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135th out of 1,501 books
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3,022 voters
Criminal, Vol. 1: Coward (Criminal #1)
From Harvey Award-Winning Best Writer Ed Brubaker, and Scream Award-Winning Best Artist Sean Phillips comes the first collection of Criminal, one of the best reviewed comics of 2006. Coward is the story of Leo, a professional pickpocket who is also a legendary heist-planner and thief. But there's a catch with Leo, he won't work any job that he doesn't call all the shots on...more
Paperback, 128 pages
Published
May 9th 2007
by Marvel
(first published October 2006)
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Four things to know going into Criminal by Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips:
1. It's a comic book...
…there are pictures and panels and dialogue bubbles;
2. Within these pages you will NOT encounter any bulging, brawny costumed superheroes or mutant-powered, tight-wearing freaks;
3. This is 100% crime noir, meaning you WILL encounter violence, blood, sex, potty mouth talk and some powerful images that may haunt you;
and most importantly...
4. Criminal…is…dripping with gold. A well-written, skillfully cr...more
1. It's a comic book...
…there are pictures and panels and dialogue bubbles;
2. Within these pages you will NOT encounter any bulging, brawny costumed superheroes or mutant-powered, tight-wearing freaks;
3. This is 100% crime noir, meaning you WILL encounter violence, blood, sex, potty mouth talk and some powerful images that may haunt you;
and most importantly...
4. Criminal…is…dripping with gold. A well-written, skillfully cr...more
I have little trouble keeping up with most genres. Literary fiction is small enough that you don't need to spend a lot of time learning about new releases. A visit to the new section of any bookstore is likely to clue you in regardless. With a little effort online, I feel I can identify what I want to read in science fiction, fantasy and crime. Comic books, or graphic novels if you prefer, are a whole other ball of wax. Whenever I think about picking one up, I head down to the comic shop or the...more
I just finished Brian Michael Bendis´s Daredevil, which preceeds Brubakers run on the devil dressed superhero. So I decided to give Brubakers work a try, I started reading Fatale, which starts really good, but then I read many good reviews about Criminal, that I got the first three tpbs of the collection, I just finished the first one. So what did I miss? This is a really plain story, everyone talks about how good the main charactere is constructed, but this feels nothing new.All the time the st...more
CRIMINAL, VOL. 1: COWARD by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips is the story of Leo, a pickpocket and heist-planner. Leo’s success is the product of his rules. Although some consider him a coward because of these rules, Leo has survived while others have been killed or jailed. Leo is persuaded to join a scheme, and of course, things go to hell, and he must break all of his rules.
I normally go for genre comics, but because the CRIMINAL series has earned a lot of praise since it debuted in 2006, I decid...more
I normally go for genre comics, but because the CRIMINAL series has earned a lot of praise since it debuted in 2006, I decid...more
There is a villan in this graphic novel named Roy L. T.. I mean seriously, that's awesome.
Leo is a career criminal - Hell, it runs in his family! The son of one of the best pick-pockets in Philly, Leo has evolved the family business into a much larger, more ambitious livelihood. While he hasn't partaken in a job in quite a while, he's lured into a risky heist targeting hundreds of thousands of dollars in diamonds. Teaming up with dirty cops, can Leo trust his associates and walk away with his c...more
Leo is a career criminal - Hell, it runs in his family! The son of one of the best pick-pockets in Philly, Leo has evolved the family business into a much larger, more ambitious livelihood. While he hasn't partaken in a job in quite a while, he's lured into a risky heist targeting hundreds of thousands of dollars in diamonds. Teaming up with dirty cops, can Leo trust his associates and walk away with his c...more
A heist tale of a plan gone wrong, featuring a motley collecting of criminals and crooked cops featuring a master thief who lives by a rigid code which causes people to dislike him.
Often times my praise of graphic novels is partly for their inventiveness in storytelling, or graphic design. To be honest I didn't find striking art or storytelling here. The characters are, however, quite attractive and presented in a different form (film, tv, a much longer graphic novel) I would have loved this des...more
Often times my praise of graphic novels is partly for their inventiveness in storytelling, or graphic design. To be honest I didn't find striking art or storytelling here. The characters are, however, quite attractive and presented in a different form (film, tv, a much longer graphic novel) I would have loved this des...more
This was perhaps one of the most smooth descents into the criminal underworld I've ever taken, other than the Grand Theft Auto video game series.
Coward is the tale of Leo, a short range thief, living out his days under the radar. He's known throughout the criminal world for two things: being good at what he does, and being more slippery than an eel. Taught at a very young age by his father and his father's best friend Ivan how to steal, run cons and the like, but has no criminal record.
Nowadays...more
Coward is the tale of Leo, a short range thief, living out his days under the radar. He's known throughout the criminal world for two things: being good at what he does, and being more slippery than an eel. Taught at a very young age by his father and his father's best friend Ivan how to steal, run cons and the like, but has no criminal record.
Nowadays...more
Ed Brubakerin käsikirjoittama ja Sean Phillipsin piirtämä "Criminal Vol. 1 : Coward" (Marvel Icon, 2007) on laadukas amerikkalainen rikossarjakuva, jossa huippuluokan taskuvaras Leo tulee pestatuksi kovan luokan keikalle. Kohteena on timanttilasti, jonka arvo on viitisen miljoonaa dollaria. Suunnitelma on laadittu viimeistä piirtoa myöten ja kaiken pitäisi olla kunnossa.
Kaikki ei mene kuitenkaan aivan kuin on suunniteltu. Soppaan onkin sotkettu enemmän aineksia ja keittäjiä kuin olisi terveydell...more
Kaikki ei mene kuitenkaan aivan kuin on suunniteltu. Soppaan onkin sotkettu enemmän aineksia ja keittäjiä kuin olisi terveydell...more
This is a fascinating crime story. A criminal known as much for his cowardice as for his talent and intelligence somehow lets himself get involved in a really messy heist that goes bad...and for the first time, he can't run away. The most interesting element of the story to me revolves around why our hero is known as a coward: he doesn't generally carry weapons, if something goes wrong he runs from the scene immediately, he always has a back-up plan to get himself out of any sticky situations. A...more
Just read it.
This is the first in an ongoing series of hardboiled graphic novels, written by Ed Brubaker and drawn by Sean Phillips. They're directly in the lineage of Spillane, Westlake, Leonard, and Elroy. The storytelling is taut and lean, the characters both emblematic of urban criminality and believable as human beings.
This one tells the story of a second-generation thief whose superpower is his cowardice, his ability to smell trouble and to ditch. I use the term "superpower" because Bruba...more
This is the first in an ongoing series of hardboiled graphic novels, written by Ed Brubaker and drawn by Sean Phillips. They're directly in the lineage of Spillane, Westlake, Leonard, and Elroy. The storytelling is taut and lean, the characters both emblematic of urban criminality and believable as human beings.
This one tells the story of a second-generation thief whose superpower is his cowardice, his ability to smell trouble and to ditch. I use the term "superpower" because Bruba...more
1 like · like · see review
I have only good things about this comic. I have liked various stuff mr. Brubaker has written before this. So why I never had picked this one up before is beyond me. But now I did, after all, this was part of "3 for 2" deal in Edinburgh's Waterstone's. And according to the receit I found in the middle of this, this one was the freebie book. Real win.
But what a treasure this was! High in drama, high in emotion, high in action, very high in noirish crime. Really brilliant piece of work.
And the art...more
But what a treasure this was! High in drama, high in emotion, high in action, very high in noirish crime. Really brilliant piece of work.
And the art...more
I didn't start reading Criminal until after this volume, so I just went back to read it. It was well worth the effort.
Leo is a brilliant criminal, one who can plan a crime with maximum efficiency and who always gets away, whether the crime succeeds or not. Then, he's approached by a crooked cop who needs Leo's help to pull off a huge job. An enormous payday with inside help? What could possibly go wrong?
Brubaker is at his best in this kind of noir crime fiction, and the artwork of Sean Phillips...more
Leo is a brilliant criminal, one who can plan a crime with maximum efficiency and who always gets away, whether the crime succeeds or not. Then, he's approached by a crooked cop who needs Leo's help to pull off a huge job. An enormous payday with inside help? What could possibly go wrong?
Brubaker is at his best in this kind of noir crime fiction, and the artwork of Sean Phillips...more
Brubaker and Phillips have a steady hand for the film-noir style, and as such this is unsurprisingly a plate of hard candy with no nutritional benefits, which means the glorification of outlaw behavior, a paean to the velocity achieved when life is lived without a conscience in the service of grabbing the next shallow thrill, or perhaps avenging the death of someone fallen in that pursuit. It's simple, and attractive when life is complex, as it always is.
The genre and this excellent example of i...more
The genre and this excellent example of i...more
I really enjoyed Coward. This comic too was recommended to me by Andy, and coming on the heels of his recommendation for Atomic Robo, I'm willing to say that he's got a handle on comics that I'll enjoy. Coward is pretty much the opposite end of the spectrum from Atomic Robo in every way. This comic is almost unrelentingly dark, and what little humor appears serves only to accentuate the harshness of the world and story. The art accentuates the tone of the story in a similar way; its rough style...more
I was a bit disappointed with this one, and I can't even say exactly why. Maybe because I read Fell not so long ago and deemed it a masterpiece in gritty comic noir. I may have drawn an unfortunate comparison.
On the surface, this is a great comic. Career criminal bites off more than he can chew, is betrayed, falls for the femme fatal, and everything goes down the proverbial pretty damn fast. Excellent. The art is lovely, the story-telling is great... Not sure what's missing. The ending certainly...more
On the surface, this is a great comic. Career criminal bites off more than he can chew, is betrayed, falls for the femme fatal, and everything goes down the proverbial pretty damn fast. Excellent. The art is lovely, the story-telling is great... Not sure what's missing. The ending certainly...more
Our hero, Leo, is not a hero, and that's the point. He's not a hero because he's a crook. He's not a hero because he'll choose to save his own skin over honor, money, and friendship. But he's also good at what he does, which is plan heists. His troubles begin when he breaks his rules (no guns, no cops, no druggies) and gets in on a heist that goes very, very wrong, and which he just can't escape from. From that point, the storytelling and characterization are detailed and realistic. These feel l...more
The first book in writer Ed Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips' noir series "Criminal" gets off to a blistering start with the excellent "Coward". The story of a career criminal who started out as a pickpocket before moving onto heists, this man's trait is of surviving each time he gets confronted with danger and getting away. Is he a coward or just smart? He gets involved in a diamond heist with bent cops and shady past accomplices which inevitably goes awry leading to him going on the run with...more
I encountered Brubaker first with his Incognito series and now that it's finished I've decided to try out some of his other stuff.
When it comes to comics/graphic novels I do tend to prefer all the superheroic kind of stuff, so Criminal was a bit of change of pace for me after Incognito. Not that I minded, it's obvious that Brubaker knows his gritty crime stuff and I love those kinds of stories when told from the criminal's perspective.
As far as things went, it had everything that kind of story n...more
When it comes to comics/graphic novels I do tend to prefer all the superheroic kind of stuff, so Criminal was a bit of change of pace for me after Incognito. Not that I minded, it's obvious that Brubaker knows his gritty crime stuff and I love those kinds of stories when told from the criminal's perspective.
As far as things went, it had everything that kind of story n...more
It opens as a very typical crime story, with a cynical internal monologue about the system and crooked cops trying to hook a con who’s almost off the radar and essentially out of the game. But that con? He’s got an old man who needs help, and help costs big money. Immediately you know the story you’re getting into and what it promises. The expectations are fairly low. It’s almost funny how crime fiction has rendered extreme unpleasantness mundane.
Our minor con is roped into a diamond heist, stea...more
Our minor con is roped into a diamond heist, stea...more
The one-two punch of Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips that brought us "Sleeper" team up again for the crime noir anthology that is the "Criminal" series. Complete stand-alone stories each focusing on a different character of a shared universe.
The first of these stories is "Coward", and right out of the gate, the creative team give us an excellent noir tale, complete with bent cops and double-crosses. I liked how Brubaker builds up the tension and suspense, literally demanding that you finish rea...more
The first of these stories is "Coward", and right out of the gate, the creative team give us an excellent noir tale, complete with bent cops and double-crosses. I liked how Brubaker builds up the tension and suspense, literally demanding that you finish rea...more
Seriously impressed. It's rare for an author to get gritty, pulpy noir like this right, let alone with good artwork to boot. I really enjoyed Brubakers work on Incognito, and after reading this, I'll be devouring the rest of the series and also reading his earlier work, Sleeper. Excellent, top-notch writing with great realistic artwork, a great pace and well-developed characters. You couldn't ask for more in a single, first-issue collection.
I didn’t really get into this, which was lauded all over the damn place but never got me hot. I just didn’t really feel like this self-contained bank-job-gone-bad story did anything new or inventive, a strictly by-the-book reiteration of a dozen decent-but-unexceptional heist movies that stood out for all the wrong reasons. Decent enough art and dialogue that I'd give this duo another go if I was pushed hard enough in that direction.
A quiet and subtle little masterpiece. Brubaker aptly "translates" the mid-century Fawcett Gold Medal hardboiled/noir ethos to the 21st century and the medium of comics. Sean Phillips' drawings are not flamboyant, but incredibly effective at setting mood and inconspicuously keeping the pace moving the way a page-turned should. Hard not to finish in one sitting, and I can't wait to read the next volume.
1 like · like · see review
Ed Brubaker, who wrote this volume of Criminal, is one of my favorite comic writers. He likes things gritty. This series is about a career criminal named Leo, who is famous for escaping the scene of the crime even when the cops arrive to bust everyone. Survival is more important than the score. More important than saving the people he's with. When he's offered a heist that sounds too easy to be true, it is...
I'm picky about my comic artwork and it can make or break a story for me. Sean Phillips...more
I'm picky about my comic artwork and it can make or break a story for me. Sean Phillips...more
i enjoy the concept of this graphic novel - the story told from the criminal's perspective. the story was compelling, but i wish it had a little more depth. all the different strands weave together - present and past - in a way that keeps the suspense going. ultimately, i don't like heist stories/ scenarios. so that could explain my flaccid interest in this comic.
This is the first story in the Criminal series. If you like film noir or dark crime stories this is for you. The artwork is fantastic and the characters are all interesting. The stories in the Criminal series don't have to be read in order, but it does help as their are some characters that reappear so you might as well start here!
I love the coward archetype (i.e. Baltar on BSG or Ben Linus on LOST), so I was a little disappointed with this book, in that Leo was actually a bit of a hero. This was a fine, fine book on its own right, but as a Brubaker protagonist, Leo lacks the introspective gravitas of Holden Carver, Matt Murdock, or Tracy Lawless.
This series is awesome. The stories have a gritty noir feel to them, but they aren't over the top. Brubaker does a great job of walking the line between unreal enough to be exciting and real enough to have a powerful effect on the reader. I have only read the first two volumes, but I am excited to read the rest.
Good crime writers are hard to come by. I know it seems so easy to just transpose archetypes from story to story, but at it's best the crime story is a philosophical treatise on motivation. At it's worst it is Law and Order:SUV or SUN or whatever the acronym is nowadays. Brubaker is a great crime writer. One of my all time favorite crime writers, Ross MacDonald, would be proud to be name checked as inspiration for a story so brutal, so elegant. There is a lot you can find in Coward, but elementa...more
This is a noir masterpiece. It mixes the depth of the best crime fiction with visual style of the best neo-noir movies. Sean Philips' storytelling is purely cinematic. That's why Coward is being adapted by Brubaker into a motion picture. I recommend you start reading this GN series to get caught up.
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Ed Brubaker (born November 17, 1966) is an Eisner Award-winning American cartoonist and writer. He was born at the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland.
Brubaker is best known for his work as a comic book writer on such titles as Batman, Daredevil, Captain America, Iron Fist, Catwoman, Gotham Central, Sleeper, Uncanny X-Men and X-Men: Deadly Genesis, and The Authority, and for helping...more
More about Ed Brubaker...
Brubaker is best known for his work as a comic book writer on such titles as Batman, Daredevil, Captain America, Iron Fist, Catwoman, Gotham Central, Sleeper, Uncanny X-Men and X-Men: Deadly Genesis, and The Authority, and for helping...more
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Sep 26, 2012 10:50am
8 hours, 19 min ago