I didn’t want to just sit around and see what the future would bring us. “So I scrambled to think of something Sean and I could work on, anyway. We had been about to launch a new monthly comic, and suddenly those didn’t exist anymore,” Brubaker said. “During those first weeks of lockdown, the entire comics industry shut down. The series follows sort-of private eye Ethan Reckless, a modern synthesis of classic pulp detectives like Philip Marlowe, Easy Rawlins, and Matthew Scudder with a wholly modern and knowing twist. The end result, Reckless, has proven to be a smashing success for the creators and its publisher, indie comics company, Image Comics-in terms of sales, acclaim, and general buzz. It’s a love letter to classic private eye fiction, steeped in Brubaker’s vision of a Los Angeles that no longer exists, with a flawed and complex protagonist, all masterfully illustrated by Phillips, with colors by his son, Jacob Phillips. Complete, done-in-one stories that present a complete adventure, but also serve as part of a bigger, ongoing series. Instead of releasing their stories via monthly, comic shop-focused “floppy” comic book installments that would later be bound and collected as trade paperbacks for the book trade, the creators have pivoted to doing a series of original graphic novels. Their latest collaboration, while still firmly entrenched in the dark corners of graphic novel crime, marks a departure of sorts.

Ed brubaker pulp