Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips Renew Their Exclusive Deal with Image
Bestselling, multiple Eisner Award-winning creators Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips have renewed their exclusive deal with Image Comics. The previously unprecedented deal with Image was first announced—alongside The Fade Out launch—five years ago, and the renewal is effective immediately.
Brubaker and Phillips’ success took a new format recently in their first original graphic novel, a Criminal tie-in story, titled My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies, which reached critical acclaim and received a coveted starred review by Library Journal.Next up for the duo is a return to a classic, Criminal.
The last five years at Image, with the freedom to just follow our creative instincts and do whatever we want to, has been the most successful time of our long career together. The Fade Out, Kill Or Be Killed, My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies, and the Criminal magazines have been our biggest hits so far, and—as I recently learned on my book tour—each one has brought our work to new readers. So I couldn’t be happier that Image wants to sign us up for another five years.
And it’s that freedom to experiment that made me want to launch Criminal as a monthly again. One of the things Eric Stephenson [Publisher and Chief Creative Officer at Image Comics] and I have talked about for a while is that almost all comics are now just serials written for the collection. It seems like the single issue itself, the thing the comics market was built on, is becoming an afterthought.
So I wanted to bring back Criminal as a monthly comic that would stand apart by really embracing the format, and trying to be something surprising every issue. I don’t want readers to know what’s coming next. Will it be a standalone issue, or the start of a two-parter? Will it be a bunch of issues that you suddenly realize are adding up to something bigger? The only way to find out is to buy the comic every month. We want to take you on a ride every month, and we don’t want you to know where you’re going. Just that it’s probably to the wrong side of town.
– Ed Brubaker
Criminal #1 (Diamond Code NOV180021) will be available on Wednesday, January 9th. The final order cutoff deadline for comics retailers is Monday, December 10th.
