Noir, Black Comedy, and Crime
Noir, Black Comedy, and Crime
The works described and analyzed here incorporate features from the noir both visually and in their stories. The first two comics, Tardi’sAdèle Blanc-Sec series and Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s From Hell, alter the conventions of crime and mystery in varying degrees. While the Adèleseries adheres to comics conventions, From Hell weaves several perspectives around the case of Jack the Ripper, bringing in a meta-fictional level that problematizes the very telling of the story. Focusing on mortal superheroes deprived of their powers, Marko Turunen and AnnemariHietanen’sDeath Walks on Its Hind Legs and Jyrki Heikkinen’sDr. Futuroincorporate thenoir elements of anti-heroes and hopeless circumstances. Black comedy, which is already rudimentarily present in Adèle, acquires a more self-reflexive facet in the last two comics by subverting the clichés attached to superheroes and underscoring the fine line between the human and the inhuman.
Keywords: Noir, Jacques Tardi, Alan Moore, Marko Turunen, Jyrki Heikkinen
University Press of Mississippi requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
