Bullets: Sinners Reviews, Trade Solicitation, and More.

A few noteworthy items since the conclusion of Criminal: The Sinners earlier this month:

• Reviews for The Sinners. Alongside our discussion here [SPOILERS], I've read two quite positive reviews of the conclusion to Criminal: The Sinners.
  
  In Newsarama's "Best Shots" reviews, Brendan McGuirk praises the story arc as the series' most ambitious to-date. At IGN, Dan Phillips gave the final issue a 9/10, praising Sean Phillips for his atmospheric art and Ed Brubaker for his grasp of noir and for the inevitability of the story's tragic conclusion. Like me, Dan Phillips is anguished over the title's upcoming hiatus.
  
  
• Details on Sinners Trade Paperback. Marvel's June solicitations were released this week, and while the return of Incognito was nowhere to be seen, the trade collection for "The Sinners" was finally announced.
  
  The single-volume collection of Criminal: The Sinners will include an introduction by crime novelist Ian Rankin, and it is scheduled for a June 16th release date, with an MSRP of $15.99.
  
  
• Personalized Books from Sean Phillips. As our own ADD mentioned this morning, Sean Phillips has reposted the cover art for "The Sinners" trade paperback.
  
  Visiting Sean's blog is strongly encouraged: he's recently opened his own Amazon (UK) shop, and lately he's been posting custom sketches that he's drawn in the front of individual books purchased through this site, including the Incognito paperback and the Criminal hardcover. If only this shop were opened earlier...
  
  
• The Best of 2009 Meta-List. Finally, thanks to Marc Sobel at our sister blog, Trouble with Comics, I came across a "meta-list" for the best comics of 2009, collating the selections from 130 individual lists into a ranking of 100 titles. Criminal and Incognito both made the list, the former having done so every year since its 2006 debut. One bit of the compiler's commentary is worth repeating:
  
  "Where's Marvel? Two of Marvel's top three comic books are creator-owned: Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips's Incognito (#39) and Brubaker and Phillips's Criminal (#48). Not until Daredevil (#43) do you see a Marvel-owned property, and that too was written by Brubaker for the majority of the year. Note to Marvel: don't fire Ed Brubaker."
  
  An update accounting for an additional 15 lists rendered the analysis somewhat obsolete, but it's still the case that Ed Brubaker has been involved in quite a few of Marvel's most acclaimed works in the past year or so.

I imagine that news will be light at least until new issues of Incognito are announced, probably no sooner than mid-April, but we'll be here through this upcoming quiet spell and the return of the pulp-superhero hybrid, all the way to the return of Criminal -- and beyond.


Buy Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips comics from Amazon.com

The Sinners Finale in Stores Tomorrow.

Along with the retailer sites I check from week to week, Ed Brubaker confirms that Criminal: The Sinners #5 is in comic shops this week -- tomorrow for most retailers.

I haven't been able to find any online previews of the story's finale, but I'll update this entry if that changes.

Dark Tower for Phillips in May, Incognito in "July or August."

As I noted earlier, Marvel's solicitations for March and April include no Icon material from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. The publisher's May solicitations, published this week at Newsarama and elsewhere, continue that trend.


In addition to the beginning of the "Heroic Age" for Brubaker's Captain America and the debut of his Secret Avengers, the solicitations mention a project that Sean Phillips also announced at his own blog -- Dark Tower: The Gunslinger #1.

"Join Robin Furth, Peter David and Richard Isanove as they welcome superstar artist Sean Phillips (INCOGNITO) into the ka-tet of creators entrusted by Stephen King himself to bring the adult adventures of his most personal creation to life!"

Phillips joins Richard Isanove in creating the interior art and the cover for the debut issue, and he will presumably work on the entire five-part mini-series.


On his Twitter page, Phillips responds to a fan's inquiry about potential delays for Incognito and posts the first clear announcement about what's next for Ed and Sean.

"Incognito returns in July or August"

On his own Twitter page, Ed Brubaker confirms that more of Incognito is "coming soon."


The trade paperback for Criminal: The Sinners hasn't yet found its way to Marvel's solicitations. Trade collections for Brubaker and Phillips' Icon work have historically been released only a month or two after the story arc's last monthly issue, and this delay might be intended to encourage readers to collect the monthly issues, to tie the trade to the return of Incognito, or both. Sean Phillips has already posted work on the cover art (a subdued recoloring of the first issue's cover) and so I'm guessing that the trade paperback will reach stores sooner rather than later -- July, August, probably before the return of Incognito.

The more important thing to note is this.

Going by past trends, the follow-up to Incognito will probably run five or six issues, released no more frequently than once a month, so I figure that the mini-series will run to about the end of the year.

Except for maybe another short-story "emission," the fifth and final issue of Criminal: The Sinners, due in just a few weeks, will almost certainly be the last new material for Criminal until 2011.

To be clear, I quite enjoy Incognito, but the "apocalyptic pulp noir" doesn't have quite the punch of Criminal, and so I'll be anxiously waiting for its return.


Buy Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips comics from Amazon.com

Bullets: Incognito, Interviews... and Politics.

Note: Following the list of bullet items this week are my personal thoughts on a recent controversy involving politics. This marks the first time I've broached that subject here, in a blog where politics largely has no place, and though I do not think I've written anything controversial, I want to make clear that the views I express in this commentary are my own. I want to make doubly clear that this disclaimer is entirely my own doing.


It's been a busy couple weeks since the release of the penultimate issue to Criminal: The Sinners -- and we are not without some controversy, as you will see.

• Criminal in March. First, Marvel's official website now lists a a March 10th release date for Criminal: The Sinners #6, the "action-packed and twist-filled finale." This is a very slight delay from its original, solicited release date: I would have been surprised to see two issues released in the same month.
  
  
• Personalized Trades from Sean Phillips. Last week, Sean Phillips announced that he's selling a few copies of the Incognito trade paperback, each with an original character sketch of the customer's choice. In the comments in a subsequent post featuring a sample sketch of Fu Manchu, he implies that the sale also includes a personalized sketch in each copy of Criminal: The Deluxe Edition, and he writes that there are still "plenty of both" for interested parties.
  
  If only this were announced when the books first came out...
  
  
• First Hints of the Incognito Sequel. While we're on the subject, Sean Phillips also recently revealed "doodles" from brainstorming about "the next Incognito series covers."
  
  That description and the rough sketches suggest that "Incognito" might be the title for the overarching story rather than just the first six-issue mini-series. More importantly, Sean relays in the comments that the follow-up might be next but not immediately.
  
  "I think we're doing Incognito next. Up to Ed though. I've got a new project to do first though to give Ed some breathing space. Should be announced soon..."
  
  We'll post updates on the sequel and Sean Phillips' other project, as they are made available.
  
  
• Brubaker Interviews on Mainstream Marvel Work. Earlier this week, Newsarama posted two interviews with Ed Brubaker about his upcoming work in the Marvel Universe. Brubaker will be writing a new ongoing title, Secret Avengers, which is now being promoted through some rather cryptic teaser images.
  
  And, Ed Brubaker will continue writing for Captain America, but Butch Guice will now be joining him as the regular artist. Bucky Barnes will continue to "wield the shield," and he'll face a new antagonist in Baron Zemo.
  
  
• Controversy in Captain America #602. Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention a controversy about possible political commentary in the pages of the most recent issue of Captain America. Fox News spoke with Ed Brubaker about protest scenes in the issue, and he explained that he did not write the content of a sign alluding to the Tea Party movement.
  
  "I don't know who did it, probably someone who thought it was funny... I didn't think so, personally. That's the sign being changed to something more generic for the trade reprint, because I and my editor were both shocked to see it."
  
  Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada also discussed the issue with Comic Book Resources, assuring readers, "Our books are no one’s soapbox."

As a matter of full disclosure, I don't believe I see eye-to-eye with Ed Brubaker or our own Alan David Doane, at least in terms of political beliefs.

And I don't keep up with even Brubaker's work in the mainstream Marvel universe. I've been pulling away from more mainstream superhero titles, even those featuring Batman. Still, I'm hoping to get one of Sean Phillips' art books for my birthday, and I've been slowly making my way through Brubaker's older work -- Scene of the Crime, Catwoman, Dark Horse Presents, even Dead Enders -- so I might make my way to his Marvel work at some point. His writing for Daredevil seems especially suited to my interests in his noir work, and I've heard enough great things about Captain America to make me reconsider my reluctance to get into a series that might hip-deep in Civil War and every other mega-crossover event.

Though I have only a passing familiarity with his writing for Marvel's mainstream superheroes, I did quickly read through that issue in the shop this week, and I can see reasons to object even beyond the protest signs that were filled in without the writer's and editor's oversight. And I can think of a couple reasons to question Quesada's claim that the publishers avoid all political grandstanding.

But, for the most part, I'm just reticent about any sort of overt political commentary in fictional entertainment.

For one thing, it's just too easy to be coy about the political commentary, to condone taking the commentary seriously only when people agree with it. The writer can share a figurative high-five with those who cheer the content but still dismiss substantive disagreement. It's only a TV show; I'm only a comedian; or, it's only a comic book.

More than that, it's too easy to engage in blunt caricature when the issues usually require much more care than that.

I certainly don't think comics and politics must not mix. Editorial cartooning is a powerful form of expression, and beyond that, I certainly think serious ideas can be discussed in the medium of long-form comics, as one can see in The Cartoon Guide to Physics or in Action Philosophers. There's nothing preventing a comic book from describing political theory with wit and even humor, and I imagine one could use the medium to persuasively advocate for a specific philosophy or policy.

But attempting that in the context of a fictional narrative would either grind the story to a halt or gloss over difficult issues with glib generalizations. And, either way, the reader would probably be pulled out of the story -- the suspension of disbelief and the story's "flow" -- to be lectured by the writer.

The writer's certainly free to do it, but that doesn't mean he should. It's not always good art when he does, and it's almost certainly heavy-handed when it's tried.

One of the things I most appreciate in Brubaker and Phillips' collaborative work is that it's quite understated and even subtle. For instance, there's a page in "Coward" that conveys a great deal of brutal violence after the fact, but it does so very carefully and without any undue extravagance. I would hate for that "spell" to be broken for needless political commentary.

I think that there's a lot that could be drawn from Criminal that is political, philosophical, and even theological, but I think it should be left to the readers to draw their own conclusions. Barring that, I would actually love to see some thoughtful analysis along those lines where they would really belong: in the essays in the back of the monthly issues.

I just hope that we never have to deal with controversies like this in Brubaker and Phillips' work in Icon Comics.

...And Looking Ahead to 2010.

There's only so much public information about what's coming in the next few months, but I'll review what's already known and what's likely.

First -- and most immediately -- issue #4 of Criminal: The Sinners is in stores February 3rd, and yesterday Comic Book Resources posted a six-page preview of the story's penultimate issue, which resolves last issue's cliffhanger with a little violence and a surprising amount of humor.

It's worth noting that the second and third pages -- presumably facing pages -- break somewhat from the series' familiar three-row pattern. This is only the second time that page layout has changed, the first being in the first page in "Second Chance in Hell," from Volume #2, Issue #1.

After that?

The fifth and final issue of Criminal: The Sinners should be released in just a few more weeks. As of the time of this writing, Marvel.com has the issue still scheduled for its original solicitation date of February 24th, and Sean Phillips is already working on the finale.

Marvel's solicitations for March and April mention no new Icon material from Brubaker and Phillips. If history is any guide, we should still see the trade collection for "The Sinners" sooner rather than later -- May would be my guess.

The next arc after "The Sinners" may well be the sequel to Incognito, if plans haven't changed from interviews Brubaker gave last April and August. Brubaker may have alluded to this sequel in the afterward to the mini-series' trade paperback, apparently written this past October.

"If you like Incognito, you'll be pleased to hear there's more coming next year. Hopefully a lot more, because I've got quite a few ideas that I want to get in this little pulp world we created."

A five- or six-issue sequel that is published monthly and begins in April or May will get us to fall.

Beyond that, who knows? I do hope that Criminal isn't eclipsed by the Incognito universe, and I hope that we're still going to see "Coward's Way Out," the story of Leo's prison break, which was, according to Brubaker, pushed back in favor of "The Sinners."


What I find really interesting is DC's April solicitations [link corrected Feb 16], which provide an advance solicitation for the third hardcover collection for Ed Brubaker's Gotham Central.

GOTHAM CENTRAL BOOK 3: ON THE FREAK BEAT HC
Advance-solicited • On sale JUNE 9 • 224 pg, FC $29.99 US
Written by GREG RUCKA & ED BRUBAKER
Art by MICHAEL LARK, JASON ALEXANDER & others
Cover by CLIFF CHIANG

Detective Renee Montoya investigates the disappearance of evidence amid a gang war and travels to Keystone City in an attempt to unveil the truth about a fellow officer’s strange mutation in this collection featuring issues #23-31 of the award-winning series. Plus, the dead body of Robin, the Boy Wonder, is found on the streets, forcing the detectives to solve the case while dealing with Batman and The Teen Titans.

The first two volumes collected ten issues and twelve issues, so if the entire, 40-issue series is going to be collected in hardcover editions, one would expect the third collection and the final collection each to contain nine issues. This solicitation meets that expectation.

Even though this book contains fewer issues, its retail price is still $29.99, but the price didn't go up for the twelve-issue second volume, either. If all forty issues are released in four volumes at this price, then the MSRP is essentially $3.00 an issue, which isn't bad considering the series' original cover price of $2.50.

What's really odd, though, is that the solicitation mentions "issues #23-31" but clearly alludes to the story, "Dead Robin," found in issues #33-36. Presently the official site has the same discrepancy, but I suspect that these hardcover collections will contain the entire run -- as the softcover volumes did not -- and that the "Dead Robin" arc will be left for the final nine-issue volume.

(Leaving "Dead Robin" to the last collection makes sense in terms of trade dress, anyway: it's Brubaker's last arc on the series, so saving it for Book Four will allow all the covers to give the same prominent attribution to both Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka.)

I'll update the blog if and when the discrepancy is addressed -- or, in the worst case, when I buy and open my copy of the book.


In the meantime, Criminal: The Sinners #4 is in stores this upcoming Wednesday.

Looking Back on 2009...

I never did get around to one last post to wrap up the year, and A Criminal Blog has been pretty quiet since. I've found a couple new items worth a remark or two, but first, 2009 deserves a quick review as possibly the most successful year so far for Brubaker and Phillips' collaborative work.


We saw 2008 end with the conclusion of "Bad Night," a story that was twisted and intricately plotted even for Criminal, and its trade paperback collection was published at the end of January, 2009.

But the year really began with Incognito, the "apocalyptic pulp noir" whose first issue reached stores over New Year's. It tweaked the visual style of Criminal and told a story that reversed the undercover premise of Sleeper, all while introducing a new super-powered universe that we should visit again soon.

Like Ed Brubaker's Captain America: Reborn, which began later in the year, Incognito was originally a five-issue mini-series and ended up expanding into a sixth issue. The title was surprisingly successful commercially, leading to a reprint of issue #1 and the "must-have one shot" collecting the first two issues -- both a first for Brubaker and Phillips' work at Icon.

Over the course of the summer, DC Comics republished the complete Sleeper, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' first major collaboration. They first released a new trade paperback edition of the prelude story Point Blank, featuring new cover art by Sean Phillips, and then DC released a complete twelve-issue collection for each of the two "seasons" of Sleeper. These last two trades are less expensively priced than the earlier four-volume set, and the second trade includes a prologue story that has never been collected before.

Incognito reached its violent conclusion in September, kicking off a very busy fall season. Along with the final Sleeper collection, DC published the second hardcover collection for Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka's Gotham Central, the critically acclaimed series that would eventually feature cover art by Sean Phillips.

Icon published the trade paperback collection for Incognito, where Brubaker explained in the afterward that Jess Nevins' essay on the "zeppelin pulps" wasn't entirely rooted in history.

And then there was Criminal: The Deluxe Edition. Along with the stories from the first three trade collections, the beautiful oversized hardcover includes some 70 pages of extra content, pretty much everything a fan would want:

• all of Sean Phillips' cover art for the individual issues and the trades
  
• all of Phillps' art for the supplemental essays, along with the essays Ed Brubaker wrote himself
  
• the five-page "trailer" that introduced the series to the world
  
• the Criminal prose story "Caught in the Undertow" from the very first issue
  
• the Criminal "emission" called "No One Rides for Free," from Liberty Comics #1
  
• and a brief glimpse behind the scenes, showing Phillips' process for creating the cover and for translating the script to the page

To say that this book is a "must-have" is a gross understatement.

Fall wasn't just a busy time for reprints, as October finally saw the return of Criminal, first in the debut issue of Criminal: The Sinners, and then in the twisted black-and-white short story "21st Century Noir," found in the Dark Horse anthology Noir: A Collection of Crime Comics.

The third issue of "The Sinners" reached stores the week before Christmas. The five-issue arc features the return of Tracy Lawless, who is hunting down a killer for mob boss Sebastian Hyde, all while he is being hunted for going AWOL. Surprisingly, the mini-series revealed at least part of the mystery in the very first issue, but we're entering the new year still waiting for all the pieces to fit together.


Incredibly, almost everything Brubaker and Phillips have ever produced together was released or republished in 2009, from Sleeper to Criminal to Incognito.

(A complete compilation of their collaborative work would include 1999's Scene of the Crime, where, for the last three issues, Phillips did the inks over Michael Lark's pencils; Gotham Central, where Phillips began cover art work in issue #33, before Brubaker left with issue #36; and the prestige-format Elseworlds story, Batman: Gotham Noir. I found a copy of this book at last year's Dragon*Con in Atlanta, but I don't believe this book has ever been republished. From 2001, this book is, I believe, the first work that could really be considered a comic book by Brubaker and Phillips.)

Sleeper and Incognito are easy enough to collect with three trade paperbacks -- four, if you count Point Blank.

Criminal, on the other hand, debuted in late 2006, is in the middle of its fifth arc, and has had two short-story "emissions" released in separate anthologies. Still, one can collect the entire Criminal canon up to this point with 2009 releases: Criminal: The Deluxe Edition, the "Bad Night" trade paperback, the Dark Horse Noir anthology, and the first three issues of Criminal: The Sinners.


It's been a busy year for Ed Brubaker. In mainstream comics, Brubaker wrapped up his acclaimed run on Daredevil, and he began Captain America: Reborn and The Marvels Project. Perhaps more interestingly, his live-action mini-series Angel of Death debuted online, was shown on Spike TV, and was released on DVD.


It's also been a good year in general for crime, noir, and pulp comics.

We saw the finale of 100 Bullets and the debut of the surprise hit Chew -- a twisted comic that I find to be the perfect complement to Criminal.

Marvel introduced its series of "Noir" stories riffing on traditional Marvel characters; DC released the first comic book in a pulp universe guided by Brian Azzarello and featuring Doc Savage, the Spirit, and "the Batman;" Dark Horse published the afore-mentioned Noir anthology; and Vertigo debuted its series of original graphic novels, Vertigo Crime.

Boom Studios began its 24-issue maxi-series illustrating Philip K. Dick's neo-noir, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

And, last but certainly not least, Darwyn Cooke released his first adaptation of Richard Stark's Parker, in the beautiful but brutal hardcover, The Hunter.


The Sleeper adaptation, currently attached to Tom Cruise, may eventually move from development to the theaters, or -- who knows? -- Criminal might eventually become a live-action mini-series on HBO.

But until then, fans should look back on 2009 as a high-water mark, as a very good year indeed.

Criminal: The Sinners #3 Preview.

I hope to have a "bullets" post up before New Year's, but very briefly, the next issue of Criminal: The Sinners will be in stores tomorrow. Comic Book Resources has a five-page preview, here.

A Criminal Blog wishes everyone a very safe and merry Christmas.