Monthly Archive: January 2008

Criminal, the award-winning series by Captain America writer Ed Brubaker and Sleeper artist Sean Phillips, will be the focus of a weeklong promotion on MySpace, according to a recent Marvel Comics press release.

Here are the details:

During each day of this event, at http://www.myspace.com/comicbooks, readers will be treated to excerpts from the first two Criminal trade paperbacks and previews of the new Criminal Vol.2 #1 (arriving in stores this February. But that’s not all—look for behind the scenes extras that include a Criminal noir art talk interview between Eisner-winners Sean Phillips and fan-favorite Daredevil artist Michael Lark, a “Week in the Life” writer’s diary by Ed Brubaker; and a special Artist-to-Artist video featuring Ed Brubaker and Bill Hader (Superbad, Saturday Night Live).

And, of course, the obligatory statement by Brubaker:

“The chance to reach the vast network of MySpace Comic Books readers presented us with such a great opportunity, to not just promote Criminal, but to peel back the curtain a bit in a sort of DVD extras kind of way, which is something I think a lot of people will enjoy,” said Brubaker. “The fact that Bill Hader was willing to help us do this was completely overwhelming, too, and is something that I think will make an even more memorable event.”

Issue #1 of the second volume of Criminal hits shelves at the end of February.

Readers of DC’s villain-centric series Salvation Run received a bit of a suprise when issue #3 hit shelves earlier this month and series writer Bill Willingham was suddenly replaced by his frequent collaborator, Matthew Sturges.

Luckily, ComicBookResources has interviews with both Sturges and Willingham, discussing the reasons why they pulled the ol’ switcheroo. Willingham says the decision to leave Salvation Run was made under doctor’s orders, but hints at a far more sinister, unspoken explanation:

There’s a longer version with more nuance, many more details, some interesting subplots, a few surprise dramatic twists and even a musical interlude or two, but in the interest of discretion and decorum we’ll stick with the short version.

Willingham goes on to assure readers that neither Fables nor Jack of Fables (which he co-writes with Sturges) were even considered for dismissal.

On the other side of things, Sturges said his main concern is keeping the story flowing without interruption, and cited Willingham’s characterization of the Joker as something he hopes to seamlessly work into his own scripting. He also hinted at some intriguing events to come for the series:

[There will be] giant gorillas, fighting tooth and nail, to the death. If that’s not enough to hook you, nothing else I could possibly add would entice you more.

‘Nuff said.

Jamie Delano is back in the game. The British writer who helped usher in Vertigo with his launch of Hellblazer returns to comics with Narcopolis, his radical new vision of the future, out today from Avatar Press. In this exclusive, we took the chance to interview Jamie and got all sorts of answers about addiction, controlled substances, controlled people, and why you should be careful about getting drunk in a strange bar…

It’s been twenty years since you burst onto the scene here in America, with some rather scathing looks at Thatcherite England and Reagan/Bush America. So what are you looking at now?

Is that the time already?  Strange, how one’s life passes.  I guess you mean "bursting" in an antiheroic fashion…?

Not entirely sure just what it is I’m looking at now… some sort of ugly foetal monster of post-democracy is clawing its way down the birth-canal of history, though.  The aberrant post-war half-century of  social liberalism is choking its last, held face-down in the swamp of Terror.

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