EXTRACTS: Illustrators Crime Comics Special © 2020 Book Palace Books (144 pages in full edition)

71 feeling creatively dissatisfied. It wasn’t until they hooked up at the San Diego Comic Con that they finally got the opportunity to meet in person. They found they got on well and had a lot in common, particularly in regard to creating their own characters. Ed mentioned that he was feeling frustrated that he couldn’t inject more crime themes into the Batman series he was currently scripting, and that his wife had suggested, “Why don’t you just leave Batman out and create a crime script without him?” Both creatives were in the fortunate position of having the resources to take time out to work on developing their own series, and together they created Criminal under the Marvel Icon Comics imprint. The series garnered a lot of positive reviews and was awarded an Eisner Award for ‘Best New Series’ in 2007. Further ‘creator-owned’ projects followed, including Incognito , again under the Icon imprint, and for Image © Basement Gang, Inc. 2020 FACING PAGE: Artwork for Arrow Films’ Blu-Ray release of Robert Aldrich’s 1955 noir classic, Big Knife , which starred Jack Palance, Rod Steiger, Shelley Winters and Ida Lupino. BELOW: Art for an essay in Criminal by Kim Morgan. BOTTOM: Artwork for the DVD release of Audition , the image never published. © The Hut. 2020