Bullets: Brubaker on Marvels Project, Criminal Deluxe Page Count, Liberty Comics.

A few more things I forgot to mention earlier this week or have seen since.

• Marvels Project Interview. Ed Brubaker continues to be involved with high-profile work at Marvel, and yesterday Newsarama published an interview with Brubaker about the Marvels Project, a "Year One" sort of mini-series that debuts in just a couple weeks.
  
  
• Update on Eisner Nod for Staples. As we reported in April, our own Val Staples was nominated for an Eisner Award for his coloring work on Criminal and Incognito. As the blog The Beat reminded me, the winners were announced this weekend at the San Diego Comic-Con, and the award went to Dave Stewart for his work on eight different titles, including Hellboy, The Umbrella Academy, and Captain America: White.
  
  
• Criminal Deluxe Page Count. Earlier I relayed that Sean Phillips had announced his finishing the art design for Criminal: The Deluxe Edition. What I failed to mention was that the page count appears to be more than the 400 pages that was originally solicited.
  
  At his blog, Phillips implied that the hardcover has 432 pages. The first three trade paperbacks contained only the story arcs with no extra content, and from online retailers I gather that they have a combined page count of about 360 pages.
  
  That now leaves about 72 pages of extra content, more than enough to include the approximately forty pages of essays that were in the original monthly issues. With that much extra space, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Criminal "emission" from last year's Liberty Comics #1.
  
  
• Liberty Comics #2. Finally, while I'm on the subject, Comic Book Resources has an article on this year's second issue of Liberty Comics. The issue is once again published by Image Comics to benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and it includes contributions from Gail Simone, Paul Pope, Mike Allred, Dave Gibbons, and Jimmy Palmiotti. The book promises to have a noteworthy collaboration between Neil Gaiman and Jim Lee, and it will feature two covers, one by John Romita, Jr., and one by Tim Sale (with coloring by Dave Stewart).
  
  I don't believe any of the Criminal creators are contributing to this issue. The next "emission" is the black-and-white "21st Century Noir" for Dark Horse Noir, scheduled for September 30th.
  
  Still, this second issue promises to follow in the footsteps of the first issue, as a good comic for a good cause. Liberty Comics #2 is scheduled to be released on October 14th.

Brubaker's interview above focused solely on the Marvel Project, but I imagine we might hear more from him about the Icon titles as Incognito draws to a close and Criminal makes its triumphant return.


Buy Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips comics from Amazon.com

Bullets: October Solicitation, Incognito Trade Cover, and More.

It continues to be good times for fans of crime comics, and of Brubaker and Phillips' work in particular.

• Solicitation for "The Sinners," Part Two. Marvel's October solicitations were released last week, and among the titles listed is the second installment of "The Sinners," the new story arc for Criminal.
  
  Made men are turning up dead in what appear to be mob-style hits, and since criminals don’t go to the cops for justice, TRACY LAWLESS has been appointed the defacto “sheriff” of the criminal underworld by his boss, Crimelord Sebastian Hyde. But Tracy is the ultimate outsider, and the cons, murderers, and thieves don’t like or trust him any more than the police do.
  
  Sounds like there could be shades of a modern-day Western, mixed with a murder mystery, all with the brutal noir that we've come to expect from Criminal. The 40-page issue is scheduled to be released the Wednesday before Halloween.
  
  
• Cover Art for the Incognito Trade. I half expected a solicitation for the trade paperback for Incognito, but it looks like we'll be waiting for that until November at the earliest. In the meantime, Sean Phillips has shown us what is apparently the cover art for the trade collection. The orientation is more traditional than the preliminary image we noted in April, but the art direction is still quite unconventional for a comic book trade collection.
  
  
• Incognito Review. We're now beginning to discuss the trade collection, but the monthly installments of Incognito still haven't wrapped up. The penultimate issue was released almost two weeks ago now, and last week Comic Book Resources posted a glowing review of the issue.
  
  The review, which awarded the issue a full five stars, praised in particular the deliberate pace in which the story's larger universe unfolds, which is -- come to think of it -- perhaps the biggest difference between this series and Sleeper. The earlier WildStorm title was set in an established universe, so while there were plenty of surprises for the main characters, the setting itself wasn't a mystery. Here, Brubaker and Phillips have their first real opportunity to create a new super-powered fictional universe, and they take their time unveiling the story's setting. The pulp origins of the Incognito universe are becoming more clear only in hindsight, and only now do we really see the relevance of the issues' additional material, essays by Jess Nevins about classic pulp characters like the Shadow and Fu Manchu.
  
  
• Crime Comics: Vertigo Crime. The latest issue of Incognito isn't the only new release worth mentioning for fans of crime comics. Following the one-dollar "After Watchmen" previews that DC Comics continues to offer, DC's Vertigo imprint has begun selling inexpensive previews of its high-profile titles, such as Bill Willingham's Fables. Last week, Vertigo released a one-dollar preview of 100 Bullets. The preview not only features the first full issue of Azzarello and Risso's recently completed series, it also features previews of the first two graphic novels for Vertigo Crime, about which we first reported in February. The first two entries of this upcoming series of smaller, black-and-white hardcovers will apparently be released simultaneously, this August.
  
  
• Crime Comics: Parker. From previews of new crime stories, we turn to an adaptation of a classic: as I reported last time, Darwyn Cooke's adaptation of Richard Stark's The Hunter has just been released. My copy of the hardcover arrived last week, and, having finished the book, I cannot recommend the comic more highly.
  
  Even at a glance, the book is obviously a work of craft. Its smaller size would make it a better fit alongside novels rather than graphic novels, and beneath its dust jacket -- which features a blurb from our own Ed Brubaker -- is a traditional hardcover binding that makes it look like it was published from the novel's setting of New York City, 1962.
  
  Within its perfect presentation is a damn near perfect story, a brutal and hard-boiled tale -- conveyed in a sparse fashion that rewards careful reading -- that should appeal to any fan of Criminal or the Hard Case Crime paperback imprint. The Violent World of Parker fansite pointed out a very good review and analysis at Comixology. The review conveys that the comic stands as its own work while remaining quite faithful to the original novel -- which is still in my daunting stack of books to-read. The review nails the comic's monochrome blue as "handpainted steel," and it highlights the story's tension between romantic love and an almost mechanical professionalism, a tension that's echoed in one of my favorite films, Michael Mann's Heat.
  
  This is apparently the first and only time that the late Donald Westlake (under the pseudonym Richard Stark) allowed the name "Parker" to be used in any adaptation of his work, and it's an adaptation that honors the character, who Brubaker describes in his blurb as "the most iconic criminal ever created."
  
  
• Donald Westlake in Hard Case Crime. While I'm on the subject, Parker fans should take note that Donald E. Westlake's final, never-before-published novel Memory will be published next April by the acclaimed paperback imprint Hard Case Crime. Ed Brubaker strongly recommended the imprint, which publishes a new or classic crime novel about once a month. I've already read about two dozen of the fifty-plus books, and I recommend them as very taut and enjoyable weekend reads.
  
  In the meantime, the early Parker books are being released by the University of Chicago Press, which is why The Hunter is waiting for me on my shelf. The third group of three books should be out in August.
  
  
• Flashback: Brubaker Essay on Critics. I hadn't seen this before, and I don't know where else to document this, but it appears that, around August of 2001, Ed Brubaker wrote an online essay for the launch of a comic site called The Fourth Rail, whose doors closed in 2006. It's an interesting essay about how otherwise useless critics can become a "necessary evil" in the marketplace, by pointing the audience toward good work and away from garbage.
  
  I wonder if Brubaker's opinion of online comic critics has changed over the last eight years. It's certainly true that good work is getting noticed in terms of sales, but the best-sellers continue to be precisely what you would expect them to be.
  
  
• Angel of Death on DVD. Finally Angel of Death, Ed Brubaker's online live-action mini-series starring Zoe Bell, has been repackaged as a full-length movie. It was screened at the San Diego Comic Con this past weekend and was broadcast on Spike TV, but if anybody else missed it like I did, it is now on-sale as a DVD, complete with bonus features.

Buy Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips comics from Amazon.com

Bullets: Incognito in Stores This Week, Criminal Art, Crime Comics.

What may be appropriate for this site, a drive-by blogging.

• Release of Incognito #5. Marvel's website hasn't had complete and up-to-date information about Incognito for some time, and I've been altogether unable to find its listing for issue #5, but the Savage Critic reports that issue #5 should be in stores tomorrow, July 15th.
  
  Also in stores this week is Cooke's Hunter, covered below.
  
  
• Criminal artwork. While Incognito continues to rumble toward its inevitably brutal conclusion, Sean Phillips continues to highlight artwork for the Criminal releases that are soon to follow. Alongside preview art of Incognito -- and of his cat Florence -- Phillips' blog has been showcasing the inks and completed cover art for the second chapter of "The Sinners," and interior designs and behind-the-scenes extras in the deluxe hardcover volume that we first reported in June.
  
  Just today, Phillips reports that he has finished the art design for the hardcover, and he posted a large image of the completed cover art, a striking cover about which I have more to say, in another post.
  
  
• Captain America: Reborn. The first issue of Ed Brubaker's Reborn mini-series is now in stores, and in case anyone missed it, Newsarama reports that Marvel.com is featuring an online "prelude" to the mini-series, and the news site also features an interview with Brubaker, following the release of the first issue.
  
  
• Other Crime Comics. Finally, as we mentioned above, the Savage Critic relays that this week also sees the release of The Hunter. The book is Darwyn Cooke's first adaptation of Richard Stark's character Parker, and we pointed out a preview of the hardcover last May.
  
  And, from Twitter, Ed Brubaker highly recommended Chew, an eccentric crime comic which debuted last month, and whose second issue came out two weeks ago. It appears that both the first issue and the second issue have sold incredibly well, so it might already be hard to find. I recommend the dark comedy very highly: there are previews online for the first two issues here and here at Comic Book Resources, and Newsarama reports that the first issue will be reprinted in the back of Walking Dead #63, which ALSO appears to be reaching stores this week.

Between Incognito, Hunter, and the Chew reprint in Walking Dead, it's a good week for crime comics. Chew's appearance in Walking Dead reminds me of another comic which was helped early on by Robert Kirkman's zombie comic... a comic whose return I couldn't anticipate more highly.


Buy Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips comics from Amazon.com

Cover Art for Criminal Deluxe.

Briefly, I just noticed this afternoon, that over on his fairly new Twitter account, Ed Brubaker pointed out the cover art to the Criminal omnibus at Comic Book Resources, art that has now been added to Marvel's September solicitations at CBR.



It's impressive: it looks more like an art book than does your typical comic book hardcover. It uses a white background on the spine, just like the trade paperbacks. The spine features a detail of the cover for Criminal #9 -- the apparently popular Tracy Lawless at his family's gravesite -- and the front features the part of the painting for the cover for Volume 2, #2.

That painting -- which I think is the best cover art we've seen for this series so far -- is not only striking in its brutal beauty, it features the man who is, in some ways, a key character in the three arcs included in this volume: the sociopath, Teeg Lawless.

The edition isn't listed as "Volume 1," but since "Bad Night wasn't included and "The Sinners" is already on its way, presumably this isn't the only "deluxe" hardcover we'll ever see from this series.

Finally, it wasn't listed in the solicitation, but the artwork indicates an introduction by Dave Gibbons, the artist and writer who's best known for his art on Watchmen.


Buy Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips comics from Amazon.com

Sleeper and Incognito, In Stores Today.

This is just a reminder that the Sleeper: Season One trade paperback collection and Incognito #4 are both in stores today.

Upon the release the new edition of Point Blank -- the prelude to Sleeper -- I mentioned that I would provide an update "if there is any new material worth mentioning." The changes to the new release are extremely minor, and I documented them in an update to that original blog entry.

I haven't yet received my copy of Sleeper: Season One, but I'll relay what changes have been made after it comes in.

In the meantime, DC's WildStorm blog has an entry featuring drafts of Sean Phillips' cover art, which we highlighted earlier this year, and the official listing for the new trade paperback features a PDF preview of the first four pages.

What I haven't been able to find -- for the first time in a while, at least since early in the "Bad Night" arc for Criminal -- is an online preview for the latest monthly issue, not at the usual comic news sites, and not even in Marvel's official list of comics released this week.

I did pick up Incognito #4 today, and it's a doozy. In the back pages, Ed Brubaker describes the issue as one of his favorite so far in this series, an issue "where the knife just keeps twisting."


Buy Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips comics from Amazon.com

September Solicitations: Sinners and Criminal Deluxe.

Marvel's solicitations for September, 2009, have been released today and can be found on both Comic Book Resources and Newsarama, and we finally have more details about the big news items we've announced over the last couple weeks, the return of Criminal with a new story arc in a monthly format and the Criminal hardcover that Ed Brubaker confirmed early last week.

CRIMINAL: THE SINNERS #1
By Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

FROM THE CREATORS OF INCOGNITO -- THE AWARD-WINNING SERIES RETURNS!
"THE BEST CRIME COMIC EVER PUBLISHED..." – Comic Book Resources

One of the most award-winning and acclaimed comics series of the last several years returns to the shelves this September with a perfect new jumping-on point for new readers -- or those who’ve gotten hooked on Brubaker and Phillips hit series INCOGNITO and are craving more!

CRIMINAL’s most popular character, TRACY LAWLESS returns in THE SINNERS. It’s been a year since Tracy was forced into working for the bad guys, and now made men are turning up dead all over the city, in what appears to be mob-style hits. But since criminals don’t go to the cops for justice... only Tracy can solve this crime.

40 PGS/Mature Content/No ads.... $3.50

FINAL ORDER CUT-OFF 9/3, (ON-SALE 9/23/09)



CRIMINAL: THE DELUXE EDITION
By Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

This oversized deluxe hardback edition features CRIMINAL books 1 thru 3 -- COWARD, LAWLESS, and THE DEAD AND THE DYING. A fantastically-designed and printed book showcasing the Eisner and Harvey Award-Winning crime comics from the creators of SLEEPER and INCOGNITO.

Also features many extras – including a Criminal short story and the never-before-printed five page “movie trailer in comics form” that Brubaker and Phillips created to announce the series online... illustrations, selected articles, behind the scenes looks, painted covers... and much much more!

A true collector’s edition spectacular from two of the hottest creators in comics, and a must-have for any fan!

400 pages/Mature Content... $49.99

There's a lot worth noting.

• Release dates. Newsarama lists September 23rd as the expected on-sale date for "The Sinners #1", but neither site lists a sale date for the hardcover collection. When he confirmed the hardcover, Brubaker relayed, "it will come out in November."
  
  
• Cover art. Both sites display the cover art for "The Sinners #1," which we've already featured from Sean Phillips' blog, but neither have the cover art for the early-solicited hardcover, artwork which will presumably be released closer to the actual publication.
  
  
• De-emphasized numbering for Criminal. The next issue of the monthly title is referenced as simply Criminal: The Sinners #1. The issue may still be listed as "Volume 2, Issue 9" on the copyright page, but Sean Phillips' preview art did suggest that the monthly title would no longer list this number on the cover. This is probably being done -- wisely in my opinion -- to help draw new readers after the conclusion of Incognito and with the beginning of each new, largely self-contained arc.
  
  
• "One year later." The last chapter of "Lawless," set on Christmas Eve, was released in November, 2007. I've been speculating -- quite out of nowhere -- that each present-day arc roughly corresponded to the release date, but if "The Sinners" does take place a year later, that speculation clearly was presumptuous.
  
  
• Oversized hardcover. The "deluxe" collection isn't just a hardcover, it's listed as an "oversized" hardcover. My guess is that it might be 11.3 x 7.6 inches, like many Marvel hardcovers.
  
  
• Extra content. I believe the first three trade paperbacks contain 128 pages, 128 pages, and 104 pages, respectively. This leaves a hefty forty pages of additional content.
  
  That content will apparently include the "preview trailer" that has been featured here, and I believe it has only been previously published in any official capacity in the back pages of Kirkman's Walking Dead #30.
  
  The "Criminal short story" might be the prose story, "Caught in the Undertow," written from Gnarly's point of view and included in the premiere issue -- or it might be "No One Rides for Free," the Criminal "emission" from Liberty Comics #1.
  
  In addition to the essays that are beautifully illustrated by Sean Phillips, the extra material in the monthly issues includes ads for friends of Criminal, like Hard Case Crime; Brubaker's personal page, which was eventually titled "The Secret Ingredient is Crime;" and an excerpt of an interview with Brubaker conducted by Daniel Robert Epstein before the journalist's death. Not including all that, I count FORTY PAGES of essays in the first thirteen issues, so unless some of these essays are reformatted, I suspect that this hardcover might only collect some of these essays as "selected articles."
  
  Even so, it appears that this collection really will be the rare instance of a book to meet its claim of being a "must-have."

As always, we'll relay more information about both the monthly comic and the hardcover collection as it becomes available. In particular, I'll work to update the blog as quickly as possible with any details about the Deluxe Edition's November release date, cover art, and bonus material.

UPDATE, June 17: The solicitation has been updated with the cover art; details here.


Buy Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips comics from Amazon.com

Bullets: Reborn, Interviews, and Preview Art.

Bigger news is coming later today, but first, a quick survey of other stuff I've seen online, all about Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.

• Details on Reborn. There have been some significant complaints about the planned timing of this announcement -- see, for instance, Brian Hibbs' criticism in multiple parts, starting here -- but Marvel has now announced that Ed Brubaker's upcoming Reborn miniseries will feature the return of Steve Rogers, Captain America.
  
  I have not yet seen any interviews with Brubaker, but the news is getting extensive coverage at comic-book news sites and is even being mentioned in mainstream news outlets. In addition to providing a press release from Marvel, Newsarama reports that the New York Daily News first broke the story. The site also highlights a blog entry at the LA Times that features a six-page preview of Captain America: Reborn #1.
  
  The story apparently begins in Captain America #600, in stores this week, and the five-part Reborn miniseries will debut on July 1st.
  
  
• Brubaker Podcast: Criminal Film Rights? I missed catching this earlier, but around April 16th, iFanboy released a podcast interview with Ed Brubaker, who discusses Incognito, Angel of Death, and his current work in the Marvel universe. The entire 40-minute interview is worth a listen, for details about how Brubaker uses notebooks to plan his stories (and how he plays with his dog while he brainstorms), and how he transitioned from doing work as a comic artist to focusing on writing.
  
  He mentions that there is already talks about a sequel to Angel of Death, but what I found most interesting is what Brubaker revealed about Criminal at the seven-minute mark, while discussing how Angel of Death came about.
  
  "John Norris, the producer on Angel of Death, was approaching me to see about getting the rights to Criminal to do for an Internet series. I was already in negotiations with a variety of people on some of those books, so I couldn't do that and wasn't sure I'd want to anyway." [emphasis mine]
  
  Very interesting.
  
  
• Brubaker, Phillips, and New Technology. Ed Brubaker was also briefly interviewed by Newsarama, alongside others in the comics industry, on the subject of how technology might change the industry.
  
  "For my money, nothing beats printed comics and graphic novels, but the new technology offers one big advantage that makes it very appealing... the direct distribution of content to the reader/viewer. I don't think print is dead, or any of those old saws, and I don't think that ecomics or motion comics will ever give a reader the same experience as print does, but it's hard to argue the impact they'll have on the market in the coming years."
  
  The topic reminds of a Slate article by Jacob Weisberg on the effect Kindle and similar readers might have on the publishing industry. He theorizes that physical books may "decline as useful objects" but then "flourish as design objects." In comics, we might see fewer physical monthly titles, but a greater number of high-quality "Absolute" editions of major works. I'm not sure that could sustain specialty retailers, but I do hope it can.
  
  On the subject of how technology will change printed media, the June 1st issue of The New Yorker features cover art that was created on a iPhone app. The Unofficial Apple Weblog has a story that features the artwork and provides links both to an interview with the artist and to a video showing the creation of the cover art in-progress.
  
  Sean Phillips has used a similar paint application with a Nintendo DS he was given in early 2008, and he has posted on his blog some quite impressive work, including sketches of his son Jake and some Viking jewelry. He has also posted movies, here and here, of two nudes that he presumably drew during a life drawing class.
  
  
• Preview art for Incognito and Criminal. I don't believe Sean has posted much DS art recently. For May and June, his blog has been dominated by work for Incognito and Criminal.
  
  For Incognito, Phillips has posted quite a few thumbnails, sketches, partial inks, and completed inks. Highlights include the sketch and final artwork for Jess Nevins' essay on Operator 5, presumably for Incognito #4, in stores tomorrow. Just today, he has posted a sketch for what I gather is the artwork for Nevins' essay for issue #5, on Fu Manchu.
  
  As we reported earlier, Criminal is about to make its return, and so Phillips has posted the sketch, the inks, and the colors for the cover art for part one of "The Sinners." We have also been treated to the sketch of the cover art for part two. As before, the issue number -- issue #9 of volume 2 -- appears to be omitted. More, the sketch suggests a striking and possibly deliberate contrast to the cover for issue #9 of the first volume.
  
  
  
  The final cover art has not yet been posted.

The bigger news on the Criminal front is coming shortly.


Buy Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips comics from Amazon.com