There are few better combinations in comics that Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips the creative team behind modern noir classics like Fatale, Sleeper and Criminal. So it is with some considerable excitement that today we learn that Brubaker and Philips have signed an unprecedented deal with Image Comics – a five year deal to do anything they want with total freedom, total control, and total ownership over their projects. Quite frankly these guys could publish their laundry lists and we would buy it, so consider us excited!

“Everyone at Image loves working with Ed and Sean,” said Eric Stephenson, Publisher at Image Comics. “They’re one of the best creative teams working in comics today, with an absolutely stunning catalog of work, and I personally consider bringing Fatale to Image one of the best things to happen to us over what has been a pretty amazing last couple years. One of the great things about this business is the opportunities we’re given to work with good people, and it’s really gratifying to see directly how talent like Ed and Sean respond to the unparalleled freedom and support we offer at Image.”

“This is amazing. It’s like having an overall deal with a studio, except we get to greenlight our own projects,” said Brubaker. “Sean and I have been making comics together for fifteen years, and in the early days before we built the passionate readership we have now, we struggled to survive, so a deal like this is exactly what I was looking for. I’ve already got more than enough ideas to fill those five years, and both Sean and I are looking forward to experimenting and really pushing the boundaries.” 

The first project on this new deal for the award-winning creators is The Fade Out, debuting this summer, following the conclusion of Fatale with issue #24.

“The Fade Out is my ultimate noir story. It’s a brutal crime story set in late ’40s Hollywood, and all spinning around the mysterious death of an up-and-coming starlet,” said Brubaker. “For people who’ve been waiting for us to return to Criminal, this will be exactly what they’re looking for, but on a much more epic scale—going from studio backlots to the debauchery of the rich and famous, and even stretching back to the horrors of World War Two.” 

Several of Brubaker and Phillips’ previous projects are currently in development as films, with Kim Jee-Woon (A Bittersweet Life, I Saw The Devil) recently signing on to direct Coward, the inaugural story arc of their celebrated series Criminal, and Sleeper being produced by Ben Affleck (Argo) and Matt Damon (The Bourne Identity) at Warner Bros.

The Fade Out is a new, ongoing noir series coming to Image Comics in 2014.