Ed Brubaker Signs Exclusive Contract With DC

[Ruckus24]

Official Press release:

DC Comics is pleased to announce that Ed Brubaker -- best known for his work on
BATMAN and DEADENDERS -- has signed a one-year exclusive contract. According to
Brubaker: "DC treats me well, and I have been working for them exclusively for
three years anyway, so why not make it official? I'm very happy with my
relationship to the company and with my editors, and it was nice to be offered
the exclusive contract."

Known for his noir sensibility cut with an ironic intensity, Brubaker
entered comics writing and drawing Lowlife and Detour before moving on to
writing the Eisner-nominated SCENE OF THE CRIME for VERTIGO. His skillful
handling of gritty crime stories caught the attention of Group Editor Bob
Schreck: "I have been a great admirer of Ed's work for nearly nine years. His
Lowlife series (which he wrote and drew) was wonderful, and I began working
with him way back in my early days as an editor at Dark Horse Comics. An
Accidental Death (with Eric Shanower) is one of my all-time favorites. Ed
understands that a good yarn needs to hit the reader right square in the solar
plexus and then hold their attention until you're through with them."

Currently teamed with artists Scott McDaniel and Karl Story, Brubaker's BATMAN
stories fill the richly damaged landscape of Gotham City with precisely the
kind of people you'd expect to run into in its garbage-strewn alleys, the kind
of town where a shadowy figure points an umbrella at a crowd and starts
shooting. Writing BATMAN issues #581-586, Brubaker will return to the title
following writer Brian K. Vaughan's 4-issue storyline as the series' regular
writer. When prodded for details about upcoming events in Gotham City, Brubaker
simply replied: "There are too many surprises coming up to mention. Honestly,
the next year of Batman will redefine the Bat-verse a lot, and I'm proud to be
able to play a part in it."

While working his gritty crime muscles on BATMAN, Brubaker's work at VERTIGO
continues with the ongoing series DEADENDERS, set in a post-apocalyptic
dystopia that has consistently made critics' favorites lists this year. For
him, however, the creative process between the two remains the same: "I just
take a day in between whatever book I'm writing, and think only about the next
project, and get in the right frame of mind. My stuff is all character driven,
whether the characters are teenagers or tortured millionaires who
put on cowls."

In addition to writing the BATMAN and DEADENDERS monthly series, Brubaker will
also be writing the upcoming relaunch of the CATWOMAN ongoing series: "CATWOMAN
is going to be really exciting. The title's going to shift focus onto the
tragic aspects of Selina Kyle and her history, and turn her into sort of a
Robin Hood character, or maybe a touch of a Jesse James without all the
murdering innocent people parts. She's a hero for the castaways of Gotham, and
she uses her cat-burglar skills to get information and solve problems, as well
as the occasional heist. It's a very crime-oriented series, one that will tread
the line between the real and super-hero world as closely as possible, in sort
of an X-Files way."

Also in the works for 2001 are Brubaker's THE SANDMAN PRESENTS: THE DEAD BOY
DETECTIVES miniseries illustrated by Bryan Talbot (Tale of One Bad Rat, Heart
of Empire) as well as a Batman Elseworlds graphic novel illustrated by Sean
Phillips (WILDCATS, THE INVISIBLES).
(SEP00 0468), and #586 (OCT00 0527).

END RELEASE

Ed Mathews
Associate Editor
The Slush Factory
http://www.slushfactory.com