Femme Noir

Femme Noir is a crime comic about a mysterious female vigilante/detective who stalks the mean streets of Port Nocturne, the Dark City of every film noir and hardboiled crime pulp; a city of cold, gray fog, unrelenting rain, and deep, ominous shadows.

It’s a town populated by duplicitous dames and grim gunmen, ruthless racketeers and greedy gangsters, corrupt cops and parasitic politicians. It has more than its share of hardboiled private eyes and enemy spies, plucky girl reporters and pug-nosed ex-boxers, mad scientists and crackpot inventors, cunning cat burglars, slick grifters, stone-cold hitmen, killer robots, vengeful jungle girls, walking corpses and even a talking gorilla or two.

Port Nocturne: where each night seems to last forever, the sharp scent of gunpowder lingers in the air like cheap perfume, every black alley comes to a dead end… and justice is blonde.

The Femme Noir comic began as an online feature of the now-defunct Supernatural Crime website in 2001, and also appeared on the Thrilling Detective website and filmmaker Kevin Smith’s Movie Poop Shoot. The character subsequently made her print debut in a four-issue comic book series, The Dark City Diaries, from Ape Entertainment in 2008.

The trade paperback collection of Femme Noir: The Dark City Diaries won the Spinetingler Magazine Award for Best Graphic Novel of 2009.

Praise For Femme Noir:

“It hits you like a kick to the solar plexus, or a pistol shot hours into your worst hangover.”
– USA Today

“…a hardhittin’, tough talkin’ dame who’s nobody’s sweetheart. If you like your thrills hardboiled and your action neat, then check this one out…”
– Chuck Dixon
Detective Comics, Birds Of Prey

“Femme Noir is a .45 caliber fueled ride into the dark heart of the city in the arms of a nightmare blonde who’d just as soon kill you as kiss you. Christopher Mills and Joe Staton have given us a stunning new take on the noir landscape. Femme Noir is as hard hitting as a psycho wielding a baseball bat”
– Paul Bishop
Author of the Fey Croaker LAPD novels

“Christopher Mills and Joe Staton’s Femme Noir is a tasty stir fry of pop culture touchstones: The Spirit, Batman, The Shadow, Black Mask, Dime Detective, Raymond Chandler and about a zillion RKO B-films; the perfect meal for those of you not getting enough good old high-fiber pulp  in your diet.”
– Kevin Burton Smith
Thrilling Detective

“It’s as tough as nails from a fully automatic nail gun. It hits you fast, hard and nails your eyeballs to the page.”
– Beau Smith
Comics Bulletin