Bullets: An Auction, an Interview, and Upcoming Releases.

A quick update on the world of Criminal.

• Brubaker's Cap Auction. First, a worthy cause not directly related to Criminal: Ed Brubaker recently announced that he is auctioning off his writing notebook for the first two-plus years of his run on Captain America, as part of the Hero Initiative's efforts to raise funds to help famed artist Gene Colan, who is now suffering from liver failure. Ed was interviewed about this auction by Newsarama, here. The eBay auction can be found here, and the auction closes late this Sunday evening, July 13th.
  
  
• Podcast Interview, Brubaker and Fraction. Also at Newsarama, the second part of John Siuntres' "Word Balloon" interview with Ed and Matt Fraction was published last week, here. The three spend a great deal of time discussing movies, mentioning The Yakuza, which was the subject of last issue's essay, and Criminal itself is discussed in-depth for about eight minutes, starting from about the 4-minute mark. Ed discusses the difficulty of writing the last three interlocking single-issue stories, revealing that "Female of the Species" was originally plotted to be occur concurrently with the earlier two stories rather than serve as a prelude to Danica's return to the city.
  
  Ed also discusses the upcoming arc, "Bad Night," which he describes as a new kind of story for the series, where nothing is as it seems, and the story is tempered with black humor. The story features the "Frank Kafka" writer Jake who, unlike Leo, really is a true physical coward. Jake suffers from some mental health issues, including serious insomnia, and Ed revealed that -- assuming Jake survives this story (which seems likely since it's apparently set in the past) -- Jake will be featured in another story called "Vanishing Point." For those keeping up, that means that, beyond "Bad Night," there are at least three more arcs already in the works, one each for Leo, Tracy, and Jake.
  
  
• July Releases. It's a big month for Criminal. The third trade paperback is out this Wednesday, July 9th. It's priced slightly lower than the previous volumes, it features an John Singleton, and -- as Sean announced earlier this month, and as we see at Ed's blog -- it features different cover art than what was solicited.
  
  On July 23rd, we should see the first chapter of "Bad Night," in Criminal #4. And, as we covered in May, Liberty Comics, which features a Criminal story, is scheduled to be released the same day.
  
  UPDATE: Almost immediately after I posted this entry, Marvel updated its page for Criminal #4 to reflect an August release.

The big month for Criminal could end with a bang, as the Eisner Awards are announced Friday, July 25th, at San Diego's Comic-Con International. As we covered earlier, Ed's nominated for Best Writer, in part for his work on Criminal.

CBR: Preview of Criminal #3.

I didn't notice it earlier, but -- as Ed pointed out at his blog -- last week, Comic Book Resources posted what is essentially a six-page preview of "The Female of the Species," the final entry in the trio of single-issue stories set primarily in 1972.

The preview is available here, and the issue is scheduled to be released this Wednesday, June 4th.

Criminal in Liberty Comics.

Criminal completists should take note that Liberty Comics, an anthology comic to benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, will include a Criminal story by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. The 32-page, full-color comic features all-new material and is scheduled to be released on July 23rd. Newsarama has a copy of the press release announcing the comic; Comic Book Resources has an interview with the editor that features the two covers for the comic book; and the editor is promoting the comic at his own blog. In addition to the Criminal creators, the book will feature Garth Ennis, Mark Millar, Darwyn Cooke, and others. Editor Scott Dunbier strongly recommends that interested readers explicitly ask their local stores to order this book.

That's about all I know about this book, in terms of official information, but I do have a few speculations about what Criminal fans will see in Liberty Comics.

I suspect the story will be called "No One Rides for Free." This title is in an image that Sean posted to his blog, and it's probably worth noting that the work is "a Criminal emission" when each individual issue and trade collection is referenced as "a Criminal edition."

And, I suspect that the story will involve Jake and Tracy, and that it be set in the present day, specifically after the events of "Lawless." Sean's been showing a lot of artwork featuring Jake lately, and this blog entry shows the most information-rich image, a full-page rooftop conversation with Tracy Lawless that appears to establish that their hometown newspaper -- where "Frank Kafka" might be published -- is the Gazette.

(Readers of "Lawless" will recall that a rooftop is not the best place to meet Tracy.)

I strongly believe this page is not from the upcoming "Bad Night" arc, because the solicitation for the first issue of that arc establishes that it's set five years ago, when Tracy was still in the army and before he got the scars we see in this preview page. This image is definitely set after "Lawless."

It looks like the short story in Liberty Comics will be a very interesting addition to the Criminal canon, hopefully a good introduction to new readers and another wrinkle in the ongoing tale of crime, violence, and tragedy.

Quick Request for Info on Comic Conventions.

I had noticed that, on the weekend of May 10th, Ed Brubaker was attending the Emerald City ComicCon in Seattle, and Sean Phillips went to Bristol Con. Their respective blogs provided fairly short notice, and I was too busy that week to write an entry here highlighting their appearances.

I would love to be able to find a quick list of upcoming appearances for Ed, Sean, and Val Staples, so I could relay that info here. I did find a site, ComicBookConventions.com, that has a pretty comprehensive calendar of upcoming con's, but it appears to have very limited information for conventions outside the United States -- thus probably excluding the many of the European conventions Sean appears to frequent -- and there's no apparent functionality for searching for appearances by a particular writer, artist, or editor.

If any readers have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments. Thanks.

UPDATE: It looks like Sean is in Copenhagen this weekend for a comic-book festival, one that isn't listed at the site above. The fact that I just noticed this announcement underlines the need for more advance information.

"Blast of Silence."

It took a little longer than I expected, but I'm finally posting a bit about the Criterion Collection release of Blast of Silence. It's an interesting film, one that I enjoyed a lot more the second time and one that I suspect will continue to grow on me with repeated viewings. Made in the early 1960s for next to nothing, it's definitely a film of its era and its budget, but I can see why it's considered a lost masterpiece. There are moments where the cinematography is really striking; other than perhaps some source music in a bar, the jazz score is evocative of the loneliness in a big city; and Allen Baron's performance sometimes eerily foreshadows De Niro or even offers a glimpse of what a New Yorker like Scorsese would have looked like in front of the camera. I would probably recommend it more for a noir aficionado than a novice like myself, but I find that, as it touches on many of the same themes with the same focus on visuals and music, Blast of Silence is a very enjoyable precursor to my favorite noir film, Michael Mann's Heat.

Probably more germane to this blog, the DVD features a lot of artwork from Criminal's own Sean Phillips. He not only drew the cover, above, but he also drew and colored a short comic adaptation of the film's opening scenes, in a manner very familiar to Criminal fans. His artwork graces the liner notes, the DVD menu, and the artwork on the disc itself. Newsarama interviewed Sean about his work on the release, here, and the article highlights an online copy of Patton Oswalt's essay that was published in Criminal, here.

Bullets: The Most Wonderful Thing About Teeger...

...is he's the only one.

My apologies to A.A. Milne, The Walt Disney Company, and everyone who visits A Criminal Blog. I haven't seen that particular bad pun being used about Teegar Lawless, so I figured someone had to use it.

Some news and notes about the world of Criminal.

• 2008 Eisner Nominations. Newsarama published a press release announcing the nominees for the 2008 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. Criminal won Best New Series last year, and Ed Brubaker won an Eisner for Best Writer, in part because of his work in Criminal. Brubaker is nominated again this year for Best Writer, for his work Criminal, Captain America, Daredevil, and Immortal Iron Fist. Winners will be announced July 25th at San Diego's Comic-Con International.
  
  
• Sean @ NYCC. On the subject of comic book conventions, Sean Phillips is coming to the New York Comic Con, at the Splash Page Comic Art Booth (#1966). Splash Page Comic Art is the art dealer that sells many original pieces of Sean's work, from Sleeper to the cover art for Vinyl Underground and, of course, Criminal. The NYCC is being held this weekend, from April 18-20.
  
  
• Blow Up. Over at his blog, Sean also announced -- and has been showing a little preview art from -- Blow Up, a 400-page hardcover book of his art, including comic art. The cover is an extreme close-up of the cover to the upcoming Issue #3 of Criminal, and the book is available here.
  
  
• July Solicitations. Speaking of upcoming issues of Criminal, Newsarama has a sneak peek of Marvel's July solicitations, here. I believe the page will be updated with the full details, possibly as soon as tomorrow, but the preview already reveals that July will likely see Criminal #5 and The Dying and the Dead. The former is the second part of the four-part story "Bad Night", and the latter is the trade collection of the three interconnecting one-shot stories set in 1972. The trade collection will have a slightly lower price than previous collections, and the solicitation confirms that John Singleton is penning the introduction.
  
  UPDATE: And, I just noticed, the full July solicitations for DC Comics, here, list the first hardcover collection of one of my other favorite titles, Gotham Central. This collection will feature the first ten issues, with writing by Ed Brubaker alongside Greg Rucka. With any luck, all forty issues will eventually be reprinted, including the seven or so issues that weren't collected in the trade paperback editions. If the later collections include cover art, we might also see some of Sean Phillips' work for this critically acclaimed series.
  
  
• Blast of Silence. Finally, as we announced here a couple months ago, the Criterion Collection release of Blast of Silence will be in stores tomorrow. The film was featured in one of Criminal's earliest essays, and Sean has provided the cover art and a brief comic book for the package.

I'm planning on picking up Blast of Silence tomorrow, and so I hope to have more to say about the film later this week.

"A Wolf Among Wolves."

Thursday, Comic Book Resources published a ten-page, full-color preview of Issue #2 of the second volume of Criminal. "A Wolf Among Wolves" features Teeg Lawless, home from Vietnam and returning to crime to pay off a sizable gambling debt. The preview is available here, and the issue is in stores this Wednesday.