Velvet Out This Week, The Fade Out Process, and More!

One of these days, we'll wrap up our extensive look at The Fade Out, but until then...

On Twitter, Ed Brubaker confirms that his other creator-owned comic arrived in stores today:  Velvet #13 continues the third chapter of the espionage tale, "The Man Who Stole the World."  We noticed that the two-page "trailer" for the Criminal 10th Anniversary Special was published at the end of the book, and artist Steve Epting recently treated Twitter followers with a fantastic piece of black-and-white art from the series.

Bang! Bang! Velvet #13! @brubaker @bettieb pic.twitter.com/hn0ZMy9SYz

— Steve Epting (@SteveEpting) February 3, 2016

Looking ahead, Sean Phillips announced that he received his comp copies of The Fade Out Act Three, which strongly indicates that the book will reach retailers next week; ComicList's latest extended forecast for Image still has a release date of February 17th.

Brubaker and Phillips have also given readers an inside look at their process behind The Fade Out, with the writer pointing out a page on the artist's blog, detailing the creation of a single page from script to the final artwork.  A monochrome reprint would be appropriately moody, but Bettie Breitweiser's colors are an amazing addition to Phillips' lines -- and scrolling through the full-page slide show of the artwork in-progress is kinda mesmerizing.

That's not the only webpage worth checking out this week:

• Ed Brubaker recommends a great story from The Atlantic, about the search for a single archetype that encompasses all storytelling, excerpting John Yorke’s book, Into the Woods: A Five-Act Journey Into Story.
• I saw that The A.V. Club posted a lengthy essay on the road movies starring Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, a series of movies mentioned in The Fade Out, which we highlighted in December.
• Finally, this week sees the release of the Coen Brothers' latest, Hail, Caesar!  The New Yorker has a lengthy, well-written review that makes me want to see the movie even more.  Fans of The Fade Out might find parts of the movie's premise familiar, with a studio fixer working in Hollywood in 1951, not unlike Brodsky in 1948 -- but evidently the movie is played for a few more laughs, and the subject of faith is apparently quite prominent. 

If there are more connections between the Coens' comedy and Brubaker & Phillips' latest noir, I might revisit the film here.