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.

Bullets: New Undertow Podcast, New Kill Or Be Killed, Solicitations, and More!

The newest episode of The Undertow Podcast came out just last week, and the newest issue of Brubaker and Phillips' Kill Or Be Killed reaches stores today, hot on the heels of a four-page preview -- one which promises that we'll finally reach the flash forward from the first issue, which was repeated in issue #11.

We have details about both new arrivals below, along with news on solicitations for January and much more.

One of these days, I'll actually blog often enough that I won't need these massive posts of bullet points...

• Undertow Podcast on KOBK #12.  We had a blast recording episode 17, which is now available available on iTunes and at Podbean.  After discussing what we agree is the best issue of the series, so far, we covered a few news items that we're repeating below (along with some we omitted), and offered a couple recommendations for our listeners.

I recommended The Hard Place, a crime comic mini-series from Image Comics, written by Doug Wagner (Plastic) with art by Nic Rummel and Charlie Kirchoff.  The story is about an former wheelman who gets caught up in a bank robbery and the kidnapping of a crime kingpin's daughter: I wouldn't normally recommend a book after only two issues, but so far the title is just that good, and I do hope it sticks the landing.

Meanwhile, Robert recommended a list of (about) five deep cuts from Tom Petty, who passed away earlier this month.  For convenience, here's his list along with YouTube links, some from official channels and some that may stretch the definition of fair use.

• "The Wild One, Forever" from Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers' self-titled 1976 debut
• "Insider" featuring Stevie Nicks, from 1981's Hard Promises
• "Change of Heart" from 1982's Long After Dark
• "Straight Into Darkness" also from Long After Dark
• "Hard On Me" from the 1994 "solo" album Wildflowers
• "Room at the Top" from 1999's Echo
• "Trailer" from the 2016's Mudcrutch album 2

It's truly great stuff, though personally I'm hoping that we'll soon see the long-awaited additional material from the Wildflowers sessions, perhaps with the hard-to-find b-sides like "Girl on LSD."

• KOBK #13 On Sale Now, Preview Online.  The new issue's four-page preview was released just yesterday, it can be found at the link above, and the accompanying image is a detail from the first page.  In the preview, we see the promise that the timeline will reach the series' explosive opening -- "really soon," and "by the end of this chapter... for sure."

Presumably that means we'll see it this issue, but we also see Dylan giving more thought to the demon whose curse started this journey into vigilantism.  The issue's description hints that his investigation into the supposed hallucination might prove fatal to his mental health.

"Caught in the crossfire between the police and the Russian mob—and his sanity—Dylan begins to realize his problems are more dire than he thinks." [emphasis mine]

And, in the preview, Dylan acknowledges his rambling narration and alludes to The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, an 18th-century novel written by an Irish, Anglican clergyman named Laurence Sterne.  The book was published in nine(!) volumes over the course of nearly a decade, and Dylan's apparent graduate studies in liberal arts is probably why he's familiar with the notably digressive work.

• The Spirit Newspaper Comic, Available for Online Orders.  We were ecstatic with last month's announcement that the Spirit newspaper comic -- overseen by Sean Phillips, with a single-page contribution written by Ed Brubaker -- would be available for online orders and international shipping.

The comic was initially available at this past weekend's Lakes International Comic Art Festival, which Phillips attended, and it is now available for purchase for a mere 5 pounds at Page 45 Comics, a store in Nottingham, England.

In an extensive, somewhat spoiler-heavy review on the product page, Stephen from Page 45 notes that the project was "directed and edited by Festival Patron Sean Phillips" -- and he notes that Phillips "also paid for its printing from his own pocket."

The product listing includes a few preview images, no doubt provided by Phillips, and one image evidently gives us the entire page produced by Brubaker and Phillips -- with Phillips doing the uncommon task of providing his own colors, and with almost a great enough resolution to make out the text.

Even if we could read the story on this page, we'd want to hold the work in our hands and see the other contributions from what the Page 45 reviewer calls "a breath-taking, broadsheet-sized spectacle at a whopping 23 x 14.5 [inches]."

The reviewer notes that sales proceeds will benefit the festival's Creators' Development Fund, but we're just as glad to have pre-ordered a couple copies for our own enjoyment.

• Femme Fatales Prints at Sean Phillips' Big Cartel Store.  On Twitter, Sean Phillips mentioned his trip to Kendal for the Lakes festival, and that he would only be selling The Spirit newspaper in the Page 45 room.  But he also pointed readers to his Big Cartel online store, where he has just added prints of the four pieces of artwork that were featured on the Femme Fatale beer.

The prints' names include a numbering order -- the reverse of which the prints were featured at Phillips' blog -- and we wonder if this was the order in which the works were created.

• #1 Rita Hayworth
• #2 Lauren Bacall
• #3 Gene Tierney
• #4 Veronica Lake

• Maniac Cop and Velvet: One Brubaker Project Possibly Scrapped, Another Announced.  In less than a fortnight, two news items broke regarding Ed Brubaker's projects outside of the printed page, with both items receiving plenty of coverage beyond their original publication.

On September 24th, Birth.Movies.Death exclusively reported some details from an interview with filmmaker Larry Cohen, the screenwriter behind the original Maniac Cop trilogy.  Ignore the reporter's hyperventilating about contemporary politics, and you'll see that Cohen appears certain that the Maniac Cop remake is dead:  the film, to be penned by Brubaker, was earlier given a green light to be filmed over this past summer.

While not detracting from Brubaker's skills as a comic-book writer, Cohen was not complimentary of Brubaker as a screenwriter or his script for the remake -- but the reporter seems both confused and even skeptical about some of the claims that his subject was making.

(So are we, and we hope this isn't the last we hear about the movie.)

On October 4th, The Hollywood Reporter exclusively reported a television series adapting Velvet, the spy comic created by Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting.  Writer, producer, and showrunner Kyle Killen will adapt the comic to be the first original drama for the Paramount Network, the cable network that debuts on January 18th, a rebranded Spike TV.

No date was given for the series premiere, but the show is described as "in development."  Killen will write and serve as executive producer, along with two executive producers from Anonymous Content, which produces True Detective and Mr. Robot.

We suspect that this is entirely separate from the "still top secret" project by Brubaker and Epting, which the writer mentioned in his email newsletter in June, 2016.

• Phillips Projects: Office Drones and Other Zombies.  Like Brubaker, Sean Phillips works on several projects at any given time, and here again we see that some bear more fruit than others.

(As the nearly comatose sailor put it in Master & Commander, the Lord taketh, and the Lord giveth away.)

On Twitter, Phillips posted cover artwork he did for The Apartment, the 1960 Best-Picture Oscar winner from Billy Wilder.  The film stars Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, and Fred MacMurray as office drones in what Mark Steyn brilliantly describes as "a sad but true urban Christmas fable."

The artwork was for Arrow Academy, a label for the British company Arrow Films, for which Phillips has produced artwork for at least four other films in the last few years.  As with Audition before it, Arrow ended up going in another direction, but a close look at Phillips' Twitter feed will reward fans with some in-progress pics from August, from digital pencils to "real" inks to colors.

We haven't yet seen what artwork Arrow went with, but we finally get to see what "Pink Shirley" was intended for...

...and we wonder if there are plans for that signed-and-dated drawing of Shirley MacLaine.

It seems Phillips is getting a reputation for his artwork of Hollywood stars -- I especially love his cover for the Criterion Collection's Sweet Smell of Success, another black-and-white classic set in NYC -- but the artist might always be known for zombies, and Phillips tweeted that he created the movie poster for the 4K re-release of The Night of the Living Dead.

At the end of September, the website Rue Morgue exclusively released the poster for the 4K restoration, which is being shown in select theaters throughout North America, now through January.

We're reposting the watermarked image below, and close readers can see Sean Phillips' signature and the year in the lower right:  we have no idea whether there are plans to make a print of this poster  available for purchase, but one could always talk to the theater owner where the movie's playing.

And this isn't the only zombie-related work that Phillips has produced recently:  two weeks back, he posted the following work-in-progress, and we're quite interested to see what it's for.

• January Solicitations and More Preview Art.  Finally, we turn back to Kill Or Be Killed and look forward to its future releases.  Image's January solicitations were released just yesterday, and they confirm our guess of a New Year release for the the third trade collection and the new arc's next issue, with both scheduled for a January 17th release.

Issue #15 is solicited with a full 40 pages, the full artwork for the detail which we previously noted, and a vague but intriguing description, that "Dylan is forced to confront the reality of his violent actions and his sanity...and nothing will ever be the same again!"

Sean Phillips used the same artwork to create a personal sketchbook, which he showed Twitter followers on Monday.  Even before that, he's treated fans to preview art of what appears to be the thematically similar cover for issue #16 -- created in acrylic paint, with red for the iconic ski mask, grays for the straitjacket, and an appropriately manic stare in the final version.

It's yet to be seen, how much of these images are literal or merely symbolic, and we hope readers don't go crazy waiting for the answer.

Eisner: Nominations and a "Newspaper" Comic!

Just yesterday, the San Diego Comic-Con International announced the nominees for the 2017 Eisner Awards, and we're thrilled to find nods to Criminal, Kill Or Be Killed, and all three of the books' talented creators:

• Ed Brubaker was nominated for Best Writer, for his work on the Criminal 10th Anniversary Special, Kill Or Be Killed, and Velvet.
• Sean Phillips was nominated for Best Cover Artist (for multiple covers) for the Criminal Anniversary Special and Kill Or Be Killed.
• Elizabeth Breitweiser was nominated for Best Coloring for the Criminal 10th Anniversary Special, Kill Or Be Killed, Velvet, and Outcast by Kirkman & Azaceta.
• The Criminal 10th Anniversary Special was itself nominated for Best Single Issue/One-Shot.
• And Kill Or Be Killed was nominated for Best Continuing Series.

In the nominations, both books were credited to Brubaker & Phillips, but we would be remiss not to note that, on the covers to both, Bettie Breitweiser is prominently listed -- quite rightly -- as the the third creator.  We're glad to see her receive her own nomination in recognition of her mesmerizing contributions.

(And we would be equally remiss if we didn't express our firm conviction that Steve Epting was snubbed for not receiving a nomination for his work on Velvet.)

Brubaker and Phillips have been earning awards and nominations and other accolades for well over a decade, including a 2006 Best New Series Eisner for Criminal and a 2012 Best Limited Series Eisner for "The Last of the Innocent."  We're glad to see that they continue to be recognized, both for maintaining their high-quality work and for frequently exceeding the already lofty expectations of their readers.

The awards will be announced Friday night, July 21st, at Comic-Con International.

But now is a perfect time to acquaint yourself (or your friends) to Brubaker, Phillips, and Breitweiser's latest twisted take on crime comics:  Kill Or Be Killed #1 was re-released just today (albeit without the bonus content) in a one-dollar "Image Firsts" edition.

...and, we have more interesting news involving Will Eisner, for whom the comics industry's most prestigious award was named.  

This past March, the Lakes International Comic Art Festival announced a trio of projects to honor the centenary of the comic creator's birth -- namely, an extensive exhibit of Eisner's work; a competition inspired by his famed creation The Spirit, inviting art students to invent their own vigilantes; and a newspaper-style comic featuring new work by some of today's top writer and artists.

Titled The Spirit of  Eisner, this 12-page publication is described as "a celebratory broadsheet comic" that honors both The Spirit and the original format in which the series was published.  The book is officially sanctioned by the Will Eisner estate, its original artwork will be featured in an exhibit in the festival site of Kendal, England, and Sean Phillips recently commented at our blog to elaborate that "a few of the contributors will be appearing in person, some for the first time in the UK."

(Comparing the list of contributors against those already announced as guests, I found five attendees other than Phillips himself:  Sergio Aragonés, Michael Cho, Duncan Fegredo, Jason Latour, and Peter Milligan.)

As a festival patron, Sean Phillips is quite heavily involved with the festival in general and with this centenary celebration in particular.  As well as judging the student competition with crime author Ian Rankin, Phillips is coordinating this comic's publication, and -- as he mentioned in the festival's official podcast, which we referenced last week -- he and writer Ed Brubaker are contributing a page to this comic.

That's news that is definitely worth emphasizing:

Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips are creating a one-page story for The Spirit of Eisner newspaper-sized comic for this year's Lakes International Comic Art Festival.

A few weeks back on social media, Sean posted see two bits of related artwork.  One is a definite in-progress preview of the first panel of what he subsequently describes as "one (giant) page" of a story, which we're reprinting below; the other is reprinted at the top of this post, and it may just be a sketch of Eisner's famous crimefighter.  (But what a sketch!)

The press release announcing these projects also states that the book "will be launched" at the festival, which is scheduled for the weekend of October 13th to the 15th.

Sean Phillips has another quite interesting project, which was also recently announced by the Lakes Comics Art Festival:  he has designed a republication of the first ever book on creating graphic novels, first published by Rodolphe Töpffer in 1845(!!!), with this new edition translated, edited, and introduced by John McShane.

In the press release for this special edition of this historically significant work, we find that the book will be available at the festival, but it "can also be ordered online from Page 45, the Nottingham-based comic shop that has been a longtime supporter of LICAF."

We haven't seen anything similar, stating that The Spirit of Eisner will be available anywhere other than the festival itself, but we're encouraged by the verbiage that the book will be "launched" there.

We'll certainly keep our eye out for any news about the book's availability for fans unable to attend the festival, and we'll be sure to pass along what we find.

Bullets: Brubaker's Green Light, Velvet Deluxe, and More Books on the Horizon.

• Green Light for Brubaker-penned Maniac Cop. There was big news late last week, as Variety exclusively reported that Nicolas Winding Refn’s Maniac Cop has been greenlit and is scheduled to film this summer, to be produced by Nicolas Winding Refn and directed by John Hyams.  As we noticed almost two years ago, Ed Brubaker has written the screenplay for this remake of the 1988 cult thriller.

Variety's Elsa Keslassy writes that, according to co-producer Lene Børglum, Maniac Cop "will not be a pure horror film but rather a contemporary and realistic action thriller."  We think the most interesting part of this news story is the summary of the movie's premise, which we believe we're seeing for the first time.

Set in the present, “Maniac Cop” follows a determined L.A. police officer who sets out to reveal the truth about the brutal murders of innocent people by one of her fellow cops.

Sounds like the protagonist is a female cop, perhaps much like Lily Sharpe, recently introduced as a likely antagonist in Kill Or Be Killed, or "Genuine Jen" Waters who has a minor role in Criminal, working in the city police's Internal Affairs Division.


• Velvet Deluxe Out This Week.  We noticed that the deluxe hardcover edition of Ed Brubaker's spy comic Velvet was rescheduled for release this week, on 3/29, moved from its original solicited date of February 22.

Comparing our original post on the book with the official listing on Image's website, we see two different cover images, and we believe the book features all-new cover art by Steve Epting, shown below.

The series is described as "a slick and sexy new take on the Cold War spy genre," and we note that this oversized volume collects the eponymous character's "first major storyline," so it appears we haven't seen the last of Velvet Templeton.


• More KILL OR BE KILLED in June.  We have some news items on a few upcoming releases.  First up, Image Comics released their June solicitations this past Wednesday, and it includes Kill Or Be Killed #10, with the cover Ed Brubaker showed fans in his most recent newsletter.

As his life spins out of control, Dylan and his demon come face-to-face once again.

The 40-page issue is described as the end of a story arc, and we presume this means that this will be the last chapter in the second trade paperback.  That would confirm our earlier theory that this second volume would be larger than the first, 4-issue volume, and we can now guess the schedule through the summer.

• April: KOBK #8, currently scheduled for its solicited release date of 4/26
• May: KOBK #9, also currently scheduled for its solicited release on 5/31
• June: KOBK #10, solicited for 6/28
• July: planned skip month
• August: KOBK #11 and Volume 2, collecting #5-10

If past releases are any indication, Kill Or Be Killed Volume 2 and issue #11 will be released on the same day.

At The Undertow Podcast we'll take an in-depth look at each issue as it's released, and between arcs we plan to continuing our occasional series looking back through the collaborative works of Brubaker and Phillips, a series we started in January with Scene of the Crime.


• KILL OR BE KILLED Image Firsts Edition in May.

In visiting ComicList and glancing at a recent extended forecast for Image Comics, we noticed an Image Firsts edition of the debut issue of Kill Or Be Killed.

As with their other popular titles -- including the previous books the publisher has produced for Brubaker and Phillips -- Image is releasing a one-dollar reprint of the title's first issue.

The Image Firsts series is "perfect for readers interested in trying out a variety of new titles without feeling the effects on their wallet."


• Original Graphic Novel Coming from Brubaker? Finally, Barnes & Noble's college-focused site The College Juice began this month with a spotlight interview with Ed Brubaker.  The article had quite a bit we already knew, but it included the intriguing revelation that the writer's "top secret" projects include "an original graphic novel."

We don't know anything else about this book, but we'll be sure to keep readers posted.

In the meantime, we'd like to thank Kevin Sels on Twitter for the heads-up!

Brubaker's Birthday and Interview -- and New Books for February.

We noted it elsewhere, retweeting warm birthday wishes from our podcast host Robert along with Sean Phillips' plug for their latest hardcover collection, but we missed noting here that November 17th was Ed Brubaker's fiftieth birthday.

Comics Alliance published a tribute to the writer, with a very good primer on his work.  The piece briefly reviews his career in creator-owned and work-for-hire titles -- with a few omissions, most notably 2000's Deadenders and the more recent Velvet -- and it captures the tone of most of his works, which the writer describes as nihilistic.

"Life truly has no meaning in Ed Brubaker’s greatest stories. It just is, and it is rarely generous. It provides little triumph. Heroes typically have victories; their stories end on high notes. In Brubaker’s best, there are no real victories to be had. Just survival, and sometimes not even that."

(I'm not sure I'd quite agree that the stories are nihilistic and not merely tragic. The Christian worldview makes room for noir, and in the sort of stories Brubaker tells,the weight of the moral law is felt, albeit much more in its violation than its fulfillment.  Even when it's the main characters who do terrible things, as with "The Last of the Innocent," we're invited to see that their actions really are terrible.  Like ours, their world is fallen and without any earthly hope, but that does not mean it's without any transcendent meaning.)

John R. Parker writes, quite correct that, since the debut of Criminal through Marvel's Icon imprint, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips "have released reams of brilliant material that is consistently short-listed for the best of the year, every year."

Brubaker's been busy with other work, too, and yesterday Moviefone published a wide-ranging interview with Brubaker, on Westworld, Marvel movies, and more.  He discusses his longtime goal of working in both comics and film, including the long process to breaking into Hollywood, having worked on screenplays since about 2000.  Now, he's happy to have both the collaborative work in the writers' room and the more independent work on his creator-owned comics.

He mentions the origins of his interest in noir -- his screenwriting uncle, his father letting him see his uncle's movies on late-night TV, and his aunt sending him his uncle's now-leatherbound screenplays with clippings inside.  

And, most intriguing, we have hints of new projects that may be soon to be announced.

"I have two different projects that are based on my books that are in development, at various stages. One is pretty close to being announced. Currently, I'm actually working on a TV show with a director that is a friend of mine, and that we've already sold, but it hasn't been announced yet. It'll probably be announced in the next week or two. And that's a thing that we created together." [emphasis mine]

As always, we'll keep our eyes peeled for the latest news.

In the meantime, Image Comics' February solicitations came out yesterday, with a full list online and available as a free digital comic, and another issue of Kill Or Be Killed is on the schedule, from Brubaker, Phillips, and Breitweiser.

KILL OR BE KILLED #6
STORY: ED BRUBAKER
ART: SEAN PHILLIPS & ELIZABETH BREITWEISER
COVER: SEAN PHILLIPS 

FEBRUARY 15 / 40 PAGES / FC / M / $3.99 

The second arc in BRUBAKER & PHILLIPS' runaway bestseller keeps the hits coming, as Dylan realizes how close he may be to being caught by the NYPD.  

Also, remember that every issue features all the backpage extras that BRUBAKER & PHILLIPS fans have come to expect.

This issue notably features the first cover without the narrator and vigilante, Dylan Cross.

One week after KOBK's Valentine's week publication, an even bigger release is scheduled for Brubaker fans: the deluxe hardcover collection of Velvet, his twisting espionage tale with art from Steve Epting and Bettie Breitweiser.

VELVET DELUXE HARDCOVER EDITION HC
STORY: ED BRUBAKER ART:
STEVE EPTING & ELIZABETH BREITWEISER
COVER: STEVE EPTING   

FEBRUARY 22 / 400 PAGES / FC / M / $49.99   

From the creators of Captain America: The Winter Soldier comes VELVET, a slick and sexy new take on the Cold War spy genre. What if the secretary to the man running the world's most top secret spy agency was actually their most dangerous weapon, once upon a time? VELVET is groundbreaking new work from one of the bestselling teams in comics, and now Velvet Templeton's first major storyline is collected in one oversized deluxe hardback with behind-the-scenes extras and articles. A must-have for any BRUBAKER & EPTING fan.   

Collects VELVET #1-15

We're guessing that the "oversized" hardcover will nicely complement the deluxe volumes from Brubaker/Phillips, and we note that this book only covers the "first major storyline."

Velvet Templeton will return, evidently, and we're still curious about the "huge" news that Brubaker teased in June, along with the "top secret" project with Steve Epting, who has since committed to the new Batwoman book.

---

...and that wasn't the only big news for us, as our favorite sci-fi comic finally returns!  Ken Garing's Planetoid was a sparsely written, gorgeously illustrated mini-series that concluded in 2013, and we're thrilled to see the sequel mini-series -- Planetoid: Praxis -- is scheduled for a February 1st release.

From Newsarama's version of Image's solicitations, it appears that the trade paperback for the original series is being offered again, and we couldn't recommend it more highly.

The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away, and this announcement brings a kind of symmetry to today's big release, Chew #60 and the stunning conclusion to Layman and Guillory's surprisingly epic story.

Bullets: New Undertow Podcast, New Books This Week, New Incognito Screenwriter, and Much More!

A huge, huge post ahead!

• Undertow Podcast Episode 5, Now Online!  Just in time for this week's bundle of new books (see below), the latest episode of the Undertow Podcast is now online.  Robert and I talk about Kill Or Be Killed #2, along with news, the latest Criminal trade paperback, and some movie recommendations.

As always, the episode is available on iTunes and at Podbean.

• Brubaker Newsletter -- and The Fade Out, Kill Or Be Killed, and Batman In Stores Now!  Late yesterday, we received Ed Brubaker's seventh email newsletter (full archive here), in anticipation of quite a few books that arriving today.

• The Fade Out Deluxe Edition Hardcover
• Kill Or Be Killed #3
• Kill Or Be Killed #2, 2nd printing
• Kill Or Be Killed #1, 3rd printing
• Batman By Ed Brubaker Volume 2 TPB

Quite literally the biggest book is The Fade Out -- the 400-page, complete and oversized hardcover edition collecting all 12 issues of Brubaker and Phillips' Eisner-winning noir set in Hollywood's golden age.

We've really been looking forward to this one, and Brubaker writes that, with minor tweaks and fifty pages of extra content, this is how the book was always meant to be read -- as a novel rather than a series, with details that reward a close rereading.

We also have the next issue of Kill Or Be Killed this week.  Yesterday, Image Comics posted a three-page preview, and Brubaker provides two more preview pages along with an in-progress page from the upcoming issue #4.

Ed Brubaker also suggests getting a copy early -- or calling your comic shop to reserve one -- since the first two issues were immediate sellouts.  Reprints of these issues also reach stores today, and Brubaker writes that he continues to be overwhelmed by the response from readers old and new:  "It's humbling as hell."

And there's one book that wasn't mentioned in the newsletter, and which wasn't on our radar until we saw the weekly release summary from ComicList:  Batman By Ed Brbuaker Volume 2.  The collection follows from the first volume released this past January, and it includes stories from ten issues -- Batman #598-607 -- for a retail price of $19.99.  It features chapters from the "Bruce Wayne: Murderer?" and "Fugitive" arcs, and since Batman #608 kicks off "Hush" -- the popular arc from Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee, which I think a little overrated -- this collection completes Brubaker's work writing for the Dark Knight's eponymous title.

Most notably, this collection includes Batman #603.  A fairly self-contained story within the "Fugitive" storyline, "The Turning Point" features artwork from Sean Phillips, and it is one of the earliest Brubaker-Phillips collaborations, preceded only by Scene of the Crime and Batman: Gotham Noir.

• New Screenwriter for Incognito Adaptation.  Also breaking late yesterday, The Hollywood Reporter exclusively announced a new writer for Sony's film adaptation of Brubaker and Phillips' "apocalyptic pulp noir" Incognito.  Daniel Casey is the new writer, and his sci-fi thriller Kin is now in production; Fede Alvarez is attached to direct following his Evil Dead remake and this summer's hit Don't Breathe.

Work on an Incognito adaptation has been in the news off-and-on since 2010, confirmed by Brubaker in 2012 (along with the possibility of more Incognito comics), and news about the director Fede Alvarez was leaked last year when plans were still floating around about Image republishing the series.  My bet is that the series' two arcs will be republished near the film's eventual release.

• Hard Case Crime Comics, Out Now.  Going back to comics, there was another couple titles we almost overlooked, the first two comic books from the the Hard Case Crime imprint, published by Titan Comics.

It's clear from this blog that we've long been a fan of Hard Case Crime, thanks especially to its back-page ads in the first few issues of Criminal, in 2006.  This new arrangement to produce comics makes sense, as Hard Case Crime has been working with Titan Publishing since Dorchester Publishing ceased production on mass-market paperbacks in 2010.

Still, I find it ironic on a personal level, since their inexpensive and always entertaining crime fiction made me reevaluate the value I was getting from most of my comic-book purchases.  But with that yellow ribbon -- the editor's "assurance of quality" -- I'm going to have to check these out.

The comics imprint was announced in July, with CBR publishing exclusive preview art.

[UPDATE, 9:00 pm: forgot about this interview]  In early August, Previews World published a brief interview with HCC editor Charles Ardai, who explains why readers should pick up HCC comics:  "Because a great crime story will knock you on your ass and take your breath away. Because these comics will be like nothing else out there."

The (UK) Guardian ran a story on the imprint in late September, quoting Ardai who was reading comics before getting into mystery books, and who says, "The sharp, tough, high-velocity stories we tell are a natural for the medium."  Ardai then joined some of the books' creators at this weekend's New York Comic Con,

The first book was released last week: Triggerman #1, from screenwriter and director Walter Hill and French comics writer Matz and artist Jef.  The book is described as a "hardboiled crime thriller set in the bullet-ridden streets of 1930s Chicago," and from CBR's disjointed five-page preview from September, we're reprinting one particularly striking variant cover above, evidently from artist Fay Dalton.

The second book is out today:  Peepland #1 from crime authors Christa Faust and Gary Phillips and artist Andrea Camerini.  The book is set in the red light district of Times Square in 1986, and September's five-page preview validates a review that Faust retweeted, rating this seedy book not with stars but with "a lifetime supply of germ-x and Lysol wipes."  In September, the writers were interviewed by Crime Fiction Lovers, and yesterday Bleeding Cool posted an article with the creators' brief thoughts on their influences and some behind-the-scenes art.  Writer Christa Faust should be of especial interest to existing HCC fans as the author of Money Shot and Choke Hold.

On the horizon is a 2017 adaptation by Max Allan Collins of his popular hitman Quarry, who has just been brought to the small screen on Cinemax.  And just today Flickering Myth reports that the Triggerman team will produce an English-language adaptation of Walter Hill's thriller (Re)Assignment, which he first wrote as a graphic novel in France and then directed in a controversial film starring Michelle Rodriguez and Sigourney Weaver, first screened in September's Toronto International Film Festival.

• Steve Epting Drawing Batwoman.  In other news this past week, and in the lead-up to New York Comic Con, The Hollywood Reporter exclusively announced a new Batwoman series from DC Comics.  Apparently part of a second wave of DC's Rebirth soft reboot, the series will begin with a Rebirth one-shot in February and issue #1 in March, it will be written by Marguerite Bennett, and -- most relevant to readers of this blog -- it will feature artwork by Steve Epting, his first work for DC in over 15 years.

This probably rules out any major collaborations between Epting and Brubaker for the near term:  if news about Velvet is still in the works -- and we reported in June that Brubaker said he's sitting on "huge news" on that front, along with his next project with Epting, "still top secret"  -- it's probably not a sequel series.

(Yesterday, in response to a tweet begging for a crime noir TV series from the writer, Brubaker cryptically tweeted, "stay tuned.")

• THR List.  Finally, along with the news about the Incognito film and Epting's upcoming work for DC Comics, there's one more article worth mentioning from The Hollywood Reporter, published late last week:  their list of the "100 Greatest Superhero Comics."  Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, and the beloved Darwyn Cooke appear more than once.

95. Wildcats by Joe Casey, Phillips, Dustin Nguyen, and others
89. Daredevil by Brubaker and Michael Lark
75. Sleeper by Brubaker and Phillips
67. The Immortal Iron Fist by Brubaker, Matt Fraction, David Aja, and Travel Foreman
63. Catwoman by Brubaker and Cooke
36. Captain America by Brubaker and others
20. DC: The New Frontier by Cooke

We're surprised that the quasi-spy thriller Sleeper made it but Gotham Central didn't, and we wouldn't be surprised if The New Frontier continues to grow in stature as the years go by; the article also has some links to some great pieces on Darwyn Cooke.

Bullets: KOBK Reprints and Screen Print, Velvet Volume 3, and Deluxe Details for The Fade Out!

We're summarizing highlights from a few sources:  the back matter of the latest issue of Kill Or Be Killed ("The Secret Ingredient"), the Twitter feeds of Brubaker and Phillips, Sean Phillips' official blog, and Ed Brubaker's email newsletter: we mentioned the 9/6 installment in our previous post, and another newsletter has already been sent out since then, on 9/14. 

If you're not keeping an eye on these sources yourself, you're missing out on things like additional art previews, updates on Sean's Big Cartel store, and Brubaker's recommendations on books and TV shows.

• Kill Or Be Killed, Going Back to Print Again.  Image Comics has the official announcement, that the first two issues of KOBK will see additional printings as the "body count rises."

These additional printings will be available alongside the latest issue, all on October 12th.

• KOBK #1, Third Printing
• KOBK #2, Second Printing
• KOBK #3

The announcement includes cover art for the printings, which are color variations of earlier printings.

• Kill Or Be Killed Screen Print.  With help from Ben Dodge, Sean Phillips has created a limited-edition screen print for Kill Or Be Killed. The five-color, hand-pulled art measures just over 20-by-27 inches, and a variant was created exclusively for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival in Kendal, England, on October 14-16. 

Very limited quantities of both versions are now available for pre-order in Sean's online store, and just yesterday Sean lowered the price for the artwork.

• Velvet Volume 3, In Stores Now.   Today sees the release of the third trade paperback collection for the retro spy comic by Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting, and Bettie Breitweiser.  In his 9/6 newsletter, Brubaker describes the three arcs as "one long novel, really, and while it's a complicated mystery with a lot of tangents, the answers are there for anyone looking, I promise."

Brubaker suggests, "please buy a copy for your dad, who likes spy stories and doesn't understand why you read comics."

(And he also mentions that the story was almost sold to television before it became a comic book, and he treats readers to a TV Guide mock-up that was part of the pitch presentation.  We'll let readers see the image at the archived newsletter.)

• Details on The Fade Out Deluxe Edition.  Finally, in the back of KOBK #2, Brubaker gives us quite a few details on the forthcoming deluxe edition of The Fade Out.

The Deluxe Edition collects the entire serialized graphic novel in one beautiful edition.  I even went through the book and made some minor tweaks here and there, so I'm considering this the definitive version of the story.  And on the bonus content side, this is probably our biggest one yet.  We've got over 50 pages of extra content -- covers, articles, process stuff about the art and research.  We've been doing these hardbacks a while now, and we put out some of the nicest ones on the market, but I think Sean outdid himself with the design and extra content this time.  So, be sure to tell your retailer if you want one.

We're even more eagerly looking forward to this release, due on the same day as the three KOBK printings, October 12th.

UNDERTOW PODCAST EPISODE 3 Now Online, with a Closer Look at Velvet!

The third episode of The Undertow Podcast has just been published and is now available on iTunes and Podbean:   recorded at the end of July and published on August 1st, this episode focuses on Velvet by Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting, which has just wrapped its first major story arc.  Robert and I also cover some recent news items and recommend a few other comics for our listeners.

Ms. Templeton is currently on vacation, with her spy series currently on hiatus, and we're commemorating "Book One" of her series with a collage of cover art from the 15 monthly issues and the subsequent trade paperbacks, including the third volume, which is currently scheduled for September.

As before, I've placed an extra-large, 2.2-MB version on Google Drive.

We'll have another post up soon, about this week's new issues, including the debut of Kill Or Be Killed by Brubaker, Phillips, and Breitweiser!

Bullets: Velvet #15 Out Now, Advance Reviews of KOBK, and More!

We have a long post that could have been made even longer, but we'll start with a couple big items, as one big story reaches a momentary conclusion and another one looms larger on the horizon.

• Velvet #15, In Stores Today, with a Preview Online.  We recently covered the news that Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting, and Bettie Breitweiser's espionage period piece was going on a hiatus following this new issue and its "grand finale of the first big Velvet story."  The new issue hit stores today, following a three-page preview that Comic Book Resources published yesterday, and we can confirm that Brubaker doesn't reveal many additional details in the back pages, beyond plans "to return to Velvet, hopefully soon and often."

(Okay, there's also a hint of what we might see in the future, a reveal that might be considered a bit of spoiler in light of the preview.)

At the beginning of the month, ComicList's extended preview for Image Comics included a product change for the issue.

VELVET #15 will now run 40 pages at a price of $3.99, not 32 pages at a price of $3.50.

We can confirm both the slightly higher price and the extra-sized issue; we notice that finales tend to run long with Brubaker stories, but we're not complaining in the least.

• Advance Reviews and Previews for Kill Or Be Killed.  In the back pages of Velvet, we find an extended preview of Kill Or Be Killed #1, the upcoming crime comic from Brubaker, Sean Phillips, and Breitweiser.  It's the same six-page preview that we mentioned earlier.  These first few pages of the debut issue were first released in Image+ #2 and then expanded upon with in-progress art in Brubaker's first email newsletter, and it has since made it to other publications.

Two weeks back, it was announced on Twitter that the preview was included in the new issue of The Walking Dead, and we see that it's in issue #156, upside-down in the back -- tête-bêche, a format popularized by the Ace Doubles books introduced in the 1950's --  which allows Phillips' cover art to serve as a proper cover to the preview.  Long-time readers may remember that, despite being published through the Icon imprint of Image competitor Marvel, Criminal was featured in TWD ten years ago next month, with the five-page "trailer" for its first arc "Coward" being included in issue #30, and four years ago this month, Sean Phillips created a variant cover for the series' milestone 100th issue.

From Sean Phillips, we also learned that the book is featured in a five-page article of the latest issue of British comics magazine Comic Heroes.  The issue, released in early July, features Harley Quinn and Man-Bat on the cover, and the article evidently includes an interview with both Brubaker and Phillips.

And, advance copies of the debut issue is apparently reaching select readers, resulting in advance, reviews -- and advance tweets, as Rick Remender calls the book "an eerie layered bit of stunning greatness."

In a spoiler-free review, Nerdist raves that issue #1 "is so much darker and more twisted than anybody guessed. It’s also freaking glorious and an awesome first issue of a promising new series."  Elsewhere, Comic Bastards gives the book a 5 out of 5, describing the issue's narrative structure but still avoiding much more detail, particularly for readers of Brubaker's newsletter.

The book should be hitting stores in just a couple weeks, on August 3rd, and ComicList's latest extended forecast for Image relays that the issue "will now run 48 pages, not 40 pages, with no change in price."

• Solicitations, with Preview Art in the Latest Newsletter.  The latest issue of Ed Brubaker's email newsletter came out Sunday, and as before the issue is archived online, and readers should DEFINITELY subscribe to stay up-to-date.  In addition to fielding reader questions, Brubaker provides a ton of rare artwork:

• a Fatale giclée that was available at the 2014 TCAF, where both Brubaker and Phillips made an appearance
• several behind-the-scenes drafts of the cover art for Fatale #9
• a "non-spoilery tease" for KOBK #2, black-and-white in-progress artwork for a single page, with text
• the cover art for KOBK #3, along with an earlier sketch

We're reprinting the final cover art below, and it appears to have been omitted from the October solicitations that were released on Monday.

Kill Or Be Killed #3 cover, From the Desk of Ed Brubaker

(These first three issues' covers seem almost to tell a single story.  We wonder if that's deliberate, and we wonder if this "story" will continue to unfold on the covers.)

We overlooked Image's September solicitations, and the story's premise remains vague but very intriguing:

#2: Every killer has to have his first kill, and they're never easy.

#3: As our hero is drawn deeper into the shadows, his secret vigilante life begins to put everything he cares about in danger.

As with the first issue, these next two issues are solicited at $3.99 for 40 pages.

Fundraising and Tributes.  Finally, a couple brief notes, much more abbreviated than any one of these items deserve.

• Ed Brubaker was announced among the first wave of the 2017 JoCo Cruise, a weeklong excursion down Baja California in early March, and it appears that the cruise continues its partnership with the Worldbuilders charity, where booklovers work together to help worthy causes.
• Sean's wife Jeanette Phillips has set up a JustGiving page for Epilepsy Research UK. The 5K run/walk took place this past weekend, and she has already exceeded her goal, but people can still donate online.
• Almost Darwyn Cooke's Blog has highlighted a tribute panel for the late, great creator at this year's San Diego Comic-Con International.  The one-hour event will start this Saturday evening, moderated by Jimmy Palmiotti and including Mike Allred, Scott Dunbier, Cully Hamner, Frank Tieri, and Bruce Timm.

We plan to pass along any reports on this panel.

Bullets: UNDERTOW PODCAST EPISODE 2, Brubaker's Newsletter and Audio Interview, and More!

We have couple big items to wrap up the month.

• Undertow Podcast Now Online!  The second episode of The Undertow Podcast has been released and is now available on iTunes and Podbean.  Robert and I pay tribute to the late, great Darwyn Cooke, with an emphasis on two acclaimed works that might be of particular interest to our listeners -- and to our readers here:  his work with Ed Brubaker redefining Catwoman for the modern era and his four hardcover adaptations of Richard Stark's Parker series.

We also discuss and recommend two works I mentioned in my last post, both humorous looks at the genre of crime fiction: a new comic called The Fix and the movie (and accompanying novelization of) The Nice Guys.

(About The Fix, it looks like issue #4 is out next week, along with additional printings of the first three issues.  In the meantime, we've noticed, via Ed Brubaker's Twitter feed, that Paste Magazine posted an excellent article on the series early this month, resulting from an interview with the creators.  Nick Spencer is said to be a fan of "crime comic classics such as Criminal and 100 Bullets.")

We anticipate our next podcast episode will be released in late July, after the release of Velvet #15 -- and we're looking forward to it already.

• Ed Brubaker on "How to Be a Person" Podcast. We're not the only one recording audio discussions for an online audience, and last week the podcast, "How to Be a Person," published their episode interviewing Ed Brubaker.  There's not much new about his creator-owned comics, but the wide-ranging conversation covers his childhood and his early encounters with comics, his work on Captain America and Gotham Central, and his recent job as one of the writers for the upcoming HBO series Westworld -- all before less serious segments, a how-to on creating the text for cartoon sound effects and a short game devising supervillain names for people in real life.

In the interview, Brubaker describes Westworld as the most ambitious sci-fi television series since the updated Battlestar Galactica.  A teaser trailer for the series was released just last week, and Ars Technica has more details on the creative staff and premise for the show, which premieres in October.

The one-hour podcast is available on SoundCloud, and we think it's worth a listen. 

• More on Velvet & Kill or Be Killed in the Brubaker Newsletter. We mentioned this in our news digest at the beginning of the podcast, but Ed Brubaker's second full-length newsletter was sent out by email on June 15th.  He discusses DC's latest controversial moves involving the world of Alan Moore's Watchmen, and he's inviting readers to send questions -- and lucky readers who have their questions answered will also win a prize from the writer.

Brubaker includes some great artwork from his current books, both in-progress and in their final version.  There's a couple pages of action from Steve Epting for the upcoming issue of Velvet, and there's an advance look at Sean Phillips' cover art for Kill Or Be Killed #2, which we're reprinting below.

Kill Or Be Killed #2 cover, From the Desk of Ed Brubaker

There are quite a few items of note regarding both series.

• Velvet 15 went to print the week of June 15th, and Ed explains that all of the various delays were due to him, not Steve Epting:  his workload has been too much, and this particular story has been intricate and difficutl to write.
• This upcoming issue is the "grand finale of the first big Velvet story," and Brubaker is just starting the script for his next project with Epting:  this project is "still top secret," and the artist will be drawing something quite different from anything else currently on the stands.
• This new project does NOT mean the end of Velvet, as Brubaker assures us that the series will return -- and that he's been sitting on "huge" news that he can't wait to announce.

We we're quite surprised to see that Velvet is going on a kind of hiatus, and while we have our guesses, we do wonder what the big news is on that front.  As always, we'll relay all news as we find it.

In the interim, one great way readers can keep up with the news themselves is to subscribe to Ed's newsletter.


• The Grand Finale of Transformers Vs GI Joe. Finally, one of our other favorite series -- and the book I recommended in our first podcast episode -- wrapped up yesterday after an amazing two-year run:  Transformers vs GI Joe, a bonkers and brilliant series that pushes the very limits of what comic books can do, a self-contained riff on two licensed properties that has no business being as great as it is.

In that article on The Fix that we mentioned above, Paste Magazine mentions Scioli's "intricate Kirby-esque chaos" that makes it (like The Fix) a meaty book well worth rereading.  In its size and scope, it actually compares to another book we discussed in the latest podcast, Darwyn Cooke's epic love letter to the Golden and Silver Ages of DC Comics, The New Frontier.

On Twitter, series co-writer and artist Tom Scioli highlights a blogger's lengthy review of this last issue that points out that the entire run does things you can only find in comics -- and does it often, about six times an issue.  Printed in a prestige format for its extra-long content, this "Armageddon" issue did have quite a few cards up its sleeve, and -- to my surprise and delight -- it even left me wanting more from this particular universe. 

I've done this a few times before, for the works of Brubaker and Phillips...

- The 30 covers for Fatale's monthly issues and trade collections.
- The 6 covers for Image's reprints of the Criminal trades.
- The 12 covers for The Fade Out.

...but I've been so giddy over this sci-fi series that I made a quick collage of the cover art for the series -- at least of the standard covers for issues #0-#13 by Tom Scioli, and his wraparound variant for the finale.  (There have been more than two dozen other variant covers.)

As before, an extra-large version is available on Google Drive, clocking in at 4-MB.

If you grew up with these characters, and if these covers pique your interest, do yourself a favor and check out the series.