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Image Expo is kicking off with a stirring speech by Eric Stephenson. We’ll social media it along for you   Image Expo is 10 minutes from starting, and the venue certainly has some swagger to it. #imageexpo pic.twitter.com/ML7zoPbNWd — Christopher Butcher (@Comics212) April 6, 2016 "Whatever you imagine, it can happen." Starting the keynote at […]

Darwyn Cooke is another great cartoonist from Canada to grace the pages of mainstream comics. Cooke’s current career in comics began when he wrote, and drew the memorable DC Elseworlds special Batman: Ego. After a short stint in comics in the mid-late 80’s, he found success as an animator/storyboard artist for Batman: The Animated Series & Superman: The Animated Series in the 1990’s, including creating the main title design for Batman Beyond.

Notable works from Darwyn are DC: The New Frontier(which told the tale of DC Superheroes during the dormant period of the 1950’s), Catwoman’s reboot/redesign in 2001 with writer Ed Brubaker(this run of comics is proving to be ahead of it’s time since we’re seeing a new trend of rethinking/redesigning superhero style & character; i.e. Ms. Marvel, Batgirl, etc.) , the comics adaptations of Donald E. Westlake’s classic crime thriller series Parker, and a recent spate of cover art, including a whole month’s worth of variant covers for many of DC’s flagship titles, and the first issues of IDW’s King Features line.

You can keep up with all things Darwyn Cooke on his website here.

For more comics related art, you can follow me on my website comicstavern.com - Andy Yates

Back at the first Image Expo this year it was announced that Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips were going exclusive with Image for their collections, and that means porting over CRiminal from Marvel’s creator owned Icon line. And this month’s solicitations reveal that not only is it coming back, but there will be a new one-shot, and newly designed editions, hitting in January.

The 48-page one-shot—to be colored by regular colorist Elizabeth Breitweiser—will also have an irresistible CRIMINAL: SAVAGE EDITION magazine-sized variant.

The logline:

It’s 1976, and Teeg Lawless is doing 30 days in county jail with a price on his head; his only safe company from the savagery: a beat-up old comic magazine his dead cellmate left behind. It’s CRIMINAL like you’ve never seen it before, with a comic within the comic and all those slick ‘70s thrills!

“We’ve been planning the return of CRIMINAL for the past year, and I couldn’t let the launch go by without returning to our underworld for a new story,” said Brubaker. “With FATALE and THE FADE OUT, we’ve been hearing from a lot of new readers, so it couldn’t be a better time to get the thing we’re most known for back on the shelves.”

While Criminal was not the first Brubaker/Phillips collab, it did kick off a very fruitful creator owned partnership that has seen a wealth of pretty amazing books, including Fatale and the new The Fade out.

Sean Phillips has been working in comics for over 3 decades, creating beautifully rendered art on such titles as The Invisibles, 2000 AD, Judge Dredd, and Hellblazer. He was part of the British Invasion of Comics in the late 80′s/early 90′s along with cohorts Grant Morrison, Peter Milligan, and Neil Gaiman. His ability to create striking cover illustrations, and draw fully formed characters in a classic, cinematic style has led to a long accomplished career as an artist. He is completing his latest collaboration with “partner in crime” writer Ed Brubaker on the supernatural thriller Fatale for Image Comics. August will see the premiere of their next series together, The Fade-Out, a noir tale set in 1940′s Hollywood. This also begins a 5 year deal with Image Comics for both Sean Phillips, and Ed Brubaker to produce comics exclusively for the publisher, which is a rare occurrence in the industry. This obviously shows the extreme confidence that both creator’s work, and craftsmanship inspires to land such a contract.

Sean Phillips has contributed cover and interior art for various Criterion Collection DVDs, including On the Waterfront, and 12 Angry Men.

He’s also been nominated for 3 Eisner Awards, and has won once with Ed Brubaker for best new series Criminal.

You can keep up with all of the latest Sean Phillips news, and art on his website.

For more comics related art, you can follow me on my website comicstavern.com - Andy Yates

The stellar comics making team of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips is finishing up FATALE, but fading in on FADE OUT, a new collaboration due in August. The first issue will be 40 pages long, and given its old time Tinsel Town sbject atter, a varient edition will be printed in an oversized “movie magazine replica” format with 8 extra pages of behind-the-scenes art and articles.

I had the pleasure of interviewing this pair at TCAF and you can hear them talking about FADE OUT here.

An intricate and groundbreaking crime story on a level Brubaker and Phillips have never tackled before, THE FADE OUT weaves a tangled web through the underbelly of a 1948 Hollywood… A noir film stuck in endless reshoots. A writer plagued with nightmares from the war and a dangerous secret. An up-and-coming starlet’s suspicious death. And a maniacal studio mogul and his security chief who will do anything to keep the cameras rolling before the Post-War boom days come crashing down. THE FADE OUT is the most ambitious series yet from the award-winning Noir Masters.

Early praise for THE FADE OUT:
“Brubaker and Phillips’s books have always been about eight years ahead of their time.” —Brian K. Vaughan (SAGA, Y the Last Man)

“Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips are the gold standard of the crime graphic novel.” —Warren Ellis (Planetary, Transmetropolitan, Gun Machine, Fell)

“Brubaker & Phillips continue to make sweet music together, broadcast to you in the form of the best comics around.” —Robert Kirkman (THE WALKING DEAD, INVINCIBLE)

“How can you resist the Lennon and McCartney of Feel-Bad Comics Noir heading out west for the flickering horrors of Hollywoodland? THE FADE OUT feels like the book Ed and Sean were born to make.” —Matt Fraction (SEX CRIMINALS, CASANOVA, Hawkeye)

“Ed and Sean are that rare longterm collaboration that never become complacent, each project is a new revelation, the love visibly increased, the enthusiasm for the craft only growing over time. You don’t have to consider the purchase, you make it on instinct at this point.” —Rick Remender (BLACK SCIENCE, DEADLY CLASS)

“Like Scorsese and De Niro, Brubaker and Phillips are the unmatched masters of a certain kind of storytelling—those fables of doomed and deluded men who are ready to die bloody, defending the tatters of their soiled American dreams. A new title from the sharpshooters behind Criminal and Fatale is reason enough to go on living.” —Joe Hill (Locke & Key, Horns, NOS4A2)

“Brubaker and Phillips have achieved the sort of creative consistency that’d justify critics filing their INSTANT CLASSIC reviews before they even read whatever they put out next.” —Kieron Gillen (THE WICKED + THE DIVINE, Phonogram, Young Avengers)

“I’ve been reading Ed Brubaker comics since the first appearance of Ed Brubakercomics and every single time he announces a new title I mutter to myself: ‘ugh! I wish I would’ve thought of that!’” —Brian Michael Bendis (POWERS, Alias,Ultimate Spider-Man)

“I’m a pretty easy mark for any Brubaker-Philips creation, but the ambition behind this one has me spinning with anticipation. Couldn’t be more excited.” —Jonathan Hickman (EAST OF WEST, MANHATTAN PROJECTS, Avengers)

“Two of the best in the business, no contest.” —Kelly Sue DeConnick
“I never know what to say in these things” —Kelly Sue DeConnick
“Seriously, just buy the [expletive deleted] book. I promise you’ll like it. Unless you’re [expletive deleted].” —Kelly Sue DeConnick
“I don’t think we’re supposed to say [expletive deleted] anymore.” —Kelly Sue DeConnick
“Forget I said that.” —Kelly Sue DeConnick (PRETTY DEADLY, Captain Marvel)

THE FADE OUT #1 arrives in stores on 8/20 for $3.50 and is available to pre-order with Diamond Code JUN140463. The movie magazine variant of THE FADE OUT is available to pre-order with Diamond Code JUN140464.

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It’s not particularly grim oop North if you head to the right parts, and you can’t go wrong with Kendal. It’s a lovely part of the world, and the perfect place for a comic book festival. And conveniently that leads me to mention The Lakes International Comic Art Festival, which will see Sean Phillips and Bryan and Mary Talbot as founder patrons. Located in Kendal, the Festival will be setting up tables for it’s first year of existence this October. So it’ll be a beautiful – flippin’ freezin’ – festival.

The festival has just announced the first ten guests, all of whom were lured in with the promise of mint cake galore.

The initial line-up are:

Doug Braithwaite

Posy Simmonds

John Wagner

Carlos Ezquerra

Ed Brubaker

Glyn Dillon

Jon McNaught

Joe Sacco

Jose Munoz

Andy Diggle

Alongside Phillips and the Talbots.

Heavy coats and scarves all round, everyone! Although Andy Diggle already lives in the North, so he’ll probably be able to wear shorts.  Tickets go on sale in May. I imagine The Beat will make their presence known too! S’only a stone throw away from here.