Before joining the Eye Of The Storm line, Ed Brubaker had never worked for WildStorm, despite being an avowed fan of the milieu. So what persuaded him to sign up? "It was a combination of things, really," he explains. "One was wanting to expand my horizons. The other was that Scott Dunbier called me and asked me if I wanted to write something for him." Dunbier's idea eventually became the mini-series, POINT BLANK, and the beginning of a new era in Brubaker's working life.

"Working for WildStorm was attractive to me, because at the time, WildStorm books had a real buzz around them," says Brubaker. Following in the wake of Ellis and Millar's creative revival of the super-hero archetype with THE AUTHORITY, WildStorm had decided to launch a Mature Readers line called Eye Of The Storm. "After working on CATWOMAN for a year and having to deal with the code, changing 'Friggin' to 'Freakin', never being able to say 'God Damn', or 'Jesus', I was looking forward to be able to say and do whatever felt natural to the story."

Dunbier's idea was simple; "He didn't have a story, really, he just wanted me to come up with a story to make Tao a good character again, and he thought killing Lynch would make that work." Tao, the master-criminal created by Alan Moore during his run on the original volume of WILDCATS, had suffered recently under the pens of some lesser talents. With the destructive aftermath of THE AUTHORITY leaving very little in the way of villainy left alive in the WildStorm Universe, it became imperative to reintroduce a decent baddy to the books. "I came up with the whole story, really," says Brubaker, "I took that [idea] and ran with it, bringing in the mystery of it, and making Grifter the main character."

Established by Jim Lee during the Image break-away, WildStorm managed to weather the market storm by selling itself to DC. The sale served a double-purpose, providing the protective financial umbrella of DC's parents, Time Warner, and allowing Lee more time to get back to his first love, pencilling. However, he still has a strong say about editorial decisions, and has his own particular quirks. "Jim had signed off on killing Lynch, then changed his mind," recalls Brubaker. Lee's distaste with the clichés of the super-hero genre are what makes Wildstorm stand apart. "But of course, changing his mind opened the door for SLEEPER to exist, so I didn't mind."

SLEEPER was one of four launch-titles in the new Eye Of The Storm line. Joining the corporate intrigue of WILDCATS v3.0, the military procedural of STORMWATCH: TEAM ACHILLES and the insane super-hero deconstruction of AUTOMATIC KAFKA, it ploughed its furrow in the espionage/undercover market. The lead character Carver used to be one of International Operations' greatest spies. He was set for big things and those big things included an undercover assignment working for one of the WildStorm Universe's most deadly criminals, Tao. Unfortunately, the only man who knew he was undercover, Lynch, now lies in a coma, and Carver is left swinging in the wind.

"If SLEEPER was just about a double-agent, it could easily be a Vertigo book," explains Brubaker, "There's basically just the superhero leanings of the books that separates them." Even Brubaker oversells the superhero influence; SLEEPER is largely a crime series with the occasional superpower. Perfect for the WildStorm Universe. "I think one of the smartest things Jim Lee did when setting up the WSU was to make it such a modern espionage-driven place. It's a superhero universe that spins around endless conspiracies, and that allows for a lot of change without the change seeming arbitrary."

However, the line-wide problems of retailer apathy continue to mystify Brubaker. "We have gotten a cult following, but most fans have trouble finding the book." Rather than ploughing ahead regardless, Brubaker planned ahead. "I saw that most of their books at least made it to #12, so I planned for Sleeper as a twelve-part story, figuring that at the worst, we'd get to tell one really long inventive story." The recent solicitation of #12 as a final issue won't help sales on this volume, but the imminent relaunch and trade collections of this series should hopefully make a difference.

"I wish I didn't have to ever think about this stuff," says Brubaker. "I even stopped looking at the sales charts six months ago, and I don't ever want to start looking at them again. My job is to write comics, and I feel like I do my job well." Despite writing some of the most critically acclaimed series in mainstream comics, he has never seen sales success outside of his run on the BATMAN and DETECTIVE COMICS titles.

But especially while working for a large conglomerate, there's more to consider than just telling the story. WildStorm has had its fair share of problems with the move from free-wheeling artist-driven studio to corporate cog, the most well-known being its handling of Mark Millar's run on THE AUTHORITY. It was this disparity between the content Millar wished to see published and what the DC executives believed they should be publishing that led to the creation of the Eye Of The Storm brand. THE AUTHORITY was one of the few break-out books of recent time and its disintegration was particularly unpleasant.

"When you work for Marvel or DC, you have to understand that things like that are always possible if the situation goes badly enough," says Brubaker. "With Marvel it's Avi Arad and Marvel studios who give them trouble and with DC, it can be some CEO who doesn't like what they're doing with the properties. ... What happened to Mark Millar was fairly unique to him and THE AUTHORITY, and I wasn't worried I'd be getting the same problems, especially since they created the mature line."

Brubaker's loyalty to DC - and to a greater extent, the BATMAN family and the Eye Of The Storm line - doesn't reflect any kind of antipathy towards Marvel. Nor does he view either company through rose tinted spectacles. "Both companies have their good points and bad points at any given time. I hear plenty of complaints from my friends who work at Marvel, too. ... Both companies could learn from the other right now; DC could stand to put the books on better paper and put trades out faster, and, Marvel could learn from DC not to flood the market with new #1s every month."

With the end of the first volume of SLEEPER, WildStorm is practising a new way of reacting to sales apathy. The publication of volumes of a title like seasons of a TV show could one way forward, but Brubaker believes it's not enough. "There needs to be some kind of evolution. I think comics are too expensive for what you usually get. I'd prefer a five or six dollar comic that was 64 pages of story and 40 pages of ads, so that it at least feels worth some money," says Brubaker. "However, if fixing it were as obvious [as that], I think someone would have done something a long time ago."

The sales problems of the Eye Of The Storm line don't seem to be stopping it from attacking the marketplace. With a recently announced crossover event focusing on THE AUTHORITY, featuring art by sales-grabbing owner Jim Lee, and leading to a new volume of WETWORKS by Mike Carey and Whilce Portacio, it looks like there could be light at the end of the tunnel.

With mature content, serious writing and distinctive artistic choices, the line could live on in trade collections despite retailers' distaste. "If my books fail to sell, while getting write-ups in Wizard every month and getting nominated for a bunch of awards and rave reviews, and if all I hear about is fans who can't find them, then I don't feel like the failure is my fault," says Brubaker. While he may never have intended the title to be so ominously prophetic, SLEEPER really could turn out to be a sleeper hit.

John Fellows works in the television industry providing assistive services to the deaf community.

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