Femme Noir Returns

Okay - not too long ago, I promised that I would soon have an announcement regarding Femme Noir, the comic that I co-created with artist Joe Staton. Here it is (although it's really two announcements, I guess):

On August 14th, we're re-launching www.femme-noir.com, where Joe and I will be re-presenting classic Femme Noir comics and archiving all the pin-ups, fan art and character sketches that have been created over the last 10+ years since we debuted our fishnet-clad heroine online. We will also be using the site to keep fans informed on the progress of a new Femme Noir graphic novel, which we're shooting to get out next year.

All four issues of the 2009 "Dark City Diaries" miniseries, as well as previously-published short stories & online strips, will be serialized - for FREE - online, a page a week. If you already have these comics in your collection, the online versions will be supplemented with new bonus material (samples of Joe's pencils, my original script pages, commentary, etc.). The site will also function as a “Production Log” for the new graphic novel – and any other future Femme Noir projects/products.

It is our hope that new readers will enjoy the stories as serialized, but, of course, the print versions will also be available for purchase from publisher Ape Entertainment (as long as supplies last!) for the impatient. We also hope that folks who already have these stories will enjoy the bonuses and project updates. Along with the reruns, we'll be occasionally previewing work-in-progress art from the forthcoming graphic novel, "Cold, Dead Fingers," and have other surprises in the works, as well.

Now... about that "Cold, Dead Fingers: The Graphic Novel." This will be a completely re-written and re-drawn, extended version of the very first Femme Noir online comics continuity, which appeared way back in 2000-2001. The basic plot remains the same, but it will be considerably expanded-upon, with additional characters, subplots, and action beats.

Femme Noir co-creator Joe Staton will, as always, pencil the book, and my frequent collaborator, Gravedigger artist Rick Burchett, has volunteered to ink it. Rick got his professional start inking Joe on E-Man at First Comics in the 1980s, and they make a formidable artistic team. Colors will be provided by the talented Matt Webb, who previously colored a couple issues of "The Dark City Diaries" miniseries. We're starting production on "Cold, Dead Fingers" this month, and hope to have it completed and released sometime in 2014.

Anyway - I know some folks will be disappointed that this announcement is mostly about re-presenting the existing Femme Noir stories online, but it is our hope that we'll be able to provide enough new content to keep our old fans interested and involved, while using the serialized web versions to attract new readers. So that's the news: classic Femme Noir serialized online for free, lots of bonus material (new and old), and a new graphic novel gearing up.

We hope you’ll check out femme-noir.com in a couple of weeks and make it a regular part of your online reading habit.

Comic Strippers!

Last year, my pal and Femme Noir partner-in-crime, Joe Staton, landed the penciling gig on the Dick Tracy newspaper strip, and has continually knocked it out of the park artistically. If you haven't been following it in your paper (assuming there's a paper in your town that carries it) or online, you've really been missing out.

Yesterday another artist pal of mine, Terry Beatty, with whom I worked on the Mickey Spillane's Mike Danger comic book some years ago, took over the art chores on another long-running classic comic strip, The Phantom (Sundays)! The first installment (above) looks beautiful, and I know that Terry (and colorist Tom Smith) are only going to get even better as time goes by.

It's a shame that so few newspapers carry adventure strips these days, but it's good to know that two of the most legendary American comic strips survive in the talented and capable hands of my friends!

Calling... Joe Staton!

My pal and favorite comics collaborator, Femme Noir co-creator/artist Joe Staton, celebrated his 63rd birthday yesterday. That was also the day that Tribune Media Services announced that long-time Dick Tracy artist Dick Locher would (finally) be hanging up his fedora and that Joe - along with writer Mike Curtis - would be taking over the legendary newspaper detective strip.

It's no secret that I was not a fan of Locher's run on the strip (I never liked his art, and after Max Collins stopped writing Tracy, I thought the writing got terrible, too), so I'm thrilled that not only is the strip continuing (something of a miracle, as the syndicate retired both Brenda Starr and Annie last year), but that it's going to start looking good again!

The art above is from a sample storyline that Mike and Joe did a while back, and presumably, it's what landed them the gig. It appeared last year on a Dick Tracy fansite, and I think it makes it abundantly clear that they're the right team for the job. I could only be happier if I was writing it... but hey, I still get to work with Joe on more Femme Noir, so I'm not really all that disappointed. :)

Wednesday Cover

Cover by my Femme Noir partner Joe Staton (Happy Birthday, Joe!) for Gladstone Publishing's third Dick Tracy album from 1990. He also did at least one other cover that wasn't published... and it's on my wall. If I had a scan, I'd share it.

I'm On My Way!

...and you should be, too! I received an e-mail in the wee hours of this morning from Jim Doherty informing me that a new tribute site to the great Dick Tracy, Plainclothes, has just been launched. In his words:

It includes a Tracy comic book story, "Fireworks," written by Max Allan Collins and illustrated by Joe Staton.  Originally intended for DISNEY ADVENTURES but never actually printed, it was intended to cash in on the then-hot DICK TRACY movie.  Collins, of course, was then the writer of the Tracy strip, and was also the creator of such comics sleuths as MS. TREE, a Chicago private eye who took over her husband's P.I. agency after his murder, MIKE MIST, another Chicago shamus who starred in a series of "solve-them-yourself" whodunits, as well as the writer of ROAD TO PERDITION, the first graphic novel ever to make it to the New York TIMES best-seller list.

It also includes two prose stories about Tracy.  "The Treasure of Captain Cannonsmoke," by the aptly-named Tracy Kazaleh, is set in the world of the UPA animated TRACY cartoons, and features more humorous takes on Tracy's famous Rogues' Gallery, together on a cruise ship in search of hidden treasure.

"Murder Is My Hobby," by Jim Doherty, pits Tracy against a serial killer.

The centerpiece of the site is a new comics story in newspaper strip format, "Major Crimes Squad," illustrated by Staton and written by Mike Curtis, publisher of Shandafa Comics.  It features the return of that long-ago villain Willie "The Fifth" Millyun and his odious lawyer Flyface, and answers the question that has baffled Tracy fans for decades:

"Whatever happened to the Space Coupe?"

Dick Tracy, Joe Staton, Max Allan Collins, previously-unpublished stories... yeah, I'm definitely on my way. See you there!

He's a Good Cop.

Someone has finally uploaded to YouTube the entire 1967 unsold pilot for Dick Tracy, produced by the producer responsible for the same era's Batman and Green Hornet television shows, William Dozier. With Ray MacDonnell as Dick and Victor Buono as the villiain, "Mr. Memory," the half-hour pilot falls somewhere between the camp of Batman and the somewhat more straight-faced Hornet.

MacDonnell's okay, but he's no Ralph Byrd!

Here's the whole show:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Weekend Theater: Dick Tracy

Back in the Sixties, the producers of the Batman and Green Hornet television series produced a pilot for a Dick Tracy series in the same vein. It wasn't picked up, although, from all reports, it was a pretty faithful adaptation of the Chester Gould comic strip as it appeared at the time.

Here are the opening credits:

Dick Tracy Serials on DVD

While my DVD Late Show review column has been on hiatus for many months now while I ponder its future, I still get the occasional discs in my mailbox for review.

In fact, I've recently received two Dick Tracy serials from the 30's – Dick Tracy Returns and Dick Tracy's G-Men – from VCI Entertainment.

As you might gather from the latter title, in these 15-chapter serials from Republic Studios, the hardboiled detective is actually an FBI agent, and not a big city homicide cop. Nonetheless, Ralph Byrd, who also played the character in two features for RKO and on television in the 50's, makes a formidable Tracy, and the pacing and action in these cliffhangers is unrelenting. It helps that both serials are directed by Republic's A-Team – William Witney and John English, the directors responsible for all of the studio's best chapterplays.

In 1938's Returns, Tracy's up against a tight-knit family of crooks led by the ruthless, saturnine Pa Stark (played by Charles Middleton, the original – and best – Ming the Merciless) and in 39's G-Men, he's up against an international spy and saboteur.

Great stuff, and the visual quality of these DVD transfers is far better than I expected, considering how beat-up 30's serials tend to look after all these decades. Each of these editions also include brief introductions from Tracy expert Max Collins. Definitely recommended for serial buffs.

ADDENDUM: VCI also offers the original Dick Tracy Republic serial, and plans to release the remaining one, 1941's Dick Tracy Vs. Crime Inc., soon. They also offer all four of the RKO Dick Tracy B-features – Dick Tracy, Detective, Dick Tracy Vs. Cueball (both starring Morgan Conway), Dick Tracy's Dilemma and Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome (both with Ralph Byrd reprising the role; Gruesome is Boris Karloff!) – in a single set. These are also available from numerous budget labels, but VCI's versions are of somewhat better quality.

Calling Dick Tracy

Things are looking grim for Dick Tracy these days.

The long-running newspaper strip has declining steadily under the pen of Dick Locher, who may have been an assistant to Tracy creator Chester Gould and – as is apparently obligatory to mention whenever his name is brought up – an award winning political cartoonist, but as a storyteller, he's just awful.

I mean really, have you seen the strip lately? Probably not, as it's not carried in many papers these days. But it can be read daily on the Tribune Media Services website (among others). The art is ugly and crude, the stories are plodding, meandering affairs with uninteresting plots and mundane villains. Ever since writer Max Allan Collins left (or was ousted from) the strip, the chisel-chinned detective's been on life support... and the prognosis isn't promising.

Another sign of the once-iconic character's decline is the closing, this month, of the Dick Tracy museum in Chester Gould's hometown of Woodstock, Illinois.

Back in the early 90's Tracy had a brief resurgence, thanks to Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy film. While it wasn't the Batman-sized blockbuster that Disney hoped for, it was fairly entertaining, marvelously designed, and faithful to the spirit – if not the letter – of Gould's strip. Collins, who had taken over the scripting chores on the newspaper feature back in the mid-Seventies, and who was still handling the strip at the time, knocked out a great movie novelization and a couple of excellent original novels, and even edited a very solid short story anthology. There were various strip collections, tie-ins and merchandise.

Disney published a three-issue miniseries to coincide with the film. The first two issues were written by Jerome Moore, and were prequels to the film, establishing the film's version of the Tracy universe. The third was an adaptation of the movie, scripted by veteran Len Wein. All three issues were illustrated by the astounding Kyle Baker, whose stylized art looked nothing like Gould's, but worked beautifully.

(Trivia note: Apparently, Warren Beatty was unhappy with Baker's rendition of the Tracy character in the comics, and insisted that all the faces be re-drawn. Then, he only approved two faces, which were Xeroxed and pasted over all the Tracy drawings throughout the series. Hollywood. Cripes!)

Now, though the character is nearly forgotten. Attempts to mount new film or television projects have been foiled by Beatty, who insists that he still owns all the rights to the character. Since the strip isn't carried by many papers, Tribune doesn't appear to care too much about its quality. IDW is doing some marvelous hardcover reprints of the early strips, but they're pretty pricey, and I suspect only die-hard Tracy and classic strip fans are picking them up. Checker Books did three collections of Collins' 70's strips, but they didn't finish reprinting his run, so I doubt they sold all that great. (I reviewed them over in my Guns In the Gutters blog, if anyone's interested.)

It's a shame. Personally, I would crawl across broken glass naked for the opportunity to write the character. I think the world could use a tough and tough-minded cop hero like Tracy these days, and it would be an honor to follow in the footprints of Gould and Collins.

Oh, well. A man can dream....