'I Can’t Imagine Running Out of Ideas': Ed Brubaker on 20 Years of Criminal, Part 1
Our interview with the legendary comics scribe on keeping the seminal crime series fresh and exciting across two decades.
For 20 years, writer Ed Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips have been putting the lie to the old cliché that crime doesn’t pay. In 2006, Brubaker and Phillips launched the gritty crime comic Criminal at Marvel Comics’ Icon imprint. Marvel officially shut down Icon in 2017, but Criminal lives on, now at Image Comics.
Criminal is set largely in the underworld of Center City. The first Criminal story, Coward, is a paranoid, pressure-cooker heist tale about a master thief named Leo who operates under a strict set of rules but ends up in a bad situation when he lets himself be talked into a job he should know better than to take. The follow-up, Lawless, is a tale of bittersweet revenge as a military man Tracy Lawless returns to avenge the brother he left behind. Each subsequent story has a different premise, sometimes introducing new characters, and other times spotlighting supporting cast from previous stories.
What they all have in common is the way Brubaker’s grounded, sympathetic writing pairs with Phillips' intensely human characters to make you empathize with them no matter what kind of shit show they’ve gotten into.
"I think me and Sean will keep doing Criminal books for the rest of our lives, honestly... I can't imagine running out of ideas." - Ed Brubaker
Criminal isn’t Brubaker and Phillips’ first collaboration (that was Sleeper for DC’s WildStorm imprint in 2003), and they’ve launched many more comics in different noir flavors since then (Incognito, Fatale, The Fade Out, Kill or Be Killed, Pulp, Reckless). It has cemented their reputation as masters of the genre. But after 20 years, two publishers, and 12 story arcs, Criminal is undoubtedly their best-known work. And, to hear Brubaker tell it, it's a work that will be with them for the rest of their careers...
