Tag: noir

‘Automata.’

Penny Arcade can stop asking what people want. If they have an idea like this ready to go:

The second concept is Automata, nineteen-twenties crime fiction which unfolds in a time where “machine intellect” has been outlawed. It wasn’t always, certainly, and the problem of what to do with the existing “stock” of fully sentient, mechanical citizens endures. Detective Regal and his stenophone Carl Swangee traverse the margin where these worlds overlap.

…then they can just get on with it, and they can save the third one for later. Don’t get me wrong; Lookouts looks like it’d be fun. But to hell with fun; I want mechanical men noir, dammit.

Moe Lane

PS: Let me put it this way: I would buy this.

They had me at “It’s Shelley meets Chandler.”

(via Ain’t It Cool News, via Nodwick) Mind you, I’ve never read the comic…

“I, Frankenstein” comic morphing into movie

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Director Patrick Tatopoulos, “Underworld” co-creator Kevin Grevioux and Death Ray Films are teaming to bring the comic book “I, Frankenstein” to the big screen.

“I, Frankenstein” is an upcoming Darkstorm Comic written by Grevioux that brings together classic monster characters, including Frankenstein’s Monster, the Invisible Man, Dracula and the Hunchback of Notre Dame, in a contemporary film noir setting.

The Monster, for example, who has evolved and learned how to control his anger, is now a private investigator. Dracula, meanwhile, is a kingpin of crime, and the Invisible Man is a secret operative.

…but I am an absolute sucker for mashups like this, as my enthusiastic embrace of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies might suggest.  Noir works particularly well with horror, as Kim Newman demonstrated with his Chandler/Lovecraftian “The Big Fish” (found in The Secret Files of the Diogenes Club) and Tim Powers sorta-kinda did with his Cold War espionage/urban fantasy book Declare (you will enjoy that book, particularly if you are Catholic).  The image of the Monster dressed in a cheap suit and askew fedora appeals; it has a certain iconic feel to it that I can’t help but respond to.

Hopefully, it won’t suck.