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Tuesday, August 19, 2014

The Fade Out

British artist Sean Phillips has come a long way since his days drawing strips for DC Thomson's girls' comics in the 1980s. His work with American writer Ed Brubaker on such notable graphic novels as the Criminal and Fatale series have won him plaudits from readers and his fellow creators for his artistic excellence. Tomorrow, Brubaker and Phillips release the first issue of their new crime noir comic series, The Fade Out, published by Image Comics.

As this is essentially a blog about often-overlooked British comics I rarely post about American titles. Besides, they're abundantly covered on other websites. However, occasionally something catches my eye that I think is worth giving more exposure to. Case in point; that fantastic cover above. This is the 'magazine variant' version of The Fade Out No.1, produced to emulate the magazines of the 1940s, and, yes, that faded, creased look is part of the design. Staggeringly good work. I ordered a copy as soon as I saw it.

The regular comic book sized cover looks like this. Again, a great job. Very striking design.


Here's a preview from Sean's blog of one of the story pages...

Looks excellent doesn't it? You can find out more about this new series here:
http://theartofseanphillips.blogspot.co.uk/

And a preview of a few pages from issue 1 here:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=preview&id=21681

The Fade Out No.1 will be available from comic speciality shops across the UK and USA from tomorrow (August 20th). Regular size: $3.50. Magazine size variant (containing extra features): $5.99

7 comments:

PhilEdBoyce said...

That looks simply fantastic! Unfortunately there's no specialist shops in Northern Ireland apart from Forbidden Planet - not that I know of anyway. Not sure if this is their kind of thing.

Lew Stringer said...

Forbidden Planet will definitely stock it Phil. (I don't know how much they'll charge for the variant though as sometimes they up the prices on those.)

I don't always have time to travel out of town to a comic shop so I tend to order my comics from sellers on eBay. This issue is listed on there today.

Anonymous said...

The woman looks rather like the British actress Ann Todd from the '40s and '50s.

PhilEdBoyce said...

Cheers Lew, I'm heading into Belfast on Friday and Saturday so I'll make sure to have a look then.

Lew Stringer said...

You're right Colin!

Dave w said...

I read your blog when I got back from visiting London yesterday and I'd bought this mag at Forbidden Planet while I was there, along with some other stuff.

I've always preferred the magazine to the traditional comic book format - not sure why exactly, but perhaps it might be because it gives the art a bit more impact visually.

The weirdest thing though was that I was looking for the one in the best condition, despite the fact the comic has been designed to look well-thumbed and tatty! Old habits die hard.

Lew Stringer said...

I'm a huge fan of those 1970s Marvel monster mags,Dave, which were in that larger format of course. Nice chunky comics on pulp paper. Great stuff.

My copy of The Fade Out has just arrived and that cover looks more impressive in reality doesn't it? Pity the image doesn't go quite to the edge though as there's a tiny white margin at the edge of mine which spoils the illusion a little. Where's a guillotine when you need one? :)

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