DF Interview: Sean Phillips renders a noir story of greed, ambition, heartbreak and blood ties in ‘The Knives: A Criminal HC’

By Byron Brewer

Cartoonist Jacob Kurtz goes to Hollywood in the era of peak TV to work on an adaptation of his comic strip, only to find himself caught up in the life of his aging aunt and the vultures circling her estate. Angie was raised at the Undertow, but now everything she loves has been taken from her. She's on the streets with vengeance on her mind, her eyes set on the city's kingpin. And finally, Tracy Lawless is home from the Special Forces, finally a civilian again, but he's in bad shape and this city has always brought out the worst in him. These three tales are set to collide!

Multiple Eisner award-winning team writer Ed Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips (Reckless, Houses of the Unholy, Fatale) will bring an all-new Criminal graphic novel to shelves in August from Image Comics with The Knives. It has been nearly five years since fans had an opportunity to revel in new Criminal material and this new story promises to be the darkest and most ambitious installment in the contemporary classic yet. I should know. I have interviewed artist Sean Phillips about them all! Here’s what he said about the comic creation.

Byron Brewer: Sean, if memory serves, The Knives is the first entry into the Criminal franchise in five years. Aside from the pandemic-busting pace Ed Brubaker and yourself have been keeping on the treasure trove of hard covers you’re producing, why the wait for a new Criminal entry and was there any trouble with you guys reconnecting to Criminal considering the other franchises you are juggling?

Sean Phillips: We were just busy with those other books for a while, although we did do a short Teeg Christmas story in an Image anthology a few years ago. What with Ed working on the upcoming Criminal TV show for the last couple of years, it just felt like the time was right. Also, we’d be mad not to have a new Criminal book out around the time the show appears on Amazon Prime Video!

Byron: For those under a rock (you know who you are), could you give us an overview of this franchise please?

Sean Phillips: The eleven (!) Criminal books we’ve done over the last 19 years form a loose tapestry of interlocking crime stories featuring a variety of criminals who grew up together, children of criminals, and the various ways crime impacts their lives. All the books are self-contained stories you can read in almost any order, taking place from the ‘70s to the present day.

Byron: I cannot wait to jump into this one as it becomes available. You have three distinct tales of noir niceness coming together. Given that the three individual tales have been mentioned in solicits, could you give a summation here?

Sean Phillips: The three distinct chapters of this book revisits different characters we’ve seen before in the Criminal universe. The cartoonist Jacob from Bad Night has his comic strip optioned as a TV show and goes to Hollywood to see how that turns out. We see what happened to Angie after the events of My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies, and then we catch up with Tracy Lawless after he returns home after decades in the army. All their stories entwine in this 200 page graphic novel and as always things don’t go to plan. As much as they want to escape their lives of crime, they get pulled back in and things don’t go as smoothly as they’d want.

Byron: Talk a bit more about your key protagonists, if you would: Jacob Kurtz, Angie and Tracy Lawless.

Sean Phillips: Jacob has left crime behind to try and make it as a cartoonist, but as seen in his previous appearances, he gets caught up in terrible situations and usually makes them worse. Angie has been living with Gnarly at the Undertow bar since the deaths of her parents, but again things don’t go to plan. Tracy joined the army when he was 18 to escape ending up like his father, Teeg Lawless, but returns home to help out his old friend, Jacob.

Byron: Can you spotlight another character or two here that may be important to this epic HC and, if it is possible to do without spoilers or a “read the book” response (LOL), let sharp-eyed readers know if there are any connecting threads between the three stories we might deduce before they are revealed by you storytellers?

Sean Phillips: Well, we also see what has happened to Gnarly and Leo from the first volume, Coward. And what has happened to the Hyde crime empire that runs Bay City.

Byron: With three separate but (I take it) interlocking stories, what steps did you take with your venerable artists’ tool box to give each that distinct look and mood? With all the material you produce with these hard covers, do you ever find yourself confronted by new problems in your directing (was that the right angle to take, does that flow like it should, why isn’t this set piece working for me, etc.)? I find such artist insights fascinating!

Sean Phillips: It’s all really one long story, so it’s all drawn the same! My son Jake, who colors all my stuff nowadays, has subtly color-coded each chapter and the flashbacks that we always have in our books. I don’t think Ed has ever written a story for me that doesn’t have flashbacks!

All the scripts always give me different things to draw that always seem too difficult on first read through, but usually I can picture the angles and compositions to use straight away. I rarely struggle to tell the story clearly. It’s my favorite part of the job!

Byron: What is the next graphic novel coming from the Phillips-Brubaker team, and can you mention ANYTHING about the Prime Video adaptation that is slated to premiere soon?

Sean Phillips: I’m about 30 pages into the next book, another Criminal story focusing on the last months of Ricky Lawless. The actor playing him in the TV show is very cool and hopefully that has rubbed off on how we portray him in this book. All I can say about the show is I love what I’ve seen so far, it’s very true to the books. Ed has done a great job as showrunner and main writer, and for me it’s been a thrill to see my drawings come to life with real actors and sets and locations. I couldn’t be happier with how it’s turned out!

Dynamic Forces would like to thank Sean Phillips for taking time out of his busy schedule to answer our questions. The Knives: A Criminal HC from Image Comics is slated to be on sale August 27!

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