finally, returning to the newsletter, we find a bit more about one item Robert mentioned in the podcast.

The last few months has been a hectic balancing act for me. Scripts and rewrites on the Batman show, working on Reckless and Friday script pages, and the early stages of adapting a few of our books into films (I never believe anything in TV or film is really happening until things are officially greenlit to production).

We wonder which books might be adapted -- Reckless? Kill Or Be Killed? Criminal?? -- and we've been waiting for years for any such project to see more than an industry-mag announcement. When an adaptation finally is produced and released, all we will say is, it's about damn time -- and we'll have our fingers crossed that the work honors the excellent source material.

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.

Criminal #1 Ten-Page Preview, an Undertow Podcast, and More for the New Year!

We anticipate being much more active in the new year -- more blogging, meaning more frequent posts with more prompt news updates -- as Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips return to monthly comics with a new volume of our favorite series, Criminal.  The first issue is less than a week away, and we begin 2019 with a quick look back at the end of 2018.

• October Interviews for Junkies. Three print interviews with writer Ed Brubaker were published in a single month.  Released to coincide with the October 10th release of My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies, the online articles also provide a substantial "fix" for those more obsessive fans of the writer and his work.

• Oct 9th, from The Hollywood Reporter, with an exclusive four-page preview of Junkies
• Oct 21st, from Salon 
• Oct 25th, from GQ, published exactly two years after an interview about The Fade Out and subsequently summarized by Tripwire Magazine

There's much more from these interviews than we'll summarize here -- some of which Robert and I discussed in the podcast (see below) -- but we found the biographical insights especially interesting. 

Brubaker's father was a commander in naval intelligence, and his mother and stepfather were therapists.  From age 4 to age 7, Brubaker lived at Guantanamo, where his father got his sons reading with a large box of used comics.  His parents got divorced, and from age 8 to age 12, he accompanied his mother to her Sunday-morning AA meetings.  He subsequently became a trouble-maker -- "scraping by" in his early 20's, socializing with "really bad crowds" and committing "small-time crime" -- until his life got out of hand and the young artist almost ended up in prison.

We can see the effect on Brubaker's writing, not just in the generally sympathetic approach to desperate and reckless criminals, but also in the details of stories -- from the setting for "An Accidental Death," one of his earliest works; through the protagonist of "Lawless;" to the focus of this most recent work, the Criminal novella Junkies.

• Phillips Sketchbook of Movie Stars. On November 8th, Sean Phillips announced a new item exclusive to his Big Cartel store.  My Heroes Have Always Been Movie Stars is a 32-page, US comics-size collection of some of the illustrations he has created to accompany the film essays featured in the back of Brubaker and Phillips' monthly issues. 

The artist explicitly writes that these works originally appeared "in the Criminal comics [made] with Ed Brubaker," but we wonder if some of the art was for Incognito, Fatale, or other titles.  It's a question that might only be answered with a copy of this sketchbook and a complete list of these bonus-feature essays.

The book is priced at £20, in a signed and numbered limited edition of 300 copies.  It appears that copies are still available, but there's no telling how long that will last.

• The Fade Out Single-Volume TPB Released. On November 14th, the anticipated single-volume trade paperback edition of The Fade Out was released.  This will probably serve as the definitive wide release of the 2014-2016 mini-series, as the story is better told as a single work than in three four-issue "acts." 

We examined a copy at a local shop, confirming that the book is a bare-bones release without the bonus content found in the hardcover.  The book includes the "Screen Views and News" clipping which serves as a kind of epilogue to "Maya's story and Valeria's story," but it omits the fictional promotional images featured on the back-cover art of the monthly issues. 

And, we're disappointed to report that the cover lacks an amusing detail found in a print that Phillips has made available at his online store and which is shown above, describing the book as "An Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips production."

• Image Solicitations for the Next Criminal Arc. On November 20th, Image Comics released its February solicitations, including the second issue of the new volume of Criminal -- all just in time for us to discuss as late-breaking news on the podcast.  Issue #1 is evidently a self-contained done-in-one tale, and this new story features an artist named Archie Lewis, and we recall that this fictional character was briefly mentioned in the narration of the 2008 arc "Bad Night."

Archie Lewis was the artist’s artist in his heyday, although that’s not what he’s famous for. He’s famous for being a nightmare to work with—and dangerous. So when an old assistant is forced to chaperone his one-time mentor to receive his lifetime achievement award, well... let’s just say things don’t go well.

We wondered if the story will touch on Jacob Kurtz, the main character and narrator from "Bad Night," as perhaps this "old assistant" to the evidently infamously difficult Lewis is Jacob himself.  That suspicion was confirmed on December 21st, with the release of Image's March solicitations and a very brief description of the next issue.

Jacob’s weekend taking care of his old mentor takes a turn for the worse.

That original narration made it seem that Jacob knew Archie Lewis only from a distance -- it mentioned a productivity trick as "an old Archie Lewis method, according to his biographer" -- but it may just be that he knew that reality didn't live up to the myth.  We're also curious how Jacob's aspiration to be an artist (this assistantship, for instance) collided with his criminal background, hanging out with Leo and Tracy and becoming an expert counterfeiter.

It's not clear when this story takes place chronologically, but it does appear that "The Longest Weekend" is a companion to "Bad Night."  In his recent newsletter (see below), Brubaker even referenced this new story as "Bad Weekend."

• Undertow Podcast on Junkies.  November 26th saw the release of the most recent episode of The Undertow Podcast, Episode 27 reviewing the Criminal novella My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies.  Robert and I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion, and we soon plan to release a new episode taking a broader look at the Criminal chronology.

The novella features a mixtape Ellie's mother made for her then-incarcerated father, and so I ended the episode recommending a kind of mixtape of my own:  The Best of David Gray Disc 2, from the two-disc deluxe edition. 

In the liner notes, the British singer-songwriter tells readers that he selected the tracks for this bonus disc "for no other reason than that they occupy a special place in my heart and have meant a lot to me down the years."  They serve as a kind of mixtape for his fans, I find these songs particularly compelling, and I've just made a five-song playlist from that disc, to share with our readers.

Gray's repertoire spans from traditional love songs to more abstract, ethereal music, and his lyrics capture the tragic beauty of both the mundane and the transcendent: "From Here You Can Almost See the See" contains a great example of both with its prosaic verses and its unexpected coda.  He will soon be touring in support of a new album out on March 8th, Gold in a Brass Age, and he's just followed up "The Sapling" with the release of the second song from the album, "A Tight Ship."

• Exclusive Image Deal Extended for Another Five Years. I believe we've discussed Brubaker and Phillips' five-year deal on the podcast, making the assumption that the agreement would be extended.  On December 6th, Image Comics posted a press release making it official:  the exclusive deal has been renewed for another five years, effective immediately.

Described as "previously unprecedented," the original deal was announced in January, 2014, and it allowed the pair "to do anything they want with total freedom, total control, and total ownership over their projects."  As a result, Brubaker says that the previous five years have been "the most successful time of our long career together," and publisher Eric Stephenson adds that, over that period, "Ed and Sean have done some of the best work of their careers."

This extension coincides with the return of Criminal as a new monthly series, and the article mentions a renewed emphasis on monthly storytelling, with Ed Brubaker saying that he wants the new series to be "a monthly comic that would stand apart by really embracing the format, and trying to be something surprising every issue."  Publisher Eric Stephenson chimes in, saying that the series "serves as a welcome reminder of just how potent monthly comics can be."

The press release mentions some of the praise the team's most recent work has received, from Library Journal and Vulture/NY Magazine.  This is in addition to the accolades Image Comics compiled in a December 18th release, where Junkies made the year-end best-of lists for Newsweek, Thrillist, and Multiversity Comics.

• Ten-page Criminal preview in Brubaker newsletter. Finally, Christmas came early for Criminal fans, when Ed Brubaker sent out an email newsletter on December 24th, featuring a ten-page preview of the first issue -- a substantial excerpt of the double-length issue, a few panels of which we're highlighting below.

 

Brubaker also looked back on the previous project, Junkies, announcing that the hardcover novella has sold better than expected: "as of this writing I think [the book] is almost sold through a printing that was meant to last a few years."

Looking ahead, Brubaker also provided an advance look at the next story, the two-part Criminal tale "The Longest Weekend," aka "Bad Weekend."  From what we gathered in the solicits mentioned above, we take it the panel features a flashback scene of young Jacob Kurtz serving as an assistant artist to a pro named Hal.

And, along with the three October interviews we listed above, Brubaker mentioned a CrimeReads interview published on December 12. 

In this most recent interview, he reveals some details about the story in Junkies (Ellie is 18 years old) and about the book's creation (a tight deadline resulted in Jacob Phillips becoming the colorist after the first few pages).  He discusses his influences and his process, his early work writing Sleeper, and the very recent decision to follow up Junkies with more stories set in the Criminal universe.

Strangely enough, the interview also includes what Brubaker said about monthly comics in the prior press release on the renewed five-year deal, with some additional elaboration

"The single issue itself has started to become an afterthought. At the big two, you have tons of ads in them, and they’re on cheap paper now. It’s like this amazing little package that gave us all decades and decades of joy as comic fans is being neglected by the market that was built on them."

And, Ed Brubaker gives us a quick synopsis of what we can expect with the new monthly Criminal series:

"The first issue is basically the ultimate Criminal story. It kind of shows you everything that the book does, all in one long and winding oversized story."

Criminal #1 is due in stores this Wednesday, January 9th.

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.

New Undertow Podcast, New Kill Or Be Killed, New Twitter Feed, and Catching Up for the New Year.

It's a big week:  Robert has recorded and released an abbreviated episode of The Undertow Podcast, reviewing Kill Or Be Killed #14, and issue #15 is in stores today with a four-page preview already online.

(Preview pages without the obscenities obscured -- and a fifth page -- can be found in the latest newsletter from writer Ed Brubaker; see below.)

The third trade paperback, collecting issues #11-14, is also in stores today.  Ireland's Big Bang Comics and the UK's Forbidden Planet has an exclusive variation on this third volume, with a different cover and a mini-print bookplate signed by the writer and the artist.  Both covers are shown below, along with the eerie artwork for the bookplate.

International orders can be placed at the Forbidden Planet online store or at Big Bang's eBay listing.  (And Big Bang tweets that they still have stock of their previous two trade paperbacks, with variant covers and signed bookplates.)

Interestingly, Forbidden Planet lists a "virgin wraparound" variant for the upcoming KOBK #17, but currently the page has no image preview and no additional details.

In the meantime, we have issue #15 out today. Last Saturday, John Jack at Comic Watch offered a brief "First Watch" advance review of the issue, awarding it a 9 out of 10.  The review has no spoilers beyond what can be gleaned from Image's official preview, with the exception of a single two-panel image, with the Demon suddenly back in the story, following Dylan.

And for those who are looking for a quick refresher after the series' brief hiatus, our good friend Robert Watson covers the previous arc, along with the previous issue, in The Undertow Podcast Episode #19.  As always, as always, the podcast is available on iTunes and Podbean.

--

I'm looking forward to joining Robert again for the next podcast, and it's been far too long since we've last blogged.  As the classic U2 song puts it, we've been "running to stand still" in real life, and there has been a lot of big news over the past few months.

For one thing, we have just created a dedicated Twitter account for the blog, @CriminalBlog, to separate our focus on all things Brubaker/Phillips from our personal account @TigerBeasley and my more idiosyncratic interests in faith, politics, movies, music, sports, and humor.

We do hope to blog much more frequently in the upcoming year, and we recommend that readers "follow" our new Twitter account to be notified of new posts and interesting retweets.

In the meantime, here is a very succinct timeline of the past few months, with the biggest news items highlighted in red.

• OCT 19, Page 45 Comics posted an extensive essay of reviews and photos from the Lakes International Comic Art Festival; among the featured festival-exclusive books is the Spirit newspaper curated by Sean Phillips (and featuring a one-page Brubaker/Phillips story) and Starting, a "one-day collaborative comic" that includes a four-page story from Sean's sun Jacob, and both products are available for international orders at Page 45's online store.

• OCT 30, Arrow Academy announces the upcoming Blu-ray and DVD release of Viva L'Italia, a 1961 documentary by Roberto Rossellini; the film is scheduled for a January 29th release and features cover artwork by Sean Phillips, shown below.

• NOV 13, Delcourt releases a 17-page preview of Fondu au Noir, the publisher's French translation of The Fade Out, in advance of its November 29th release.

• NOV 15, Image Comics announces its partnership with the Madefire digital program; details remain scant, but the press release includes Criminal in its reference to the publisher's back catalog.

• NOV 16, Marvel cancels two upcoming books from Brian Michael Bendis, a week after the writer announced his move to DC, effectively signaling the end of Marvel's Icon imprint for creator-owned works, at least for now; the imprint was the original home for Criminal and Incognito.

• NOV 16, Sean Phillips provided more information about the upcoming Criterion Collection release of Night of the Living Dead on DVD and Blu-ray February 13th; Sean Phillips painted the artwork for the cover, the wraparound sleeve, and the booklet -- the cover repurposes the poster for the recent 4K rerelease (also available at Criterion's online store) and the sleeve is the full artwork that Sean previously previewed in October and is reproduced below and on the artist's Twitter profile.

• NOV 21, director and co-writer Nicholas Winding Refn used his Instagram account to announce the main cast of Too Old to Die Young, highlighting the addition of Billy Baldwin; co-written by Ed Brubaker, the series stars Miles Teller and is apparently already in production.

• NOV 21, Image posted its February solicitations, listing a Valentine's Day release for KOBK #16; the cover art is the completed piece we saw as a work in progress, and the solicit confirms a literal interpretation of the artwork, mentioning Dylan's plight in a mental hospital.

• NOV 27, Robert and I released Undertow Podcast Episode 18; the podcast featured a review of KOBK #13 and recommendations for the comic books Whiteout -- artist Steve Lieber put the entire first issue online -- and Slots.

• NOV 29, Image Comics released KOBK #14 with a three-page preview; Hero Collector posted an essay explaining why people should be reading the title.

• DEC 14, The Hollywood Reporter exclusively announced that Chad Stahelski, the director of the John Wick films, is a directing a Kill Or Be Killed film adaptation; the script will be written by Dan Casey, who has written the script for the Incognito adaptation (not yet produced), and Ed Brubaker will be an executive producer.

• DEC 18, subscriber's received the latest installment of Ed Brubaker's email newsletter, his first in more than six months; the issue includes preview pages for KOBK #15, production work for the cover to issue #16, info on the KOBK movie, reposted news on a Velvet TV series, production photos from Too Old to Die Young, confirmation on his absence from Westworld's season two, and info on his research into the upcoming follow-up to The Fade Out.

(Not a traditional sequel, the story will be set in the late 1950's, when television became big in Hollywood, and it features "a side character" from the first story.  In earlier interviews, Brubaker specifically named Phil Brodsky, the studio's fixer.)

• DEC 18, DC Comics' March solicitations include an advance solicit for Sleeper Book One, in trade paperback; scheduled for April 25th, the book collects Point Blank and Sleeper Season One, both written by Ed Brubaker with the latter drawn by Sean Phillips in an early collaboration.

• DEC 18, Delcourt releases a French translation of KOBK #1, available for purchase online at Sequenicity.

• DEC 19, Image posted its March solicitations, with KOBK #17 listed for March 21 and described as "turning-point issue of the series so far;" perhaps meaningfully, the cover art has Dylan removing his now iconic red ski mask.

• DEC 20, Sean Phillips announces his work on the cover art for the Arrow Academy Blu-ray release of the 1947 Western Ramrod, starring Veronica Lake and scheduled for March 5th.

• DEC 20, Phillips also announces his work on a variant cover for Hellblazer #19, written by Tim Seeley; it appears that the issue has been solicited and is still scheduled for a February 28th release.

• JAN 10, the UK's Ink magazine publishes a retrospective review of Brubaker and Phillips' Sleeper, rightly describing the early work for DC's Wildstorm imprint as "a self-contained gem."

• JAN 15, Phillips announces new original artwork at Splash Page Comic Art, including paintings for covers of Kill Or Be Killed and Hellblazer.

• JAN 17, Phillips just announced that he's selling signed posters for Night of the Living Dead, at his Big Cartel store; it looks like quantities are very limited, possibly only two posters.

That just about covers it, but we'll have another blog entry up soon.

The Complete, Collaborative Works of Brubaker and Phillips: A Brief Bibliography.

The following are the collaborative works of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, listed by the original sale date of the single-issue story or the story arc's debut, cross-referenced against Comic Collector Live and the Grand Comics Database. Dates are listed by month, with the day included in parentheses only to resolve any ambiguity in the order of release.

Titles that currently span more than one story arc or comprise at least one original graphic novel (OGN) are color-coded, and the original trade paperback collections are listed if a single listed work spans more than one collection.

Unless otherwise indicated, all works below credit Ed Brubaker as the sole writer and Sean Phillips as the sole artist, possibly excluding lettering and coloring. Relevant works that exclude one or the other creator are included in parenthesis.

Scene of the Crime
Pencils by Michael Lark, Inks by Lark (#1) & Sean Phillips (#2-4)
DC Vertigo, Mar-Jun 1999

Batman: Gotham Noir
DC, Mar 2001

Batman #603 - “The Turning Point”
DC, May 2002

(Point Blank, Sleeper prologue, written by Brubaker and drawn by Colin Wilson, with the protagonist Holden Carver designed by Phillips: WildStorm, Aug-Dec 2002)

Sleeper
Collected in “Out in the Cold” (#1-6) & “All False Moves” (#7-12)
WildStorm, Jan 2003 - Jan 2004

(Coup D’Etat: Sleeper written by Brubaker and drawn by Jim Lee: WildStorm, Feb 2004)

“Sleeper, Season Two: Prelude”
Coup D'Etat: Afterword
Wildstorm, Mar 2004

Hawkman (2002) #27 - “The Black Bird”
DC, Apr 2004

Catwoman (2002) #32 - “Only Takes a Night”
DC, Jun 2004 (June 23)

Sleeper: Season Two
Collected in “A Crooked Line” (#1-6) and “The Long Way Home” (#7-12)
WildStorm, Jun 2004 - May 2005 (June 30)

Gotham Central #33-40
Cover art by Phillips, #33-35, 37-40
Created by Brubaker & Greg Rucka; Brubaker stopped writing for the series after #36
DC, Jul 2005 - Feb 2006 (series debuted in Dec 2002)

Criminal: Coward
Criminal #1-5
Icon, Oct 2006 - Mar 2007

Criminal: Lawless
Criminal #6-10
Icon, May-Nov 2007

Criminal: The Dead and the Dying
Criminal Vol. 2 #1-3
Icon, Feb-Jun 2008

Criminal Emission: “No One Rides for Free”
Liberty Comics
Image, Jul 2008

Criminal: Bad Night
Criminal Vol. 2 #4-7
Icon, Aug-Dec 2008

Incognito
Icon, Jan-Sep 2009

Criminal: The Sinners
Icon, Oct 2009 - Mar 2010 (Oct 7)

Criminal Emission: “21st Century Noir”
Noir: A Collection of Crime Comics
Dark Horse, Oct 2009 (Oct 21)

Incognito: Bad Influences
Icon, Oct 2010 - Mar 2011

Criminal: The Last of the Innocent
Icon, Jun-Sep 2011

Fatale
Collected in five trade paperbacks and two deluxe hardcovers
Book 1: Death Chases Me (#1-5)
Book 2: The Devil's Business (#6-10)
Book 3: West of Hell (#11-14)
Book 4: Pray for Rain (#15-19)
Book 5: Curse the Demon (#20-24)
Image, Jan 2012 - Jul 2014

The Fade Out
Collected in three trade paperbacks, each comprising a 4-issue “act”
Subsequently collected in a single-volume deluxe HC and bare-bones TPB
Image, Aug 2014 - Jan 2016

Criminal: Wrong Time, Wrong Place
Criminal Special Edition & 10th Anniversary Special
Image, Feb 2015 & Apr 2016

Kill or Be Killed
Collected in four trade-paperback volumes and in a single deluxe HC
Vol. 1 (#1-4); Vol. 2 (#5-10); Vol. 3 (#11-14); Vol 4. (#15-20)
Image, Aug 2016 - Jun 2018

"The Spirit" single-page story
The Spirit of Eisner: Celebrating the Centenary of the Birth of Will Eisner
Phillips also coordinated the publication of this newspaper-sized comic
Lakes International Comic Art Festival, Oct 2017

My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies
A Criminal Novella, published as a hardcover OGN
Image, Oct 2018

Criminal: "The Night Callers"
Originally untitled, with the title provided in the deluxe hardcovers
Criminal Vol 3. #1
Image, Jan 2019

Criminal: Bad Weekend
Collected in a hardcover GN & expanded with 10 additional pages, Jul 2019
Criminal Vol 3. #2-3
Image, Feb-Mar 2019

Criminal: “Orphans”
Criminal Vol 3. #4
Image, Apr 2019

Criminal: Cruel Summer
Criminal Vol 3. #5-12
Image, Jul 2019-Jan 2020

Pulp
Hardcover OGN
Image, Jul 2020

Reckless
Hardcover OGN
Image, Dec 2020

Friend of the Devil: A Reckless Book
Hardcover OGN
Image, Apr 2021

Destroy All Monsters: A Reckless Book
Hardcover OGN
Image, Oct 2021

The Ghost in You: A Reckless Book
Hardcover OGN
Image, Apr 2022

"Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow: A Grofield Story"
17-page story in Richard Stark's Parker: The Martini Edition Last Call
"For Donald Westlake and Darwyn Cooke"
IDW Publishing, May 2022

Neo Noir: The World of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
A 64-page collection of previously released "trailers" (finally!)
Includes essays & interviews written by David Harper
Part of the series of $1 "Image Firsts" comics
Image, Oct 2022 (Oct 5)

Follow Me Down: A Reckless Book
Hardcover OGN
Image, Oct 2022 (Oct 12)

Criminal Story: "Teeg's Christmas Carol"
First short story not subtitled a "Criminal Emission"
Image! anthology #9
Cover art by Sean Phillips
Image, Dec 2022

Night Fever
Hardcover OGN
Image, June 2023

Where The Body Was
Hardcover OGN
Image, December 2023

Houses of the Unholy
Hardcover OGN
Image, August 2024

The Knives: A Criminal Book

Hardcover OGN
Image, August 2025

Giant-Size Criminal #1
One-shot comic book
Image, December 2025

Five Gears In Reverse: A Criminal Book

Includes Giant-Size Criminal #1 as the first chapter, "The High Roller"

Hardcover OGN
Image, May 2026

Unfinished Tales
Hardcover OGN
Image, November 2026

---

Oversized Deluxe Hardcovers

Beginning with their first creator-owned series Criminal, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips have released deluxe editions of their major collaborations -- oversized hardcovers with extensive bonus material.

The team subsequently released a similar hardcover for the early work Scene of the Crime, with Michael Lark; while the monthly issues and trade paperback were published by DC's Vertigo imprint, the oversized hardcover of the creator-owned mini-series was published by Image Comics.

DC's Vertigo imprint released an omnibus for the duo's WildStorm title Sleeper, and using their main imprint DC has released an omnibus collecting all 40 issues of Gotham Central, co-created and co-written by Ed Brubaker with cover art for 7 issues by Sean Phillips.

Sean Phillips has also released an art book spanning his entire career, with extensive sections on his work with Ed Brubaker up to their then-recent series Fatale. The noir-horror title was their first work published by Image Comics, and Phillips' art book was published by Dynamite.

Together, these deluxe editions collect all of Brubaker and Phillips' collaborative work, except for the early, short works published by DC's main imprint (Gotham Noir and single issues) and the duo's most recent work, having been published too soon to be repackaged.

We've listed them in roughly chronological order. Books for a single title are grouped together, based on the publication date of the title's very first issue; The Art of Sean Phillips covers the artist's career up to Fatale and is therefore placed immediately after that title.

Scene of the Crime
Image, Nov 2012

Batman: The Man Who Laughs: The Deluxe Edition
oversized, dust-jacketed hardcover featuring three Batman stories written by Brubaker
- The Man Who Laughs with art by Dough Mahnke
- Batman: Gotham Noir with Sean Phillips
- Made of Wood with art by Patch Zircher, Aaron Sowd, & Steve Bird
DC, Oct 2020

The Sleeper Omnibus
collects Point Blank, Sleeper, Coup d'Etat Afterward, and Season Two
Vertigo, Mar 2013

Gotham Central
DC, May 2016

Criminal The Deluxe Edition Vol. 1
collects Coward, Lawless, The Dead & the Dying, "No One Rides for Free"
Icon, Nov 2009
2nd ed. Image, Apr 2021

Criminal The Deluxe Edition Vol. 2
collects Bad Night, The Sinners, Last of the Innocent, "21st Century Noir"
Icon, Oct 2012
2nd ed. Image, Apr 2021

Criminal The Deluxe Edition Vol. 3
collects Wrong Time, Wrong Place; My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies; Criminal (2019) #1-4, including Bad Weekend
Image, Nov 2020

Criminal Cruel Summer
effectively a fourth deluxe HC, collecting Criminal (2019) #1, 5-12
Image, Aug 2020

Incognito The Classified Edition
collects Incognito and Incognito: Bad Influences

Icon, Sep 2012

Fatale The Deluxe Edition Vol. 1
collects issues #1-10
Image, Mar 2014

Fatale The Deluxe Edition Vol. 2
collects issues #11-24
Image, Nov 2015

Also: Fatale Compendium Trade Paperback
collects issues #1-24
Image, Jul 2024

The Art of Sean Phillips
Dynamite, Nov 2013

The Fade Out
Image, Oct 2016

Kill or Be Killed The Deluxe Edition
Image, Nov 2019

Pulp The Process Edition
Hardcover OGN
Image, Aug 2022

---

[Original introduction to the bibliography]

Robert and I are starting off the new year with a long look back to the very beginning of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' amazing work together. Since we've had a month-long break between issues of Kill Or Be Killed, we're taking time this week to devote an Undertow Podcast episode to their very earliest collaboration, Scene of the Crime.

The pair tends to produce ten comic books a year, and we may use these occasional quiet months to slowly work our way through their entire body of work -- or at least their work as a team, a still quite hefty subset of the many books that list Brubaker or Phillips in their credits.

To prep for this literary travelogue, I made some notes on their books' order of publication: we posted a brief list of their major and minor collaborations back in 2011, but it didn't go into details about story arcs. The two keep returning to our favorite series Criminal between their other titles -- and we've had three new titles debut in the last half-decade -- so it was worth putting together these additional notes, and we think our readers might appreciate our posting the list online.