This month marks the release of GIANT-SIZE CRIMINAL #1, a, well, giant-sized comic book set in the acclaimed and bestselling world of writer Ed Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips’ CRIMINAL series. The first new story in five years is loaded with CRIMINAL goodies – including an extra-long Ricky Lawless story, a CRIMINAL TTRPG module written by superstar comic book writer and game designer Kieron Gillen with illustrations by Phillips, an illustrated guide to the world of CRIMINAL and its key players, plus insights into the upcoming CRIMINAL TV show by Brubaker – who is also the showrunner on the show. The comic is only available in print and in comic shops – making it not only collectible, but also a key part of the universe’s gritty, grounded lore. The release of the issue gave me an opportunity to poke Ed about something else I was curious about – the upcoming CRIMINAL streaming series, which he’s running himself, with input from co-creator Phillips and a team of crack writers. I sat down with Brubaker to not only talk about the show, but what fans can look forward to when reading GIANT-SIZE CRIMINAL #1!
ALEX SEGURA: Ed, I imagine it’s been a busy year for you – with the television series and putting out a handful of acclaimed graphic novels, just over the last few months. How have you balanced it all? Have you?
ED BRUBAKER: Yeah, I will admit when I took on showrunning CRIMINAL I had no idea exactly how big this job would be at times, or how much rewriting and sometimes reshooting, I would end up doing during post-production. First seasons of TV shows are a beast, and so most of this year was just editing and reediting and scoring and ADR, and it was just non-stop until like mid-September.
And somehow around all that I found time to write THE KNIVES, our newest CRIMINAL book, that came out a couple months ago, and me and Marcos Martin put out the gorgeous deluxe oversized hardcover of FRIDAY. I think the comics writing keeps me sane (somewhat) in Hollywood, where things move so slowly and sometimes in circles, so even when the workload got really rough at times, I still try to write my own stories for a few hours every morning, to keep in touch with my voice as a writer.
AS: The marketing copy touts Giant-Size Criminal #1 as the first single issue from the series in a long time. It hits this month – and also stars our old friend Ricky Lawless. What was the motivation for telling a Ricky tale?
EB: Honestly, it was working with this fantastic actor, Gus Halper, who plays Ricky on the first season of the CRIMINAL show. There was a scene where Gus did some voice-over and I just loved the way he captured this fucked up character, the cadence he had to the delivery and it made me start thinking of this story. A solo-Ricky mission that goes off the rails quickly. I just wanted to hear that voice telling me a funny crime story.
Seeing all the Criminal characters brought to life for the show, it was really inspiring and made me want to do more stories with them. Like Emilia Clarke plays Mallory, and she’s so amazing in the show and talking to her about the character, she wanted to know what happens to Mallory next, after Lawless (which was the last time she was in the comics) and I would find myself walking around mulling that until I figured out something I was excited by.
AS: So, can you talk about the timing? What was the impetus for the one-shot? Why now?
EB: I really wanted us to do a big CRIMINAL annual this year, or like a Christmas Special, because it’s been so long since we put out a single issue comic, and I wanted to make something just for the comic shop market. Like this is a print-only comic shop-only thing. I just missed being on the shelves next to the other week’s comics. And we even used high end newsprint for the interior paper, so it feels really pulpy in your hand. I got nostalgic for my youth flipping through the pages, actually.
AS: The world of Criminal boasts an impressive backlist – so that can be a little daunting to a new reader. Is this book the kind of thing new readers can step into?
EB: Yeah, I think pretty much all the CRIMINAL stories are, actually. I always assume any book or comic might be someone’s first time discovering our work and make it new-reader-friendly. This is really just spending a crazy night with one of my favorite characters from the world of CRIMINAL. And it’s also got an introduction to the world of CRIMINAL and an RPG module by my friend Kieron Gillen, so readers can make up their own CRIMINAL game. It’s a fun issue, and jam packed.
AS: Some writers and creators are fine just handing off their ideas to a Hollywood person to adapt, and I know for others it’s much more challenging – where do you fall? Is it because CRIMINAL is particularly your and Sean’s baby, or is it how you’d like to proceed with any adaptations?
EB: I think CRIMINAL was a special case, because it’s so close to me. I see aspects of myself and my life in so much of this world and the characters in it, that I couldn’t let someone else be in charge of translating it. Honestly it was difficult for me even having other voices involved at all.
But when I took on showrunning CRIMINAL I had no idea exactly how big this job would be at times, or how much rewriting and sometimes reshooting, I would end up doing during post-production. The showrunner in TV really is the “author” of the show, like a director is in film, so the final product really has to be down to your vision and your voice. I had really great people around me, helping make the show, but eventually it was just me on own fighting for what I thought the show should be, and wishing I didn’t have to fight. Most of this year was just editing and reediting and scoring and doing ADR (rerecording dialogue) and it was just non-stop until like mid-September. But it was also really rewarding, seeing it all come together in the end.
AS: What was it like, as a first-time showrunner, taking point on CRIMINAL? Can you talk about any lessons you learned and what you might have done differently?
EB: I’ve been working in TV on and off for 20 years trying to get to be a showrunner, but of course, once I got the job, nothing was what I expected to be. I had written most of a season of TV for Refn, with TOO OLD TO DIE YOUNG and right before CRIMINAL I had been the head writer of Bruce Timm’s new Batman cartoon, so I knew there was always a lot of rewriting throughout the whole process, that’s just the nature of it, but I had never been in charge during post on anything before, and that was a really amazing experience.
I was having lunch with a screenwriter friend while I was editing and telling him how much I was learning about the process and he was like “yeah, writing the script and shooting it is just making the ingredients, post is where you have to be like a chef making it all come together into a meal.” And that was a real learning experience, seeing how some scenes that felt really alive on the page didn’t on the screen, and how you can edit and score a scene to bring that life back. Or even change it to something else that’s actually better.
As far as what I’d do differently, there’s way too much, but most of it is just technical things or being better at communicating with collaborators, the kinds of stuff we all learn on the job in this industry. Overall, I had a great time being a showrunner, even for all the struggles, and my only hope is I’ll be better at it the next time around.
AS: Can you talk a little bit about The Knives? It’s a lot about Jacob heading to Hollywood – which obviously, runs a little parallel to your own work showrunning CRIMINAL. Are they similar? Very different? I hope not?
EB: Ha! Not too similar, thankfully.
I always say Jacob is like the worst-case-scenario version of my life. There are things about him that are a lot like me, but his life always goes worse than mine.
Jacob goes out to Hollywood to work on the Frank Kafka TV show in 2012 at the height of peak TV and the rise of streaming, which is something I did, too, basically, so there’s probably some truth to the horror story he goes through there. But my main idea was, instead of turning into a cockroach, his Kafka moment is he turns into an industry cog. That probably taps into a deep fear of mine, working in an industry that treats most talent as replaceable cogs in the machine.
But my experience hasn’t actually been that bad, I think because of my comics career. I have this other avenue to continue to have my own voice, and so I’ve been seen more as a known quantity – a brand, sort of – which has really helped. And I didn’t just create Frank Kafka like Jacob, I created the Winter Soldier, so that puts me on the radar of a lot more people than poor Jacob.
AS: Zooming out a bit, I want to talk about your relationship to the content. When you talk about your comics, I always feel like you have a clear idea in terms of tone and visual, partially because you’ve worked with Sean for so long, but also because you just KNOW how this should look in the end. Did you have that same vibe with the show, and how did it deliver?
EB: Yeah, I definitely had that, and it was key to choosing my directors and production designer. The art from the comics, Sean’s paintings and covers, were all over the walls of the art dept and costume dept. We were all trying to make the show feel very cool and exciting, but also feel like the world me and Sean have made in the books. There are some scenes in the show that feel so close to the comics, even the color palette, that it’s just amazing.
AS: I think it’s easy to just talk about story and craft – because the writing can translate, but Sean is a key part of this whole series and world. In terms of the show, how much was Sean involved?
EB: Sean was heavily involved, in a really exciting way, but sadly I can’t talk about that aspect yet. It’s still top secret.
AS: Ominous! But cool! Can you talk a little bit about your process – how do you manage writing the comics AND showrunning?
EB: I just work constantly. I wouldn’t recommend it, honestly.
Ideally, my process is I get up and try to do the Walter Mosley method – write a few hours every morning on my books, before the day begins. The days I actually manage that, then everything else is gravy. Meetings, going to the edit, all of it is easier.
During production, that was impossible, so I would write my books on the mornings and afternoons on the weekends. But then stuff blows up, or like for example, the network blows up a few scripts and you have to be on set, then running to your trailer to rewrite, while watching the feed from the set, and working 12 to 14 hour days. It’s a rough life, and if I didn’t really care about CRIMINAL I don’t know why anyone would work that hard.
AS: One more thing – with GIANT SIZE CRIMINAL, for the first time ever, someone else is drawing a CRIMINAL cover that isn’t Sean…can you talk about that, and why now?
EB: Partly it was because it’s just fun to see our friends draw the characters, but honestly a big reason was that comic shops actually like variant covers. We’ve rarely done them, and I’m generally not a fan because it’s hard to make a good cover for a comic, so the idea of getting five or ten that you think are all good is just nuts to me, and it felt like a gimmick. But when I told my publisher about this, him and Kirkman both suggested doing some variants, especially since this is a print-only thing for comic shops. Give them something special too, was the idea.
And like, that JH Williams cover is probably the rarest CRIMINAL thing ever now. So when the show comes out, retailers that have that issue will find out it’s worth a lot more than cover price. I think that’s kind of cool, honestly, to create something you know will be collectable.
AS: Is there anything else you can talk about, comics-wise? Are you and Marcos working on anything after FRIDAY?
EB: Yes, we are. I wrote a superhero graphic novel for Marcos, that he’s just starting to work on right now, but I can’t tell you anything else about, other than that it’ll be coming from Image and PanelSyndicate whenever he finishes it.
Sean is just about to wrap up the art on FIVE GEARS IN REVERSE, the next CRIMINAL graphic novel after THE KNIVES – this one stars Ricky and Mallory and tells the story of how they met and fell in love. It’s a Mr Toad’s Wild Ride of a book, and feels very much like a mix of early and late CRIMINAL, tonally. Fun and crazy and heartfelt at the same time. That’s out in May 2026.
And I’m a few chapters into our next book after that, which I think might be the best idea I’ve ever had. A new thing, a very fucked up thriller.
AS: Intrigued by all of that! What have you been reading/watching and enjoying lately?
EB: I’m rereading a bunch of Ross Macdonald and Patricia Highsmith and early Stephen King right now. Just sort of going back to soak up some pulp vibes as I work through the new book. And loving all of it.
THE LOWDOWN and PLURIBUS are hitting all my buttons for great and fun TV right now.
I would watch anything Vince Gilligan does, but PLURIBUS is so fucking smart that it infuriates me. Like he’s taking his Breaking Bad vibe and mixing it with his X-Files history and making a perfect peanut butter cup of television. It’s the only show my wife has asked when the next one comes on since like season four of Game of Thrones.
I also really enjoyed ALIEN Earth, though it frustrated me, too, but I’ll definitely keep watching it. And I love SLOW HORSES.
Yesterday I watched almost all of season one of BROCKMIRE on Netflix. That show was completely slept on, and it’s one of the best comedies in the last decade. Hank Azaria as a fucked up sports announcer who uses that vocal cadence to talk about the most insane things in the world. There’s like four seasons, I think, and the final one goes into the future. It’s wild. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, trust me, check it out.
