"His Fear Took Its Proper Place:" Previews and News.

The latest issue of Fatale is indeed in stores today, concluding the second arc and putting the title back on schedule.  A five-page preview of issue #10 is available at Comic Book Resources and at Comicosity, where it is grouped with previews for other books released today by Image Comics -- and there's already an early review at Unleash the Fanboy.

(This will be a good week, at least for my reading habits.  Along with Fatale, we have Chew #30 and Planetoid #4.  The dark comedy completes the first half of its planned 60-issue run, and writer John Layman marked the occasion with an interview with CBR.  Meanwhile, the stark sci-fi comic is resuming after a brief delay, creator Ken Garing has confirmed that this five-issue mini-series is only the beginning of a "larger story," and he's provided a striking piece of artwork to mark the new issue.)

Readers should note the publication of the second collection of Ed Brubaker's Winter Soldier title, featuring art by Michael Lark.  Upon his return from Thought Bubble, Sean Phillips has put a few more books in his Amazon store, each including a signature and an original sketch.

On December 12th, Image Comics will publish another round of "Image Firsts" comic books, full first issues for only one dollar. Chew will be one of two titles that will see "Image First" reprints, and -- more importantly -- Fatale will be one of five titles to be newly featured in their line of inexpensive introductions.  I'll sample a few titles I haven't yet tried, and the Fatale issue would be good to buy for friends.

After that, we have the four stand-alone issues, featured in a news story at Image Comics.  Fatale #11 is evidently still planned for December, but the second trade collection, "The Devil's Business," will be in stores on January 2nd.

Fatale has been nominated for Best Crime Comic (or "Mystery" comic) for the 2013 Angoulême International Comics Festival.  The nominees have been announced in French, and we're grateful that Comics Beat has translated the announcement into English.  The festival will be held January 31st to February 3rd.

Finally, Sean Phillips has created the cover art and additional material for another fine entry in the Criterion Collection: eight-time Oscar-winner On the Waterfront (1954), starring Marlon Brando.  This makes the fourth such commission for Phillips, who has created artwork for Blast of Silence (1961), Sweet Smell of Success (1957), and 12 Angry Men (1957).

The Criterion Blu-ray and DVD will both be released on February 19th.

November Bullets: Scene of the Crime HC, More Fatale, and Phillips Appearance.

A few brief notes:

• Scene of the Crime Hardcover, In Stores This Week.  As we reported in August, a new edition of Scene of the Crime is coming out.  The short-lived detective series was written by Ed Brubaker with pencils by Michael Lark and inks by Lark and (for the last three issues) Sean Phillips, and the book is the first of many collaborations for Brubaker-Lark and Brubaker-Phillips.  Originally published in 1999 by DC's Vertigo imprint, the deluxe, oversized hardcover is published by Image Comics and designed by Sean Phillips; Comic Book Resources has a six-page preview of the book, which reaches stores tomorrow.


• More Fatale on the Way.  A couple weeks back, Comics Alliance posted an interview with Ed Brubaker on the occasion of his last issue of Captain America, and it broke the news that Fatale is becoming an ongoing series.  I honestly think CA makes too much of the news.  The number of issues has never been part of the book's solicitations, and from the beginning we were told that it would run "at least 12 issues." Brubaker relays that the series will focus on Josephine, and he probably still has an end in mind for the title.  And, in light of the first two volumes of Criminal, it's not at all accurate to describe the book as Brubaker and Phillips' first ongoing title.  Still, it may be some time before we see the doubtlessly brutal end of this horror noir comic.


• Sean Phillips at Thought Bubble Convention.  Finally, Sean Phillips just announced that he'll be attending this weekend's Thought Bubble Festival in Leeds, England.  He'll be bringing plenty of books, and he'll be ready to draw sketches for fans, but he plans to limit sketches to characters in which he has a stake.

It appears that Fatale catches up completely this month, as issue #10 is currently listed for the last week of November, along with new issues for the other two books I've been digging, Chew and Planetoid, both also from Image Comics.  We'll post a preview as soon as we see it.

An Outstanding October.

September saw the release of Incognito: The Classified Edition, but not much else, as Fatale slipped its schedule a little bit.

On the subject of Incognito, fans -- and those who haven't yet read the book -- should check out a few links marking the occasion of the hardcover release, all from the website for the crime and suspense imprint Mulholland Books:  Joe Hill's essay on "Under The Influences," originally published with the second trade paperback; a brief exclusive interview with Ed Brubaker; and a five-page preview of the hardcover collection.

October was a better month for Brubaker and Phillips, and it ends with the latest issue of Fatale going on-sale today -- appropriately enough, on Halloween.  It's the second issue out this month, and Comic Book Resources has a five-page preview for issue #8, out October 3rd, and now a six-page preview for issue #9.

These last two issues have really ramped up my enjoyment of the series, and those who have found the story to be less immediately engaging than Criminal should stick with the book.  This second release in this month with five Wednesday's also allows the series to make up some lost ground:  the second arc concludes with issue #10, and this issue must be out in November to meet the schedule set in the December solicitations, where the second trade and the first stand-alone issue are out before Christmas.

Alongside Fatale #8, the second oversized hardcover collection for Criminal was released on October 3rd.  Criminal: The Deluxe Edition Volume 2 completes the deluxe treatment for Brubaker and Phillips' creator-owned output for Marvel's Icon imprint.


On his blog, Sean Phillips reminds us that the Marvel Zomnibus was evidently released that same week.  I couldn't find as much official information on the book as I would like, but it appears to be a massive, 1200-page hardcover collecting most/all of the Marvel Zombies saga, including Phillips' work early on in the series.

And I would be remiss not to note that the finale to Ed Brubaker's eight-year run on Captain America also came out, as did the third hardcover collection of his "Cap" saga.


Starting at the end of September and running through this month, John Suintres' Word Balloon podcast has featured a massive, MASSIVE "marathon interview" with Ed Brubaker, five or six hours of conversation spread across the first half of four separate audio files.  The final segment was released just last week.

In Part One, the pair covers Fatale and creator-owned comics.  In Part Two, they discuss Brubaker's move from DC to Marvel.  In Part Three, they discuss his work on superhero titles including Catwoman, Captain America, and Winter Soldier.  And in Part Four of what was originally planned to be a three-part series, they discuss the finales on his Marvel titles and the two pilots he wrote for the broadcast television networks.

In the backmatter of today's issue, Brubaker assures readers that his television work doesn't threaten his career in comics:  "This actually allows me more time to devote to comics like Fatale and a secret project I'll be announcing early next year."


Next month, we have the hardcover collection for Scene of the Crime:  I just noticed that the book is being published through Image, as it's listed in their November solicitations.  Brubaker writes that the creators were finally able to secure all the rights to the book that was originally published through DC's Vertigo imprint.  And in January we'll see the publication of Winter Soldier #14, Brubaker's last issue for the Marvel universe, for the foreseeable future.  Brubaker's transition to purely creator-owned work through more independent publishers is almost complete.

For now, I've thoroughly enjoyed having two issues of Fatale this month, and a reader could get used to two truly independent comic books from Brubaker each month.

A New Era for Ed Brubaker.

In what appears to be, coincidentally, our 200th post (counting 8 unpublished drafts), we're looking at a milestone for Ed Brubaker and taking an in-depth look at what is essentially a two-part exclusive interview with Comic Book Resources, from the last half of August.

Both interviews are well worth reading in full, the first in particular for insight into the inspiration behind Fatale and hints at what we'll see next in the horror-noir comic, but I'd like to highlight what we learn about Brubaker's broader plans as a writer.

In part one, Brubaker revealed that the scope of Fatale has expanded beyond its original three story arcs.  Between the second and third arcs, we'll now have four stand-alone issues set in different time periods, bringing the total number of issues to 19 or 20.  Having missed a month already, we'll probably see no more than 11 issues this year, and even in this interview Brubaker confirms the historical average of 10 Brubaker-Phillips issues a year, so I would expect the pair to focus on Fatale through to the very end of 2013, at least.

He also revealed, "my goal is to have two comics a month every month. One will be by me and Sean [Phillips], and one will be by me and someone else."

The success of Fatale prompted him to think, "Maybe I can just do a couple of the comics I own as half of my time, and then I can devote the rest of my work time to stuff I've been putting off for years and years" -- projects involving screenplays and television pilots.

He's seizing opportunities that he would regret not taking, but he reassures fans, "I'll always be a comics guy, and I've told Sean several times that no matter what, he and I are going to be doing comics together until we're old men."

On the one hand, the interview leaves the impression that Brubaker will be working on Marvel's Winter Soldier comic for the time being.  On the other hand, we have this:

"I'm just taking the part of my life that used to be reserved for superhero comics and putting that time towards TV and film work instead."

The other shoe dropped in part two, where Ed Brubaker announced that his run on Winter Soldier is ending with December's issue #14.  He's quite clear that he would like to return to the character someday, but this will bring to an end his work-for-hire on costumed superheroes for the time being.

What we have is a true end of an era for Ed Brubaker, and the start of something new.

I find that online comic-book databases aren't always precise in their publication dates, but this chronological listing of Brubaker's work from ComicBookDB.com gives us a rough outline from which to sketch a pattern.

It appears that every major period of work has lasted about five to seven years, with perhaps a single transitional year between periods.

Below I've captured these "eras" along with some of the prominent works in each, and the major collaborations with Sean Phillips given extra emphasis.

1991-1998  Independent Comics

Lowlife
Dark Horse Presents, including "An Accidental Death" and "The Fall"
At the Seams

1999-2004  DC Comics

Scene of the Crime (Vertigo)
Deadenders (Vertigo)
Batman / Detective Comics
Catwoman
Point Blank (Wildstorm)
Gotham Central
SLEEPER (Wildstorm)

2005 Transition

Work ended on Catwoman, Gotham Central, and Sleeper; work began on Captain America.

2006-2011 Marvel Comics

Captain America
X-Men
Daredevil
CRIMINAL (Icon)
Immortal Iron Fist
INCOGNITO (Icon)
Marvels Project
Secret Avengers

2012 Transition

Work ending on Captain America and Winter Solider; work begins on FATALE, published through Image Comics.

We're at the end of another transitional period.  In 2013, and for the first time since 1999, Ed Brubaker will not be writing any books for either of the Big Two superhero publishers.  We're back to purely independent, creator-owned work, though with a much higher profile.

The Incognito: Classified Edition Deluxe Hardcover hit stores just this week, and by the end of next month, all of Brubaker and Phillips' creator-owned work with Icon will have been published three times over:  once in monthlies, once in trade paperback, and once in an oversized, deluxe hardcover edition.

I return to my suspicion from when we covered the end of Brubaker's run on Captain America, and I'm now making it a full-fledged prediction:  the next time we see a new issue of Criminal or Incognito, it will be published through Image Comics.

Beginning in 2014 2013, Brubaker fans can probably expect two creator-owned issues a month, both through Image:  one will be drawn by Sean Phillips, and the other will be... well, something else entirely.

(Update, 11/28: corrected 2014 to 2013.)

More announcements are surely on their way.

[Update, May 1, 2021 & Jan 28, 2025: We have arguably seen some further changes in Brubaker's work, in format rather than in subject matter or publisher.]

2013-2017 Monthly Series at Image Comics

FATALE
Velvet
THE FADE OUT
CRIMINAL one-shots
KILL OR BE KILLED

2018-2020 Transition

Monthly work continued with KILL OR BE KILLED, followed by the original graphic novel MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN JUNKIES; the third volume of CRIMINAL included an expanded hardcover for BAD WEEKEND; and soon after additional OGNs were released, PULP and RECKLESS.

2021- Original Graphic Novels at Image Comics

RECKLESS books

NIGHT FEVER

WHERE THE BODY WAS

HOUSES OF THE UNHOLY, etc.

Deluxe Hardcover for Scene of the Crime in November.

Expect another blog entry soon discussing Brubaker's two-part interview with Comic Book Resources -- here's part one and here's part two -- but, first, Sean Phillips has announced the upcoming release of a deluxe, oversized hardcover for Scene of the Crime.

Originally published in 1999, Scene of the Crime was Ed Brubaker's first work for DC and his first collaboration both with Michael Lark and with Sean Phillips.  The creator-owned series for Brubaker and Lark was released under the Vertigo imprint; focusing on a P.I. in San Francisco, the series began with a short story for the Winter's Edge anthology and only lasted four full-length issues.

The short story and the single arc, titled "A Little Piece of Goodnight," was collected in a bare-bones trade paperback in 2000, and the collection is now long out of print.  The oversized hardcover collection was designed by Phillips, and it appears to have about 20 pages of extras.

In the original work, Sean Phillips inked Michael Lark's pencils for the last three issues, and for that reason I consider it to be a "minor collaboration" between Brubaker and Phillips, but it's still well worth getting.

Scene of the Crime is scheduled to be released on November 14th with an MSRP of $24.99.

This makes the third oversized hardcover officially announced for the next three months.  As we've already mentioned, the Incognito hardcover is scheduled for September, and the second Criminal hardcover is scheduled for October.  Together, the three books will retail for about $120.

That cost is one reason I'd actually like to see the rumored deluxe edition of Sleeper to come out no earlier next year -- it was just three years ago that the new trade paperbacks were released.  I haven't seen any official confirmation of Bleeding Cool's June report, and I think the time might be running out for this year's shopping season.

This year, we have a blast from the past with the deluxe Scene of the Crime, and we might be closing the book with Brubaker and Phillips' Icon work with the other two hardcovers, but that brings us back to the CBR interviews...

Fatale #7 In Stores This Week, Preview Out Now.

It's been a few weeks, but the latest issue of Fatale hits your local comic retailer this Wednesday.  Comic Book Resources has a six-page preview of the new issue.

An Eisner for "Last of the Innocent" -- and Where It May Lead.

We would be remiss to let July come to a close without noting that, this month at Comic-Con International, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' Criminal was honored with the Eisner award for Best Limited Series for "The Last of the Innocent."

(It really is a great story, even apart from the references to Archie comics and other classics for adolescents:  it's a dark look at nostalgia and self-centeredness that wouldn't be half as effective without Sean Phillips' shifting between the desperate present and an idealized past.)

Criminal has received quite a few nominations since its debut in 2006, and it won the Best New Series Eisner in 2007. Ed Brubaker has also been thrice honored as Best Writer for his work at Marvel, within the mainstream superhero universe and beyond to his work with Sean Phillips.

In the back pages of Fatale, their surprise hit combining noir and Lovecraftian horror, we've seen an ad for all the previous collections of the most prominent works in Brubaker and Phillips' canon.

There's the espionage thriller of Sleeper, for DC's Vertigo imprint.  In the creator-owned category, we have the straight-up crime stories in Criminal and the "apocalyptic pulp noir" of Incognito, both published through Marvel's Icon imprint.

(For my money, Criminal is the magnum opus, and not just in terms of size. Readers might be interested to note that we've already compiled a more complete list of their collaborations.)

It's my hope that these honors, awards, and stellar reviews continue to encourage new readers to give Brubaker/Phillips a try, so that the market can sustain their moody and sometimes quite sophisticated noir comics.

Earlier this month, in an exclusive interview with Comic Book Resources, John Layman discussed his upcoming work on Detective Comics and put it in perspective alongside his twisted, hilarious crime comic Chew.

The good thing about the success of "Chew" is that I don't have to take work. I am in this really great position where if I am doing something, it's because I want to do it, not because I have to pay the phone bill. Basically, I looked at my schedule and said, "Yes." And also, it's awesome.

That's what I'd like to see for Brubaker and Phillips -- and, really, all the great talents who I see take chances on telling their own stories, their own way:  not just John Layman and Rob Guillory, but Scott Morse (Strange Science Fantasy) and Ken Garing (Planetoid).

A world where great writers and artists work on the intellectual property of others only when they want to:  they can reach for this prize with great work, and they can get there with support from us, their readers.