Ed Brisson has done a lot of notable work for Marvel the past couple years, including a well-received run on “Ghost Rider,” co-writing “X-Men: Disassembled” with Kelly Thompson and Matthew Rosenberg, co-writing “New Mutants” with Jonathan Hickman and a one-page story in an X-Men Christmas special that made Glob Herman everyone’s favorite good globby boy.
But if you look deeper into Brisson’s work, you’ll find a dark side. Brisson writes some damn fine crime comics. I first read his work in a miniseries from Image called “Comeback,” with art by Michael Walsh, about a company exploiting time travel tech for profit, and then in a series called “Sheltered” with Johnnie Christmas, where survivalist camps meet “Lord of the Flies.”
And on top of all that, there’s “Murder Book,” a collection of short crime stories at home in the noir tradition. Brisson is returning to “Murder Book” with a new full-length graphic novel, “Catch & Release” — with artist Lisandro Estherren (“Strange Skies over East Berlin”), letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou and editor Nate Cosby — that went live on Kickstarter today. We sat down with Brisson to talk about this project, his history with “Murder Book” and his favorite crime stories.
Matt Lazorwitz: What’s the elevator pitch for “Catch & Release: A Murder Book Story”?
Ed Brisson: Catch & Release is about a man, Andrew, desperate for money, who steals a car, but since he doesn’t have papers to sell it properly and doesn’t want to wait to piece it out, he, along with a co-conspirator (Chris), concocts a plan to list the car for sale, lure prospective buyers out to a remote location and rob them at gunpoint. They figure that if they can get away with it a few times, then they might be able to rake in three times what they could otherwise.
On the other side of the story we have Samar. He’s a student who’s about to head West to continue his studies when his car breaks down on him. He scrapes together some dough and, along with his friend Alex, they start shopping around, which eventually leads to a collision between all four of our participants.
The story is largely about the fallout of this event and how it forever alters all four lives in very tragic ways.
This is a stand-alone graphic novel, so any who are unfamiliar with “Murder Book” don’t need to fret. This book features characters we’ve not seen before and is a fully complete tale — as are all “Murder Book” stories.
ML: What made you decide to go to Kickstarter with this project?
EB: I’ve been considering Kickstarter for years. It was just a matter of finding the right project.
What I love about Kickstarter is the relationship between the creator and the audience. It’s a direct relationship where readers can feel invested because they helped bring the project to life and in turn Lisandro and I feel invested in making sure that the readers made the right choice in backing us.
Another aspect that really appeals to me is that with Kickstarter you can take a project that may have more of a niche audience and reach that audience directly. If I’m being honest, I think we’d need about 10,000 or more readers in the traditional market to make a project like this work. And right now, with the pandemic and so much economic uncertainty, not many publishers are interested in taking risks. I’m not sure that this is a book we could get out through any other means.
All we need to do is reach those 500 or 1,000 readers who are interested in the genre or supporting our work as creators. Obviously, we’re hoping the project is a huge success, but in the end, we just want to make this damned book and connect with readers who want to read this damned book.
ML: How did you connect with Nate Cosby’s Linney Incorporated, which is listed as organizing the Kickstarter, and with your artist on the project, Lisandro Estherren?
EB: I was talking to Saladin Ahmed when he was running his campaign for “Dragon,” and he’d mentioned that he’d been working with Nate Cosby. At that point, I knew I was going to be running a campaign soon but was terrified at the prospect of it all — it really is a lot of work, and I think it’s easy to underestimate how time-consuming it can be. There are a lot of horror stories of Kickstarters gone wrong, and I didn’t want to be another cautionary tale.
So I dropped Nate a line, and he and Laser Malena-Webber agreed to hop on board to help manage things. They’ve both got plenty of experience in this arena and have been great for guiding me through it all and getting everything in place so that we can (hopefully) run a smooth campaign with realistic goals and expectations.
As to Lisandro, he and I had previously worked together on the book “The Last Contract” (BOOM Studios) and have talked quite a bit in the five years since about teaming up again to do another crime book. Both of us, however, got pretty busy — I had Marvel work, and he has been working on “Redneck” with Donny Cates. We just weren’t able to make the timing work out, until now, that is.
I love Lisandro’s artwork, He’s got a European sensibility that fits beautifully with the type of story we want to tell. I can’t imagine anyone else drawing “Catch & Release.”
ML: You’ve been writing “Murder Book” stories on and off for much of your career. Is it one of those concepts you come back to when the mood strikes, just unrelated crime stories, or is there a plan for a larger narrative that readers will see as it continues?
EB: Part of the allure of “Murder Book” is that they are self-contained. That there isn’t a larger narrative that readers have to be aware of before jumping in. I like that a reader can find a random issue, pick it up and get a complete story, and I don’t think that’s something I’ll ever change.
However, “Murder Book” has always been shorter stories, and with this new iteration, I want to expand that. Instead of 5-25 page stories, I want to do more stand-alone graphic novels. I want to spend more time with the characters, have room to write more reflective and/or silent moments.
ML: You’ve been writing a lot of superhero comics in recent years. What muscles do crime comics stretch that superhero comics don’t, and vice versa?
EB: Crime allows me to bring things down to earth. To create personal stakes that may not mean the difference between life and death, but should certainly feel like they do. For me, it’s easier to relate to the anxiety of not knowing how you’re going to pay your rent than it is to the idea of having to save the entire world from some galactic, planet-ending threat.
That said, I love playing in the Marvel sandbox and having the opportunity to tell these big, bombastic stories on an epic scale.
Ideally, while each flexes different muscles, there is still a bit of my crime sensibilities in my Big 2 work and vice versa. It’s just the scale that varies.
ML: Aside from writing, you are also a letterer. Are you lettering this book yourself?
EB: No, this will actually be the first time I don’t letter a “Murder Book” story. There’s a few reasons behind the decision. It’s been a few years since I lettered anything — aside from an issue of Alpha Flight that I’d lettered so that we could keep the entire creative team Canadian on that book. But, mostly, I want this book to be as good as possible, and that means bringing in the best — and that would be Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou.
Hassan came aboard to letter a pitch I’d put together earlier this year, and I was impressed enough with his work that I was more than happy to just hand over the lettering reins to him. He’s better than I ever was, his work has more character to it.
For me, I’ve hung up Illustrator. I’m retired from lettering.
ML: What are some of your favorite crime stories, in comics and out?
EB: Hands down, my favourite single-issue comic (crime or otherwise) is “They Found The Car” by Gipi. It’s a tough one to find these days, but well worth it if you can get your hands on it. It’s an incredible story about two criminals trying to cover their tracks years after a crime. The details are sparse, Gipi gives you only the information you need to know to understand what’s happening in the present. By the end, you still don’t even know what the crime was that they were covering up, and it doesn’t matter. It’s a perfect example of restraint in storytelling.
Beyond that, I’ve always been a massive fan of “Stray Bullets.” I can still remember buying the first issue of that during a summer visiting my dad in Sudbury, Ontario (shout out to Comics North). I hadn’t heard of it before and thought I’d take a chance. I made it a block from the comic shop and ended up just standing on a street corner reading the entire issue before turning around and going back to the shop to buy out all the issues they had in stock.
“Scalped” is one of my all-time favourite series. I revisit it once a year. “Criminal” is, of course, incredible.
Outside of comics, I’m a huge fan of writers such as Elmore Leonard, Richard Stark (aka Donald Westlake), Jim Thompson, George V. Higgins, George Pelecanos, Gillian Flynn, Walter Mosely, Richard Price, Dennis Lehane, Charles Willeford, Frank Bill, etc.
On the film side of things, I love bleak ’70s crime more than just about anything: “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Straight Time,” “The Friends of Eddie Coyle,” “The Mechanic,” “The Conversation,” “Badlands.” I also have a soft spot for late ’70s Italian crime flicks from Fernando Di Leo, anything with “Violent” + City Name in it (i.e. “Violent Naples,” “Violent Rome,” etc.) and just about anything starring Tomas Milian, Franco Nero or Henry Silva. More recentish foreign films like “Revanche” and “The Fury of a Patient Man” are also near the top of my list of films that I think everyone should watch — complicated stories about the toll of revenge.
“Catch & Release: A Murder Book Story” goes live on Kickstarter today, so be one of the first to back it here.
Matt Lazorwitz read his first comic at the age of five. It was Who's Who in the DC Universe #2, featuring characters whose names begin with B, which explains so much about his Batman obsession. He writes about comics he loves, and co-hosts the creator interview podcast WMQ&A with Dan Grote.
