New York Comic Con News--Ed Brubaker appeared at Robert Kirkman’s “Image Creator-Owned” panel at the NYCC and debuted Fatale, which Brubaker described as a mixture of the hardboiled fiction of James M. Cain (Mildred Pierce) and the supernatural horror of H.P. Lovecraft. Fatale, which will debut from Image in 2012, will be a 12-issue series in which Brubaker examines the phenomenon of the “femme fatale” from several points of view that have never been explored before, including making a sympathetic character out of an archetype that has often been as much of a plot device as a flesh-and-blood human character.

 

Brubaker will be joined on Fatale by artist Sean Phillips. Phillips and Brubaker have collaborated on the Eisner Award-winning series Criminal for Marvel’s creator-owned Icon imprint.

 

Given the subject matter, and the Cain and Lovecraft influences, it is perhaps only natural that Fatale #1 will ship with two covers—one for celebrating the “beauty” of the eponymous heroine, and the other depicting a “beast” from the dark recesses of the Lovecraftian imagination.