Category Archives: HARDBOILED CRIME

Catching up with crime comics – Texas edition

Posted on November 3, 2022 by I.M. Baytor

As I’ve been catching up with crime comics from the past year or so, one thing that struck me is the fact that Texas is currently one of the main recurring settings in the genre. This may be … Continue reading →

Posted in HARDBOILED CRIME | Tagged Chris Condon, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, horror, Jacob Phillips, Jason Wordie, Joe Palmer, Lonnie Nadler, Rory McConville, Sami Kivelä, That Texas Blood, Undone by Blood, western, Write It In Blood, Zac Thompson | Leave a comment

Catching up with crime comics – part 2

Posted on April 20, 2022 by I.M. Baytor

Welcome to another round of quick impressions about recent crime comics! If your definition of crime fiction accommodates horror-like gore and sadism, then these are exciting times, as serial killers remain a very popular trope (although by now everyone uses … Continue reading →

Posted in HARDBOILED CRIME | Tagged Andrea Mutti, B. Clay Moore, Daniel Hillyard, Dave Stewart, Doug Wagner, Ed Piskor, Elliott Kalan, horror, Laura Martin, Rubine, Stephen Molnar, Terry Moore, Tyler Boss | Leave a comment

Catching up with crime comics – part 1

Posted on April 7, 2022 by I.M. Baytor

In the past decade, the small screen has excelled in engrossingly dramatizing capitalism, from the inner workings of corporations in Mad Men, Succession, and Halt and Catch Fire to the parallels – and connections – to organized crime in Better … Continue reading →

Posted in HARDBOILED CRIME | Tagged Alfonso Font, André Lima Araújo, Bastien Vivès, Brian Buccellato, Casey Gilly, Chip Zdarsky, Chris O'Halloran, Elsa Charretier, Florent Ruppert, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, Hayden Sherman, Jacob Phillips, Jerome Mulot, Kurt Ankeny, Matt Fraction, Matt Hollingsworth, Max Bertolini, Nadia Shammas, Olivier Schrauwen, politics, Rick Remender, Ricky Mammone, Rus Wooton, Soo Lee, Ziyed Yusuf | Leave a comment

On Jennifer Blood

Posted on February 17, 2022 by I.M. Baytor

Longtime readers of this blog know that I have an unhealthy fascination with fucked up vigilante comics that go into odd directions, so perhaps you won’t be surprised with my choice of devoting an entire post – probably one of … Continue reading →

Posted in HARDBOILED CRIME | Tagged Adriano Batista, Al Ewing, Dearbhla Kelly, Declan Shalvey, Eman Casallos, Fred van Lente, Gail Simone, Garth Ennis, Hannah Elder, horror, Igor Vitorino, Jennifer Blood, Joëlle Jones, Johnny Desjardins, Jonathan Lau, Kewber Baal, Marcos Marz, Mike Carroll, Molly Mahan, Nancy A. Collins, Peter Cannon, Punisher, Red Sonja, Romulo Fajardo Jr, Sergio Dávila, Steven Grant, Tim Bradstreet, Vincenzo Carratù, Vincenzo Federici | Leave a comment

Top 12 foreign-language film noirs

Posted on October 21, 2021 by I.M. Baytor

When I ranked my top 50 noir thrillers last month, I only included movies spoken in English. It was an easy way to curb the size of the list. However, this type of gritty, atmospheric crime stories has found an … Continue reading →

Posted in HARDBOILED CRIME | Tagged Cold War, movies, noir, politics, World War II | Leave a comment

Gotham Calling’s top 50 film noir

Posted on September 15, 2021 by I.M. Baytor

Today is Gotham Calling’s seventh anniversary! I usually mark these occasions with a compilation of fifty images from Batman comics, showcasing the Dark Knight kicking people in the head or breaking through windows. Since the blog’s identity has been shifting … Continue reading →

Posted in HARDBOILED CRIME | Tagged Alfred Hitchcock, Cold War, Frank Miller, Graham Greene, movies, noir, politics, The Spirit, World War II | 4 Comments

COMICS CAN BE AWESOME (19 October 2020)

Posted on October 19, 2020 by I.M. Baytor

One of the games going around since the beginning of the pandemic involves people recommending old movies that have acquired renewed resonance in these Covid-19 times – not necessarily because they presciently captured today’s reality, but because some of their … Continue reading →

Posted in HARDBOILED CRIME | Tagged covers, Crime Must Pay the Penalty, Crimefighters, Dick Tracy, Frank Giacoia, Jim McLaughlin, Joe Orlando, Joe Simon, Justice Traps the Guilty, movies, noir, Ray Fehrenbach, The Spirit, Will Eisner | Leave a comment

10 noir short stories

Posted on September 10, 2020 by I.M. Baytor

Given the ongoing heated discussion over police reform and how to rethink public safety, I guess this is an appropriate occasion to highlight one of my favorite genres: crime fiction. As far as comic books go, although there were precedents, … Continue reading →

Posted in HARDBOILED CRIME | Tagged Abe Kanegson, Al Feldstein, Alan Moore, Bernie Krigstein, Bill Gaines, Carl Wessler, Cold War, Crime SuspenStories, David Baron, Frank Miller, George Evans, Greyshirt, Jack Kamen, Jack Oleck, Jamison, Jim Wroten, Johnny Craig, Johnny Dynamite, Jules Feiffer, Marie Severin, movies, noir, Pete Morisi, politics, Reed Crandall, Rick Veitch, Shock SuspenStories, Sin City, The Spirit, Todd Klein, Tomorrow Stories, Will Eisner | Leave a comment

A couple of old-school detective novels

Posted on June 11, 2020 by I.M. Baytor

Because I also like books without pictures, this week let’s switch gears for a bit and look at a couple of very cool non-comics detective novels: THE MASK OF DIMITRIOS (Eric Ambler, 1939) “A Frenchman named Chamfort, who should have … Continue reading →

Posted in HARDBOILED CRIME | Tagged books without pictures, Eric Ambler, espionage, noir, politics, Ross MacDonald | 1 Comment

On The Spirit’s title pages – part 2

Posted on April 23, 2020 by I.M. Baytor

The Spirit (v2) #3 I tend to be quite distrustful of attempts to update Will Eisner’s The Spirit. Because most creators cannot begin to match Eisner’s experimentalism, the appeal ends up being little more than the curious, nostalgic exercise of … Continue reading →

Posted in HARDBOILED CRIME | Tagged Alan Moore, Aluir Amancio, Bill Sienkiewicz, Bob Q, Dan Schkade, Daniel Torres, Daniel Vozzo, Darwyn Cooke, David Hine, Francesco Francavilla, Fred van Lente, Gail Simone, Hilary Barta, horror, J. Bone, Jared Fletcher, Jeph Loeb, John Paul Leon, Mark Evanier, Mark Schultz, Mark Waid, Matt Wagner, Moritat, noir, Paul Smith, Phil Hester, Rob Leigh, Sergio Aragonés, The Spirit, Will Eisner | Leave a comment