Incognito Out This Week (and More Soon), and Interesting Links.

Both Great Escape Comics in Marietta, Georgia, and San Francisco's Comix Experience confirm that Incognito: Bad Influences #3 is in stores tomorrow, February 9th.

Ed Brubaker has relayed the same news, adding that Issue #4 is already at the printers.

And, along with more sketches for the following issues, Sean Phillips has posted a two-page preview of tomorrow's release. Frankly, it's the best two pages I've seen from this mini-series, and I can't wait for the new issue.

But wait we must, and while we do, Brubaker's Twitter page has highlighted a couple worthwhile destinations on the World Wide Web.

PopMatters features a review of "Bad Influences." I think it stretches credibility to tie the appeal of pulp to a particular decade's political context, but Michael Stewart is right to note that the heroes in the Incognito universe are presented as consistently brutal and cynical, all the way back to the older generation's origins. Unlike the mainstream books, here we have a super-powered universe with depth and history, but we see no softening from being subjected to the now-defunct Comics Code.

Over on Vimeo, we have two trailers for In the Dark, a short film written and directed by Brubaker and starring Wil Wheaton. The film is a production of "Basement Gang, Inc.," Brubaker's company that also owns the rights to Incognito. (Check the copyright.) This is the same short film that premiered at last year's Seattle International Film Festival.

Finally, Eric Skillman, the graphic designer for the Criterion Collection, highlights the process for creating the cover to Sweet Smell of Success. As we reported in November, Sean Phillips created the cover art, and Skillman's blog post features quite a bit of Phillips' work. We find sketches, partial work, the complete and unadorned painting, and one of two bonus paintings to be included in the February 22nd release.

Incognito: Bad Influences #2 Out Now... Sorta.

After a brief delay caused by "a shit couple of months with family stuff" for both creators, Sean Phillips relays that the next issue of Incognito: Bad Influences is out today.

Elsewhere, Ed Brubaker explains that the issue isn't out in all markets. It has reached West Coast stores, evidently including Chris Hibb's Comix Experience in San Francisco.

The issue wasn't available at my store, Great Escape Comics in Marietta, Georgia; I haven't seen any previews online; and Marvel's official site still lists a December 29th release date.

It suffices to say that the new issue should be in stores everywhere by next Wednesday, during the last week of 2010.

Bullets: Incognito Reviews and More.

Lots of links from the past few weeks.

• A Criminal Comeback, Part 1. From my point of view, the best thing about the Newsarama interview that ADD highlighted earlier is the eminent return of Criminal.
  
  Ed Brubaker relayed that we will soon see the story that might still be titled "Coward's Way Out" -- and even that story might not the last we'll see of Leo.

  "Depending on how I feel by the time I finish Issue #5 of Bad Influences, we may do an Incognito Annual first, before we go back to Criminal, but we'll be going back to Criminal as the next thing. Right now, it's looking like it's going to be the sequel to Coward, which is Leo in prison. But until I actually sit down to write it, it could change. I've had that mapped out since before I wrote Coward. I've had the idea for three stories with that character."

  Brubaker reiterates this plan on his Twitter page, telling Brad Meltzer that Criminal will return "As soon as Incognito is done."
  
  I really like Incognito, and along with titles like Chew and Scott Morse's Strange Science Fantasy, it's a book I look forward to reading every month, but it's no Criminal, and I wish Brubaker and Phillips didn't have to choose between the two titles. Their straight-up crime comic is like a pure, uncut narcotic, and I've been having withdrawal symptoms for far too long.
  
  
• Bad Influences, Mostly Good Reviews. Quite a few reviews have been posted for the debut of Incognito: Bad Influences, and the ones I've seen have been mostly positive, but not without reservations.
  
  The most enthusiastic review I've seen is at A Comic Book Blog, where John Barringer admits that he would pay double for the issue.
  
  Comics Alliance lauds the issue as "a great read that's a welcome return to a well written, beautifully drawn and colored series." The critic notes the emerging similarities with Sleeper but trusts that the story will stand on its own.
  
  At IGN, the issue is given an "impressive" 8.0 review: compared to previous collaborations, the story "doesn't quite sing as loudly or as beautifully," but the issue "succeeds largely because Brubaker and Phillips again compliment each other so wonderfully."
  
  The Comics Panel at The A.V. Club gives the issue a solid B: "In spite of the rehashed plot elements, Incognito: Bad Influences has enough of its own identity to set itself apart from its predecessors, and looks to be the start of another memorable Brubaker-Phillips partnership."
  
  In their "Best Shots" reviews, Newsarama praises the artwork of Sean Phillips and the "seedy, subversive" colors of Val Staples while noting the issue's relative inaccessibility to new readers.
  
  And, Comic Book Resources gives the issue only two-and-a-half stars, praising it as "skillfully constructed" but describing its plot as mostly set-up and exposition.
  
  Even at our sister blog, Trouble With Comics, Christopher Allen praised the book as "better than a lot of what’s out there," but he still couldn't shake the similarities to earlier work.
  
  
• An Award Nod, a Feature Article, and Preview Art. A few more miscellaneous links regarding Incognito, things I noticed from following Brubaker's Twitter posts and Sean Phillips' blog.
  
  First, the original mini-series has been included in the Official Selection for Angoulême 2011, a French award from the world's largest comic-book convention. Other noteworthy nominees are Asterios Polyp, The Walking Dead, and Darwyn Cooke's The Hunter. Awards will be presented at the end of January.
  
  Prompted by the sequel "Bad Influences," Comics Alliance posted an article listing some of the more notable instances of comic-book villains becoming heroes.
  
  And, while Incognito: Bad Influences was absent from Marvel's February solicitations, Sean Phillips has already posted the striking cover art to the fifth and presumably final issue.
  
  
  
  
• Phillips Art for the Criterion Collection. As he did for Blast of Silence, Sean Phillips has created the cover art for another release from the Criterion Collection: Sweet Smell of Success, a 1957 film starring Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis. The Blu-Ray and the two-disc DVD will be released, separately, on February 22nd.
  
  
• A Criminal Comeback, Part 2. Finally, Hard Case Crime is back on track, with new material on the way. Its original publishers ceased production of mass-market paperbacks this year, but the imprint will be published through Titan Books, beginning in the fall of 2011.
  
  As before, The Violent World of Parker has the details, first with the breaking news, then with the full text of the newsletter email. Reading further down the latter, it seems that new material will be released as trade paperbacks, possibly with a MMPB reprint to follow.

More Criminal and more Hard Case Crime? It looks like 2011 is shaping up to be a great year for crime fiction.


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INCOGNITO: BAD INFLUENCES #1 in Stores Today.

The first issue of the Incognito sequel reaches stores today, and MTV.com has an exclusive interview with writer Ed Brubaker, along with an eight-page preview of the issue.

In the interview, Brubaker had no further details regarding a change in writers for the Sleeper adaptation, but he did relay that the film adaptation for Incognito is "full steam ahead so far." He also explains that the comic-book sequel features the collision of the central themes of the two stories -- a good guy corrupted by working undercover with the bad guys, and a bad guy growing a conscience working with the good guys.

Conclusion to Word Balloon Interview, Cooke's Parker, and Liberty Comics.

Very quickly, Ed Brubaker's Word Balloon interview concludes -- here, here, and here -- in a 70-minute podcast, out this week.

Also out this week? Darwyn Cooke's second adaptation of Richard Stark's Parker; Comics Alliance has a very lengthy interview with Cooke, about The Outfit.

And, the 2010 edition of Liberty Comics was released yesterday. Liberty Annual 2010 benefits the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and while this issue lacks any contributions from Brubaker and Phillips (unlke the inaugural 2008 release), the book features a Who's Who of writers and artists.

A Preview, An Interview, and More.

Big news yesterday -- a preview for Incognito: Bad Influences. Featuring four final pages of interior art, the preview is available at Newsarama, Comic Book Resources, and Comics Alliance. This first issue is currently scheduled to reach stores on October 20th.

Fans looking for more should bookmark Sean Phillips' blog, where he has recently posted the sketch and final artwork for the latest pulp essay by Jess Nevins, to be included in the back of the first issue.

December solicitations for the major publishers have recently been released, and Marvel's solicitations lack any reference to Incognito; the strong implication is that we'll see at most three issues of the pulp mini-series in 2010. However, at year's end we'll have new issues from Ed Brubaker's Secret Avengers and Captain America.

Meanwhile, DC's solicitations continue to include noteworthy reprints, most notably a collection of another four issues of Brubaker's Batman run from 2000-2002. Beginning in October, DC Comics will publish several extra-sized reprints (96 pages for 8 bucks) that might appeal to fans of Criminal and Incognito:

• OCTOBER TO DECEMBER
  DC Presents: Batman #1-3 - collects Batman #582-585, and 591-598, all written by Ed Brubaker
  
  
• OCTOBER
  DC Presents: Brightest Day #1 - includes a one-shot Hawkman crime story by Brubaker and Phillips
  
  
• NOVEMBER
  WildStorm Presents #1 - features various writers, including Ed Brubaker
  
  
• DECEMBER
  Vertigo Resurrected: Winter's Edge #1 - features various artists, including Sean Phillips

DC's solicitations also feature what we now know to be the final issues published under the WildStorm imprint. CBR posted a summary of the early news surrounding the imprint's end, and Newsarama asked comic creators -- including Ed Brubaker -- for their comments.

On Twitter, Brubaker recommends that interested readers purchase WildStorm's Sleeper (and I would add Point Blank) while the trade paperbacks are still readily available. It's the same warning that Charles Ardai gave when his Hard Case Crime imprint lost its paperback publisher. It's my hope that Sleeper will remain in print for the foreseeable future: set in the WildStorm universe, the story is still remarkably self-contained, it was the work of two creators who are -- individually and collaboratively -- held in high esteem by both fans and critics, and it is still on track to be adapted into a major motion picture. Still, it's better to be safe than sorry, and I would strongly recommend Sleeper in any case.

There's news about a different adaptation -- the Incognito movie, which was first announced in May -- and it can be found in a lengthy audio interview with Ed Brubaker. It is the first installment of a two-part Word Balloon interview, and the two-hour conversation can be found at iFanboy and two sites dedicated to the podcast, the blog and an archive with a direct mp3 download.

I'll post a link to the second part of the interview when it has been made available.

Updates and News: Incognito Variant Cover, Call for Brubaker Interview Questions.

In my last post, I noted an uncertain future for the paperback crime imprint Hard Case Crime. That future is beginning to brighten: along with reprinting the relevant newsletter email from publisher Charles Ardai, The Violent World of Parker highlighted the news that Subterranean Press will be publishing the first HCC hardcover, scheduled to be published in the first half of next year. The book will collect two early Lawrence Block novels, printed back-to-back: this 69th book in the line wasn't announced earlier and is proof that the imprint still has some life in it.

(The site, devoted to the Richard Stark's brutal creation Parker, also reported that the University of Chicago Press has secured the publishing rights for the Parker books up through Firebreak. That's the twentieth book of the series, and the U of C press will publish books 16, 17, and 18 this March. Fans of Criminal and Darwyn Cooke's Parker adaptations should definitely look into these trade paperbacks.)

While Hard Case Crime fans will have to wait a while for the next release, the wait has finally ended for the conclusion to the first arc for Stumptown, a detective comic that deliberately evokes shows like The Rockford Files. The fourth issue was released just last week, just over four months after the publication of issue #3. Over at his blog, writer Greg Rucka -- Brubaker's co-writer on Gotham Central -- announced that this sort of delay won't be repeated. Subsequent story arcs won't be solicited until it's clear that the entire arc can be released on time.



Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' Incognito will also see a short delay. On Twitter, Brubaker relayed that the release has been pushed back from the original release date of September 15th. Marvel.com currently lists the release date as October 6th.

The "apocalyptic pulp noir" is definitely on its way. Starting in late August and throughout September, Sean Phillips has been posting plenty of work from Incognito on his blog, including thumbnails, pencils, and completed inks.

Most interesting is the artwork featured here, what has been announced as a variant cover for the first issue of Incognito: Bad Influences. I believe this is the first variant cover for any Brubaker and Phillips collaboration, not counting the second printing for the debut issue of Incognito, and Brubaker explains that it is "a nod" to the title's pulp origins. The cover is featured in a 1:10 variant edition, offered to retailers at the same price as the regular edition.



Finally, Brubaker recently publicized an opportunity to submit questions for an upcoming Word Balloon podcast with John Siuntres. The deadline for questions is this Monday evening.


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