“It’s interesting to see the parallels reviewers are drawing to The Darker Mask and something like the new film Hancock or the show Heroes. Ordinary folks? Yeah. Disgruntled, alcoholic super-powered ex-crusaders? Sure. But that’s just the broadest possible cut. Slice it thinner and deeper you see people of color, you see people drained of hope—perhaps homeless, out of rehab…criminals or scumbags possibly in their own right. My story for example takes place in Darfur. Sleepers author (and screenplay collaborator with Barry Levinson) Lorenzo Carcaterra’s ‘hero’ is a ’strega’—think Italian female witchdoctor, malocchio and all—in a Mafia-controlled Manhattan slum, circa 1950. So yes, our stuff is more visceral, gritty. Not necessarily happy or heroic endings because our ‘heroes’—and you can see it in the artwork—are not happy or heroic people. More like real life!”

The Darker Mask

Also: Gary Phillips, who is one of the editors of Darker Mask, talks about his new comic High Rollers.