"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.

Bullets: Interviews, "Bad Night," Volume 3 Collection.

It's been a couple weeks, and the Criminal Express keeps on chugging.

• Interviews. Ed Brubaker has given a couple more interviews for the new volume of Criminal. First, there's an lengthy interview with Duane Swierczynski in issue #22 of Crimespree magazine; at his MySpace page, Ed pointed to an online copy of the conversation, here. Ed discusses his family ties to crime films and espionage, his current reading habits, and his partnerships with Sean Phillips and with Gotham Central co-writer Greg Rucka.
  
  And, a couple weeks ago, comic book stores received issue #1081 of Comic Shop News, featuring a cover story on Criminal. I don't believe the story can be found online, but in the story, Ed reveals that the upcoming story on Jake promises to be a "Jim Thompson-esque tour of the night and the city."
  
  
• "Bad Night." Speaking of Jake's story, the next arc of Criminal continues to surface. The solicitation for issue #4 has been released and can be found at Marvel.com, here. With issue #2 now scheduled for early April and issue #3 scheduled for late May, there won't be much of a wait between story arcs. And, Sean Phillips has already shown the cover art for the second part of Jake's four-issue arc. A quick look at Sean's blog entries from March 20th to the 24th shows the progression from concept to a (likely) finished product.
  
  
• Volume 3 Collection. Finally, speaking of Sean and his blog, we've recently seen artwork, here, that appears to be the cover for the third trade paperback of Criminal, collecting the three interlocking issues set in the 1970's. The collection appears to have an introduction by John Singleton and will have a title that would fit very well alongside other pulp crime works: The Dead and the Dying.

Part Two of The Dead and the Dying -- "A Wolf Among Wolves", about the vicious Teeg Lawless -- should be in stores April 9th.

A Look Ahead: "Bad Night."

We're not done here with this trilogy of stories set in the Seventies: I may link to interesting reviews of "Second Chance in Hell" as I find them, and we have two more issues ahead of us. But the moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on! Sean's blog should be a regular stop for Criminal fans, as he often shows works in progress. As he has done in the past, he's given us a glance at his work on the cover art from concept to the final version, here, in the last three entries for February. The cover is apparently for Issue #4, the first in a four-issue arc called "Bad Night." In the podcast I mentioned earlier, Ed Brubaker mentioned three stories he's working on to follow the flashback trilogy: Leo's next story, about how he gets out of prison; Tracy's next story; and a story focusing on Jake, who was introduced in "Lawless". It looks like the next arc is about Jake.

Jake was the guy who helped Tracy create his false identity of "Sam West." He walks with crutches, he clearly has a history with Sebastian Hyde's thug, Chester, and it was revealed in a most understated fashion that Jake is "Jacob K.", the author of the strip "Frank Kafka, Private Eye." I'm very much looking forward to learn more about him.

The cover art, above, is simply stunning. And I believe the movie theater marquee is advertizing "The Sleeper" as a nod to Sleeper, Sean and Ed's excellent spy thriller set in the WildStorm universe.

Sean @ Comic Book Resources.

CBR posted a few things from Sean Phillips today, an interview and a tour of his studio. The interview includes an image, left, of the final cover for Issue #1 and three black-and-white preview pages of Issue #2, which apparently may be titled "A Wolf Among Wolves" rather than "Before the Living End." The studio tour gives us a very detailed look at the space Sean works in to create Criminal: the bookshelves, art supplies, computers, and the occasional toy.

What I find most interesting is that one picture features a model of the General Lee, from The Dukes of Hazzard. I grew up watching the show, and I can tell you that, aside from the custom paint job, this Dodge Charge bears an uncanny resemblance to the muscle car Tracy drove in "Lawless."

"Tracy wasn't some kind of car fanatic or gear-head, but he knew what he liked.

"And his whole life, he'd liked the Dodge Charger."

Yes, I suspect Tracy was driving the General Lee.

"Second Chance in Hell."

Issue #1 of Criminal, Volume 2, is in stores tomorrow: "Second Chance in Hell," a stand-alone story focusing on Gnarly during his days as a boxer, and the first of three interlocking stories set in the 70's. As part of the promotional campaign, "Criminal Week" at myspace.com/comicbooks wrapped up, and there was more than just the issue-length previews of "Coward" and "Lawless." Bill Hader had a rather odd video interview with Ed Brubaker, Michael Lark interviewed Sean Phillips about his stunning artwork, and there's a substantial black-and-white preview of the new issue, here.

Over at his blog, Sean relays that his studio will soon be featured at Comic Book Resources.

And, I forgot to mention this earlier, but late last month Newsarama published a Word Balloon podcast with Ed Brubaker, about Criminal along with his recent work in Captain America. Ed discusses the double-edged sword of creative freedom that he has with Criminal, especially in the complexity of these three stand-alone "novellas". He talks about the informal community of writers and artists that has emerged around the extra content in the monthly issues, and he and John Siuntres even discuss recent crime movies like Eastern Promises and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

During the interview, Ed briefly mentions that Criminal doesn't have a concise "hook", but I think his summary of "Lawless" is an perfect high-concept description of the entire series.

What is Criminal? "A character exploration with random moments of crime and violence."