FEMME NOIR JOINS APE ENTERTAINMENT

[MattBrady]

Press Release

Ape Entertainment invites you to take a midnight stroll down the rain-slick streets of Port Nocturne, where the bitter odor of gunpowder hangs in the air like cheap perfume, where every dark alley comes to a dead end, enemy and ally are but temporary distinctions, and justice is… blonde.

Writer Christopher Mills (Gravedigger: The Scavengers) and veteran comics artist Joe Staton (E-Man, Green Lantern, Scooby Doo) are pleased to announce that they have signed with Ape Entertainment to produce a four-issue, full-color miniseries based on their popular webcomic, Femme Noir.

The series, entitled Femme Noir: The Dark City Diaries, is composed of four, standalone, 28 page stories, revolving around a mysterious, unnamed woman in a cobalt blue trenchcoat and black fishnet stockings as she fights crime and solves mysteries in a perpetually night-shrouded metropolis.

"The Femme Noir series is my unabashed valentine to the crime fiction genre," says Mills. "All the conventions of the genre - and the cliches - are happily and enthusiastically embraced. It's an amalgamation of 40's Poverty Row B-movies, Golden and Silver Age comics, old radio shows, pulp stories... a little bit of everything I love in Pop Culture, old and new."

"The webcomic ran off and on for over five years, and is now archived at http://www.comicspace.com/femme_noir/, where the stories can still be read for free," Mills continues. "These strips have been featured on several websites – including Kevin Smith's Movie Poop Shoot, Komikwerks, and Thrilling Detective – and were singled out for praise by USA Today."

The webcomic version of Femme Noir has been very well received by readers and critics. Andrea Speed of Comixtreme commented that: "(Femme Noir is) ...a serious comic, but serious fun, of a kind you don’t see anymore on the shelves... giving the reader dark mysteries and action with a feminist and contemporary twist on a retro backdrop…" while Tonya Crawford of Broken Frontier said: "For those who love old movies, radio shows, pulps, or simply crime & detective dramas ... A city on the edge of darkness has an angel of hard justice."

The miniseries – which is entirely new material and does not reprint any of the comics produced for the web – is inked by Horacio Ottolini and Mark Stegbauer, with colors by Melissa Kaercher. In addition to covers by Staton and digital painter Alfredo Lopez, Jr., the series will feature variant covers by guest artists Brian Bolland, Phil Hester, Matt Haley and Mike Wieringo.

Femme Noir: The Dark City Diaries will be published by Ape Entertainment in early 2008.

CREATOR BIOS:

Femme Noir was created and is written by Christopher Mills, whose other comics credits include scripting a year's worth of Leonard Nimoy’s Primortals for Tekno•Comix in the mid-90’s; and writing, editing and co-publishing the independent horror series Shadow House. More recently, he was the writer of the highly-acclaimed crime one-shot, Gravedigger: The Scavengers, which was illustrated by artist Rick Burchett, published by Rorschach Entertainment and named "Best One-shot (Adult)" comic of 2004 by Alan David Doane of Comic Book Galaxy, and "Best Crime Noir" comic of 2004 by Andrea Speed of
Comixtreme. Other credits include the graphic novel The Night Driver, which he adapted from a screenplay by John Cork, and a forthcoming Kolchak: The Night Stalker miniseries for Moonstone Books. His website is http://www.atomicpulp.com.

Femme Noir is illustrated by Eisner and Inkpot Award-winning artist Joe Staton, whose numerous credits include such major Marvel & DC characters as the Hulk, Green Lantern, Guy Gardner, Batman, The Huntress, Plastic Man, Scooby Doo, and many others. He illustrated the Paradox Press graphic novel Family Man (written by Jerome Charyn) and is the co-creator (with Nicola Cuti) of the Charlton Comics superhero E-Man and private eye Michael Mauser, as well as DC’s Huntress and The Omega Men. In 1998, he received an Eisner award for his work on World's Finest: The Superman-Batman Adventure.

[Doc Holiday]

This looks very interesting. There are several retro, noir, pulpish characters being published these days, and I am glad.

I haven't seen any of the web comics. I hope Joe Staton's art fits the strip.

[coolmvm]

Nice way for the webcomic to end up at for I was also a fan of the series.

[Dirk Manning]

Another nice addition to an already great line-up on comics by Ape!

Good catch, guys...

[TomWaltz]

Great news! Ape is a fantastic company and Chris Mills and the rest of the FN gang are top-notch talent. Really looking forward to this.

Best,

Tom Waltz

[Wonder Boy]

Oh,. that's awesome!

I hope this sort of revival comes to Marvel as well, so they can resurrect Blonde Phantom.

[Egg]

What I see is nice and I'm looking forward to seeing more!

[reillyd]

Concept sounded good, but if the art is the same as the webcomics.... I don't think I really want to see a transvestite tranny in a fake blonde wig fighting crime. Make him at least LOOK like a woman.

[HouseStark]

This is going to kick ass. I've seen some preview art ... the Bolland cover is friggin' awesome.

[CMills]

The art that was intended to accompany the Press Release:


Issue #4 "A" Cover by Joe Staton & Alfredo Lopez Jr.


Issue #1 "B" Cover by Brian Bolland

[Ryall]

As a guy who's had some association with the strip for years now, having had the good fortune to bring it on to Movie Poop Shoot when I was running the place, I'm really happy to see this finally. I've loved Staton since I was old enough to read comics, and Chris Mills is a great guy and a great talent, too. Nice to see the perseverance pay off.

[JohnPlatt]

I've been looking forward to this for a long time.

And by the way, that Staton cover is amazing!


John

[seanhtaylor]

Chris, that rocks. Congrats, amigo.