The True Spirit Of Comic Noir

Unfortunately, although comic books rarely get the acknowledgement deserved for creating a certain visual aesthetic, in what I see as dichotomy on the influence of noir, much like Caravaggio, early comic books with their dramatic strengths appear to have influenced the noir formula. The medium itself is not often attributed with such - but I have always believed it to be template.

                     Gould to The last drop.

In 1931, the square-jawed sleuth Dick Tracy would grace himself in the Chicago Tribune proving that comic books surely had a sacrosanct relationship with the crime-fiction genre, which was actually a good 10 years before the medium of film noir would commence. Inspired from Chester Gould's iconic character, the public were simply going ga-ga for  G-men and gangsters - which would be the new black of its day. And it would not take long before Citizen Kane, ahem, William Randolph Hearst would want a piece of that.

And indeed that came to fruition The King of the King Features Syndicate urged his staff to embark on a crime themed comic strip - and who did he appoint, but none other than Dashiell Hammett himself - to pen the strip. There wasn't a writer alive who would deny Hearst - and so it was written. In 1934, Mr Hammett started working on Secret Agent X-9. Dashiell would earn 500 smackaroos weekly just for this - and believe you me, in 1934, 500 dollars was no small beans! The partnership would only last for two years before Hammett would become underwhelmed by the project,however he would still have creative input on Red Barry.

During the 1940s and 50s, irrespective of the scrutiny of the Orwellian censors at the time, which would ultimately lead into those famed Senate hearings about comics' violence in the 1950s, crime related comic books were quite a popular phenomenon. The art in question was relatively tame by today's standards, the noir motif was evident, but the tone would be a far cry gentler than the more prurient and gratuitous noir inspired comics in the 1980s and in the present day.


At best, comic noir is a provincial sub-genre, though often the narrative and visual innovation is impressive. With the lax censorship of this day, much blacker territory is explored and exploited than the contemporaneous works of the 1940s and 50s. Will Eisner has been referred to as the Citizen Kane of the comic book world. His inventive and pioneering strip that featured a cop-cum-masked crime-fighter, would make its presence known in 1940. This was actually the same year that film noir made its proper debut (Stranger on The Third Floor).


While noir didn't exactly serve in the genesis of Will Eisner's signature effort, he was indubitably drawing from the same precise influence. Eisner's technique paralleled the thematics of German expressionist films. After World War II, film noir's contribution to The Spirit would become that much more transparent. Eisner would deliberately darken his backgrounds, hence his layouts appearing as if they were cinema themselves. There would be a heightened precariousness, a feeling of danger, and a world of the unknown. And more pointed yet, would be the introduction of a flock of femme fatales to vex the protagonist, all respectively duplicitous and impervious heartbreakers, with their sirenesque wiggles. This would be most noticeable in P'Gell, who was the spit of Jane Russell, and who had an affinity for losing husbands in the most violent ways plausible. The Spirit would achieve a level of greatness for which both creator Eisner and the comic itself have become legendary.