COMIC REVIEW: FTN reviews Noir #1

Writer: Victor Gischler

Artist: Andrea Mutti

Publisher: Dynamite Comics

Dynamite Comics is quickly becoming one of my favorite publishers. Over the past few months they have come out with comics that I absolutely love and I get excited when I see them in my pull list. A few months ago I saw in Previews a book coming from them called “Noir”, what caught me about this was it was a book featuring Black Sparrow and Miss Fury. Miss Fury is one of my favorite books currently in publication so to get her in another book was pure joy for me; so much I called my shop and placed it on my pull.

To say I was not disappointed would be an understatement. This title brought everything that I was hoping for, not only because of the characters but because of the name.

Noir is simply that, a tale taking place in the early part of the 20^th century and the first issue revolves around the character of Black Sparrow after the heist of a Moon Stone from a museum. Throughout the narrative we learn of those who hired her and how she, as a thief, was offered triple what the original people were offered. Of course, this does not go well and after classic styled shoot-outs and action she calls upon the only person she knows who could help her, that man being the guest starring The Shadow. These two have a history that is told through The Shadow’s own comic from Dynamite so it was only fitting that he play a role in the debut of this new tale.

Everything about this book feels like you are actually reading a script from an old radio program. The dialogue is fantastic and the banter back and forth between the two characters feels like something out of a 40’s era production. Not to mention the text boxes that fit in nicely with the Noir motif of the book. I could almost hear that classic music we all come to expect from noir type productions playing as I was reading the words. Inner monologues, plot progression, background information, at no time did those boxes become annoying or redundant. Each and every one of them progress the story and if you had never read anything with these two characters they gave you a very good sense of who they are.

But what is dialogue without the art? It seems the artist, instead of taking the look of the book and modernizing it, went in the other direction. This looks and feels like a comic strip from the golden age of comics. The way the characters are drawn feels like something from the past, the use of shadows and textures is amazing and is something I have come to expect from the fantastic artists at Dynamite. It is indeed one of those books where the art is vastly different than what is on the cover, and in this case it works splendidly.

All this and the revelation of Miss Fury herself at the end of the book just make me giddy for the next issue to come out (Yes it is already on my pull). Don’t miss out on this book if you like classic characters, lavish backgrounds and fantastic stories set in the early part of the century. Let’s face it; we all love those types of books!

So from Spin to all of you this book gets a DYNAMITE

4.5 out of 5 nerds