A Pro Speaks: Ed Brubaker on tragedy in Criminal

Ed Brubaker has really busted out in recent years. A while ago I'd never heard of the guy. Now, he's writing Captain America, Daredevil, Uncanny X-Men, Iron Fist, and his very own Criminal.

I read and enjoy four of those books. Pretty good, especially considering one of those books would be a very hard sell for me. If you really want to, you can figure it out, one of those titles is very much unlike the others.

If you've read the title, you might be expecting this, but I'm very interested Brubaker's use of tragedy in Criminal. Not only is tragedy one of the least used storytelling devices, it also resonates with me like a Low B on a bass guitar (for a long time in layman's terms.)

From Brubaker's interview with Newsarama:

Tragic. It's a noir, but it's got the twist of, I want Leo to survive to tell more stories about him. But there are levels of survival in noir, that leave a lot of messed up possibilities open to me. I will say Criminal #5 is probably one of the most brutal things I've ever written.

I love noir. I love tragedy. They go hand in hand (though, wouldn't it be interesting to see a noir that ended on an upbeat note?) and are so underused that I jump on anything that includes those elements.

Which is why I think it's so great that Brubaker is writing a comic book, especially a comic book, that might draw in people who are larger fans of genre than they are format. I'm sure people like that exist.

I just want comic books to be more than super hero comic books. Not because I don't enjoy super hero comic books, I do, but I'm also interested in other genres and I love the comic book format.