Criminal From Brubaker and Phillips Returns

With the success of The Fade Out, the new Image Comics series from writer Ed Brubaker and illustrator Sean Phillips, it makes sense for the duo’s original breakout crime-noir series Criminal to be reprinted. Image Comics will start releasing the new editions of the series in January 2015. Additionally, there will be a brand new Criminal one-shot from Brubaker and Phillips.  

  Criminal began in 2006 with a first run that lasted 10 issues. The first collected volume, Coward, which contained the first five issues, then came out in 2007. It was originally published through Icon, the creator-owned imprint of Marvel Comics. The other volumes in the series are Lawless (2007), The Dead and the Dying (2008), Bad Night (2009), The Sinners (2010), and The Last of the Innocents (2011). The story centers around a series of rotating characters in Central City.   The new one-shot will tell the story of Teeg Lawless, currently hunted and stuck in prison, where he is no more safe than on the streets. While incarcerated, he discovers a comic book left by a dead man who used to be in the cell and becomes engrossed in that story. In addition to the one-shot, there will be a special magazine-sized variant produced called Criminal: Savage Edition.  

  Along with the Criminal series and the new hit, The Fade Out, Brubaker and Phillips teamed up for the popular Fatale series for Image Comics, which wrapped up earlier in 2014. Now that Brubaker and Phillips have signed an unprecedented five-year contract with Image, it makes sense that the publisher will be the one to bring Criminal back to print. Image Comics will be doing a similar thing with Casanova from Matt Fraction, Fabio Moon, and Gabriel Ba.