Broken Frontier

An article that recently appeared on The Pulse website led me to Christopher Mills’ website Supernatural Crime, home to webcomics and new, old-fashioned, pulp-style tales featuring three different characters. In a series of articles I intend to take a closer look at each of the three characters and some of their stories. First up is the webcomic Femme Noir.

In the fictional, West Coast city of Port Nocturne the shades of gray overrun the black and white. A police department riddled with corruption and mafia control of the city is one set of problems but Port Nocturne attracts a darker crowd as well. Zombie killers and mad scientists stalk the streets along with cheap hoods and spies and standing against them all is a tough, nameless, blonde bombshell in a blue trench coat and fedora.

So far Mills has written and published on the website four complete stories featuring the nameless detective: “Chambers of Horror”, “An Eye for a Spy”, “Cold Dead Fingers”, and “The Dingus”. There is also a two-episode short titled “Crossover” and a fifth story, “Dark City Diaries #1: Blonde Justice”, is currently ongoing. Two of the aforementioned stories, however, serve well to illustrate the type of adventures to be found with Femme Noir.

In “Cold Dead Fingers” sadistic killer and mob enforcer “Butcher” Bronson is executed for his crimes. If he is dead, though, then why are all the people involved with his trial dying by his murderous M.O.? With the last witness’s life in the balance, the blonde detective investigates and finds that truth may be beyond fiction.

For “The Dingus”, Mills turns to a more traditional detective story as P.I. Red Nales is hired to guard a priceless artifact – an obsidian mask rumored to be cursed. When the mask is stolen right out from under Nales’ nose he takes it personally and considers his honor (not to mention a reward) at stake in getting it back. Nales may be on the trail of the mask but a certain blonde detective is on his tail, with her own reasons for wanting the mask....

Femme Noir is exactly what the name implies, a series steeped in noir films, old pulp stories, radio programs like The Shadow and even a little bit of horror. Mills makes no bones about his influences from Will Eisner’s Spirit, to Frank Miller, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and beyond. These are stories in the old Hard Boiled School of detective fiction, where “conversations” tend to be held with fists or guns and “words” are usually knuckles, bullets, and blackjacks (and no, not the card game). “The Dingus”, illustrated in black and white, is a prime example of this style as it reads like a Chandler story, complete with 1940’s slang. 

Surprisingly, though, this old-fashioned Hard Boiled style marries well with some of the supernatural elements that are thrown into several of the stories. This is clearly illustrated with “Cold Dead Fingers” as Mills adds supernatural and science fiction elements to a full-color mob revenge tale. 

The main character in Femme Noir is one tough and smart dame; equally adept in a fistfight or with a .45. In “Cold Dead Fingers” she handles the action and the fight scenes with a cool ruthlessness while in “The Dingus” she displays her smarts and sly cunning. Her past and her motivations are as unknown as her name but, in a way, that makes each of her adventures a perfect jumping on point for new readers. There is no back-story to learn, nor any long continuity; every tale is completely fresh and new each time. A comic book veteran, Mills proves that he knows his craft well. The stories move at a rapid pace but without ever sacrificing plot or dialogue.

Of the five stories and one short available on the website, all but two are in color and all have been penciled and inked by Joe Staton with the exception of “Crossover”. Staton, like Mills, is a veteran with a number of titles to his credit. His style for this series has something of a modern animation flair yet at the same time pays tribute to some of the great Golden Age newspaper work of artists like Chester Gould and Will Eisner. There is also a definite noir look throughout the work although I feel this is stronger in the black and white stories than in the color ones. 

Although these stories are somewhat limited in space and character driven, Staton has really managed to make one of those characters the city of Port Nocturne itself. Part L.A., part San Francisco, and part nightmare, Port Nocturne feels like a living thing here under Staton’s steady hand. 

Although there are a number of ways of hooking into the Internet these days and one is not chained to a desktop computer anymore, the fact is that I first discovered Femme Noir with my desktop. The compelling plotting and delightfully disorienting setting of Mills’ and Staton’s work, however, truly took me into their world and made me forget that I was sitting in front of my computer screen.

For those who love old movies, radio shows, pulps, or simply crime and detective dramas there is something with a new twist on the old theme...  A city on the edge of darkness has an angel of hard justice. This is Femme Noir.

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Femme Noir can be found at www.supernaturalcrime.com and read for free.
Author Disclaimer: Some of the material at the Supernatural Crime website is not suitable for all ages.