As revealed in the back of this week’s “The Fade Out” #2 (and covered a bit more in-depth by the “Criminal” fan blog), Ed Brubaker has announced that his series “Criminal” with Sean Phillips is transferring from Icon to Image Comics for a set of new releases. As Brubaker writes,
…speaking of [our] backlist, we heard from a lot of new readers this time, so if you’re one of those, please check out our other books. We have a lot of work in print, and we’re just about to begin rereleasing the CRIMINAL books through IMAGE. In fact, here’s the cover (with our new design) for the first one, which will be out in January.
We’ll be putting them out one-per-month, from January to June, and we’ll have even more CRIMINAL news soon. (I want to tell you now, I just can’t yet.)
Amazon backs this up as well, with “Coward” and “Lawless” already available for pre-order, though “Lawless” is listed for March (which could have more to do with a delay to booksellers after the direct market than a firm release date or anything like that). This will also be the second time that a collaboration between Brubaker and Phillips has made its way over to Image, after “Scene of the Crime” (which mainly featured art by Michael Lark) transitioned from Vertigo backlog over to Image in 2012.
This does cover the six volumes of “Criminal” quite well, though: there’s the aforementioned “Coward” and “Lawless,” plus “The Dead and the Dying,” “Bad Night,” “The Sinners” and “The Last of the Innocent.” Brubaker has also mentioned in the past that a sequel to “Coward” is in the works in addition to a film adaptation of “Coward”, so with secretive news on the way I would expect we’ll be hearing once more about either of these two things.
The “Criminal” blog also makes mention that Brubaker and Phillips will be taking a break between arcs of “The Fade Out” because “[he] and Sean have a secret thing coming in January,” so keep your eyes and ears peeled for news. Hey, isn’t NYCC next week? And don’t we usually start hearing about things for January and 2015 in general in October when it comes to comics? The answers might be closer than you think.
In the meantime, you can still grab copies of Icon’s “Criminal” hardcovers while they last. They’re pretty great editions if you’re into big, solid books like I am. And if you’ve never read “Criminal,” the easiest way I’ve found to describe it to people to get them hooked is “like “Sin City” if “Sin City” was great.” Which, y’know, isn’t to knock Frank Miller’s seminal work or anything like that, but it’s certainly the easiest way to get the message across in eight words or less.
Also, this is great and all, but when are we getting “Incognito” v3, eh? Where’s the fan blog covering that!
