Saturday: Sean Phillips' Birthday Sales, at Big Cartel and Splash Page Comic Art.

Sean Phillips' birthday is Saturday, and, at the two online shops where one can find the rarest of items related to the artist, there are big sales to mark the occasion.

On Twitter, Phillips just announced a one-day sale at his Big Cartel store, on his birthday:  20% off everything when using the promo code B2018.

Similarly, in a recent news item and through their mailing list, Splash Page Comic Art has announced its own one-day sale for the birthday:  buy one piece of Phillips' original artwork, get a second piece of equal or lesser value at 50% off.

The Splash Page sale is for Saturday, January 27th, and the actual 24-hour span is for Sean Phillips' time zone:  since Sean resides in the United Kingdom, that means Greenwich Mean Time. 

So, that sale runs from 12:01 AM GMT, Saturday, to 12:00 AM GMT, Sunday -- or, from 7:01 PM EST Friday (today, here on the East Coast) to 7:00 PM EST Saturday.

It sounds like the Big Cartel sale runs for similar hours.

At Big Cartel, one can buy books, prints, and even the occasional single issue, such as the "Savage Sword" and "Deadly Hands" Criminal one-shots.  It's worth noting that Phillips often includes a hand-drawn sketch on a cover page inside books ordered directly from his store.

At Splash Page, the sale includes the original artwork for covers, double-page spreads, and interiors.  While Phillips has now made the transition to digital artwork for most interiors, he still creates physical artwork for his covers, including the painting in acrylics shown above, for the cover to Kill Or Be Killed #5.

We might just take advantage of the sale ourselves, and we wish Sean the happiest of birthdays.

Sean Phillips variant covers for The Hellblazer.

In stores this week is DC's The Hellblazer #18, with the conclusion to Richard Kadrey's three-part story, "The Bardo Score."  Readers of this blog will be more interested to know that the issue ships with two covers:  the variant cover is by Sean Phillips, who twetted a photo of his comp copies, shown below.

This particular series is part of DC's 2016 Rebirth relaunch, but Sean Phillips has quite a history with the title character, John Constantine.  I believe Phillips' first work for one of the "Big Two" publishers was in 1990, providing the artwork for issue #31 of the original Hellblazer series, with writing by Jamie Delano.

It appears the solicitations have not included images of the variant covers, but Phillips has been treating readers with in-progress work and other previews on his Twitter feed and Instagram feed.

The original painted artwork for this cover is what Sean Phillips has recently put up for sale at Spash Page Comic Art, 'painted in acrylics and colored pencils on 11" 3/4 X16" 1/2 comic art board.'

Phillips' earlier tweet revealed the completed artwork for issue #19, a variant cover with an ominous view of blood-red London.

Solicitations and the subsequent listings on DC's website mention Sean Phillips variants at least through issue #21, covering an arc by the series' new writer Tim Seeley.

Each month, Phillips dedicates the bulk of his working hours to his monthly comic books with Ed Brubaker and the remainder to special projects, such as the artwork accompanying the DVD and Blu-ray releases for the Criterion Collection and Arrow Films. 

(We wonder if he's planning to pivot from these variant covers to that Criminal novella...)

We reached out to the artist himself, and Sean Phillips relays that he's working on a total of six variant covers for the series.

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.

Yes! The Spirit of Eisner Newspaper Comic will be Available by Mail Order!

The Thought Bubble Festival is underway in Leeds, England, and OK Comics is selling their Femme Fatale beer this weekend, with label artwork from Sean Phillips:  the labels (and prints!) came in earlier this week, followed by the fresh cans of brew.

Seeing the finished product, we wonder how the labels are attached, and whether they can be easily removed after purchase -- and we see that at least one design (and presumably the entire batch) is now described as a Sputnik Pale Ale rather than the Herzog Kolsch Style beer.  And we see that the artist himself has arrived in Leeds and has signed at least some of the cans of Femme Fatale beer.

We hope this weekend's festival goes well, but we have some very big news for next month's Lakes International Comic Art Festival.

Sean Phillips has tweeted that The Spirit of Eisner newspaper comic has been printed and has already arrived, allowing him to share a few photos of the finished work, including the cover photo we're reposting above and a little bit more of his one-page Criminal-style collaboration with Ed Brubaker.

Asked how fans can get a copy if they can't attend the festival, Sean replied, "It'll be available mail order too."

Just yesterday, he elaborated: "It’ll be available mail order from @PageFortyFive"

It’ll be available mail order from @PageFortyFive

— Sean Phillips (@seanpphillips) September 21, 2017

We haven't found a listing in Page 45's online store, but we'll keep looking, and we note that the Nottingham comic shop's Twitter profile includes the very encouraging notice, "We Ship Worldwide!"

Brubaker/Phillips: Partial Reprint of Gotham Noir and Newly Found Inventory of Criminal Deluxe Hardcovers.

Yesterday Image Comics released its December solicitations, and we see that nothing is scheduled from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips:  we'll apparently have to wait until the January solicits, at the earliest, to get more info on the partial cover art we mentioned in our last post, which seems to show Dylan being institutionalized.

We still have a couple things to cover today.

Just last week ComicList published a press release announcing a "free new, promotional comic BATMAN IN NOIR ALLEY from Turner Classic Movies and DC."

The comic promotes a new "programming franchise" from the always great TCM. Noir Alley features a different noir classic each Sunday at 10 am ET and is hosted by Eddie Muller, founder and president of the Film Noir Foundation.

This promotional comic includes cover art by Dan Panosian, a new 14-page story by Stuart Moore and Valentine De Landro, and a 14-page excerpt of Batman: Gotham Noir by Brubaker and Phillips.

Gotham Noir was the team's second collaboration and the first featuring artwork entirely by Sean Phillips.  It was originally printed as a prestige-format Elseworlds comic in 2001, then reprinted in 2011, and it's well worth checking out -- but as someone who already has Gotham Noir, I'm just as interested in the other, all-new Batman story.

In a separate press release announcing the comic -- and a 360-degree experience and a 7-episode digital feature -- TCM gives a few more details:

The free comic book follows Batman and [TCM host Eddie] Muller on the trail to solve a case after the famed Moroccan Raptor goes missing from the Gotham City Museum. Written by Stuart Moore and cover art by Dan Panosian, the comic is available in select comic-book stores nationwide starting today and will also be available in DC’s booth at NY Comic-Con in October. [emphasis mine]

Batman In Noir Alley is in stores today, but supplies are presumably limited for the free book.

The other bit of news is about Criminal, more specifically its two deluxe hardcover editions.  In August, we relayed some info about new listings for the books found on Amazon: Sean Phillips explained online that the listings are for old stock that was found in a warehouse.

These two books were included in ComicList's rundown of Image's new releases for the week of September 6th, albeit without verification from Diamond Comic Distributors.  Since then, more info has been relayed in a CBR forum thread, after one forum member reached out to retailers and publishers.

The retailer InStockTrades is quoted as writing, "These items are not new printings. These are copies of the old printings that were recently found and have been transferred to Image from Marvel. The books say Icon on the spine and on the inside of the books it says Marvel. The only difference is that Image added a sticker to the back of the book to cover up the Marvel ISBN and to show an Image ISBN. Please let us know if you have any other questions."

 

Image Comics was asked whether there are plans for true reprints of the deluxe editions, and they replied, "We don't currently have a release date for that Criminal edition, but keep an eye out on the website for any updates. Thank you!"

 

Between the two volumes, the books collect all the Criminal stories that Brubaker and Phillips released while the title was being published through Marvel's Icon imprint.

Volume 1 collects the following:

• Coward
• Lawless
• The Dead and the Dying
• "No One Rides for Free", the short-story "emission" from Liberty Comics #1
• "Caught in the Undertow," the prose story from the very first issue

And Volume 2 rounds out the work before the team's big move to Image.

• Bad Night
• The Sinners
• The Last of the Innocent
• "21st Century Noir," the short-story "emission" from Dark Horse's Noir: A Collection of Crime Comics

Both books have a complete set of cover artwork, lots of artwork that Phillips created for the bonus essays, and some behind-the-scenes features.

Personally, we'd like to see truly new printings, perhaps ones that make some very minor changes to how the oversized hardcovers present the material.  We wonder just how much new stock was discovered, and -- between the two one-shots (collected in Wrong Time, Wrong Place) and the upcoming "novella" -- we wonder how much material would be needed for a third volume.

While we think it would definitely be overkill to buy a second copy of these books just for the Image ISBN sticker, we have long considered these editions to be must-have books for Criminal fans.

...and we greatly appreciate the heads-up from Kevin Sels, who pointed us to the CBR forums!

Bullets: Undertow Podcast on KOBK #11, Preview of KOBK #12, and Much More!

Lots happening today:  the latest episode of The Undertow Podcast was just published, with a lengthy look at Kill Or Be Killed #11, and Image Comics has released a suspense-filled three-page preview of issue #12, which reaches stores tomorrow.

We have more details on both in a quite lengthy post below, along with a few other items.

• Undertow Podcast on KOBK and Kirbyesque Craziness.  Robert and I very recently recorded our thoughts on issue #11, the first chapter in the series' third arc and an apparent turning point in Dylan's effort to leave behind his new career in vigilante justice.

With its reprise of the series' opening flash-forward and a renewed focus on whether Dylan is delusional or truly demon-possessed, the issue seemed to be a kind of response to the discussions we've had in earlier episodes -- just as it was awfully eerie to read that Rex was a family man who liked reruns of Perry Mason.  The creators probably don't listen in, but it's still gratifying to see that our close look at the book is paying off down the road.

As always, episodes of The Undertow Podcast are available on iTunes and at Podbean.  We hope everyone enjoys listening as much as we do making this show, and if you do, we'd appreciate your spreading the word, especially with an iTunes review.

And if Ed, Sean, and/or Bettie do listen in... hi, y'all! We hope ya like the show.

In addition to discussing KOBK, I heartily recommended Strange Science Fantasy, a 2010 mini-series by Scott Morse and IDW.  Marvel and DC are both commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of "King Kirby," and I can think of no better book to recommend than this one, which honors Kirby with entirely new tales.

I stumbled across the series when it was first published in monthly issues.  I was immediately struck by the cover art, which we're including above.  The covers sum up the book quite nicely:  loose artwork and bombastic narration telling almost primal stories of heroism.  Each issue tells a complete story, which is why it was so much fun to read the serialized issues, but readers will discover a work that is greater than the sum of its individual chapters.

I quoted at-length from two articles that give a good introduction to the work, CBR's 2010 interview with the creator and a 2011 review at Full Stop, by a reader who is frustrated by the melodrama of modern comics and their sprawling continuity.

Those who like this book might also enjoy other works by Morse, including the crime story Volcanic Revolver, the boxing tale in Southpaw, and the autobiographical Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!  I still find that Strange Science Fantasy is the most complete, most satisfying work I've read by Scott Morse.

I can't imagine that the book will be to everyone's taste, but those who are intrigued by the premise and especially the cover art should definitely give it a shot.

• Updates on Sean Phillips Projects: Femme Fatale Beer and The Spirit of Eisner Newspaper.  In the podcast, we mention a few recent developments on Sean Phillips' side projects, and we should definitely make note of them here.

In our last blog post, we relayed news about that mysterious Rita Hayworth artwork that the artist had previously teased:  Sean Phillips has created four can designs for Femme Fatale beer, a Herzog Kolsch style beer to be brewed by North Brewing Co. and sold at Tall Boys Beer Market in Leeds, England, commemorating OK Comics' 15th birthday with a party toward the end of next week's Thought Bubble Comic Art Festival.

In addition to the beer, the announcement noted the sale of "a small quantity of limited edition prints, based on the Sean Phillips beer can designs. They will be signed, framed and ready to display."

On Twitter, OK Comics has since provided more info on these prints, including a photo of the framed artwork, which we're reposting above.  The signed and framed print will sell for 20 pounds, and while they anticipate the store will sell out quickly, Jared promises that the store will stock the item until the supply runs out.

For those of us unable to visit the festival next week, even better news came from Sean Phillips himself, tweeting his own announcement about new prints launching at Thought Bubble in Leeds.  As before, the prints are of the artist's favorite femme fatales, but -- going by the photo he posted, shown above -- there's a separate print for each actress, and the artwork is unadorned by the beer can layout.

In that tweet and elaborating on Instagram, Phillips relays that leftover prints will be available after the festival, in his online store at Big Cartel.

The other big news is for another big festival in England -- the Lakes International Comic Art Festival in mid-October.  In May, we noted the announcement of the festival's Spirit of Eisner newspaper comic, which Phillips is coordinating and which will include a one-page story by Brubaker and Phillips; in August, we highlighted preview art from the Brubaker/Phillips contribution and hints at creators not mentioned in the original press release.

Since then, Sean Phillips has pinned a tweet with the apparent cover art of the newspaper broadsheet comic, shown above -- and he's given followers on social media previews of more artists' contributions, including Jason Latour and Bryan Hitch (drawing a story written by Jonathan Ross).

It looks like Phillips' rendition of the Will Eisner's celebrated masked hero is in the upper right corner, and the previously seen signed drawing by Michael Cho is in the bottom right corner.

The comic is part of a celebration of Eisner's centenary: Will Eisner was born in Brooklyn in March, 1917; Jack Kirby was born less than six months later, across the East River in Manhattan.  The festival's page for the nearly month-long "Spirit of Eisner" art exhibition describes the comic as "a 12-page broadsheet newspaper with 10 self-contained stories," and Cho is not listed as one of the contributors.

On Twitter, Phillips describes the book as "twelve massive pages of awesome Spirit stories," and the twelve images on the cover seems to come from 12 quite distinctive works.  We wonder if the final book is a little bigger than originally advertised.

According to the official site, "The newspaper will be on sale at the festival with proceeds towards LICAF’s Artists’ Development Fund."  We're still hoping the comic will also be available for purchase online.

• More Details on the Criminal Graphic Novella.  Another item briefly covered in the podcast is the Criminal graphic novella that was first announced in June.  In the back pages of KOBK #11, Ed Brubaker gave readers a little more information.

• Sean Phillips is confirmed as the book's artist, and he'll work on the title alongside drawing the monthly issues of Kill Or Be Killed. 
• The book's publication should be in 2018, most likely in the summer or fall.
• The format will be similar to the recent adaptation, from Dark Horse Comics, of Neil Gaiman's short story How to Talk to Girls at Parties.
• The story's central character is from the first Criminal tale, "Coward," but not Leo or Gnarly. 

We confirmed that the Gaiman adaptation, by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá, is a traditional comic of sequential artwork.  It is not a book of illustrated prose, like Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess' Stardust.

Personally, I wonder if the upcoming book's protagonist might be Genuine Jen Waters, the old friend of Leo and Tracy who now works as a cop in the Internal Affairs Department, a pariah among both her old friends and her current coworkers.

• Kill Or Be Killed Allusions and Illustrations.  Finally, we come back to Kill Or Be Killed, beginning with the movie mentioned in today's online preview.  It would be easy enough for curious readers to track down the movie title online, but we recognized it fairly quickly as The Edge, whose trailer is embedded above.  Wikipedia notes that the 1997 thriller, starring Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin, is also one of the last film appearances for the trained Kodiak Bart the Bear, who naturally enough has his own entry.

That preview isn't the only hint of things to come:  as we also noted in the podcast, Sean Phillips has been posting a detail of a piece of artwork in several stages of development -- here, here, and presumably completed here -- and we're reposting the latest version below.

We can't help but notice the familiar row of fangs in the upper right corner, and we suspect that this is another piece of artwork from Dylan's disturbed dad.

If that image weren't eerie enough, in his Instagram feed and reposted in Twitter, Sean Phillips has provided previews -- here, here, and just today here -- of an impasto-style painting, what is now undoubtedly an upcoming cover to Kill Or Be Killed, possibly issue #15 kicking off a new arc or perhaps a new cover for the third arc's trade collection.

We're wrapping this overlong post with that last preview, posted without commentary.