Category: Noir Style
Bahner's Hand-Colored Femmes-Noir.
German photographer and photo-artist Bertram Bahner may be better known in some circles by his "Kim Anderson" brand name, which he used for a long running series of charming hand-colored black & white children's photos, popular in posters, prints and licensed to greeting cards. Born in 1959, Bahner originally worked in advertising and fashion photography, his sometimes provocative black & white images catching the eye of Verkerke Reproukties, a Dutch art print, poster and greeting card conglomerate. By the mid-1990's, Bahner had begun photographing his own children, hand coloring the prints (a truly dying art now in a digital photography/Photoshop era) and moved to Switzerland to pursue that work full-time.
But his distinctive hand-colored work graces some wonderfully neo-noirish images from his earlier advertising, editorial and fashion work, like these shown here. 'Femmes Fatales' indeed, and a visual reminder of how brimmed hats are such an integral part of femme-noir iconography.
Walker's Back.
Loren D. Estleman's latest Amos Walker mystery series novel When Old Midnight Comes Along was released right before Christmas, but I didn't get my hands on a copy till a week ago. While it's possible I've missed one or two Amos Walker novels (possible, but unlikely), there are almost thirty of them, so I probably ought to do a careful check of the full list…just in case.
If you're a hard-boiled detective fiction fan, an Amos Walker novel is like coming home to a beloved and familiar place. If you're foolish enough to be taking a whack at writing hard-boiled or noir-ish crime fiction yourself, then a tour of Walker's Detroit mean-streets are must-read tutorials. The writing feels effortless, though I'm sure it's not, and Estleman consistently manages to rival Raymond Chandler when it comes to snappy banter and vivid descriptions. The Motor City private eye's a bit older here, aging pretty naturally in each book, and his not-a-friend but not-a-nemesis Detroit PD detective John Alderdyce's retired and working for a hi-tech security firm now (and not liking it one bit). Walker's hired by a high-profile political fixer to locate the man's wife. Or, verify that she's deceased, seeing as she's been missing for nearly seven years. With only months to go before she can legally be declared dead, and a million dollar life insurance policy on the table, our beloved P.I. naturally wonders why the bigwig doesn't just wait it out, particularly since he originally was the prime suspect in the wife's disappearance. But as you'd assume, the plot thickens. Quickly.
I devour mystery and crime fiction, but admittedly, not because I love whodunits. If I did, I'd read more cozies (which I rarely do), which are really the realm of the great locked room mysteries, authentic trails of clues and genuine puzzlers. But it's never been about the 'mystery' for me, and instead, all about enjoying dark and dangerous rides through noir-ish settings riddled with crime and corruption, populated by good guys with an edge and bad girls with an agenda, the final resolution of 'the crime' relatively unimportant to me. Well, there's no one better to guide you through those dark netherworlds than Loren D. Estleman and his grim, gritty, wisened and wise-cracking Amos Walker. But in this case, I found myself uncharacteristically ensnared by the novel's mystery, naively thinking I'd figured out everything about halfway through, only to discover I had it all wrong (and I mean completely and totally wrong).
It'll be a wait for the next Amos Walker mystery. But in the mean time I can cross my fingers that Estleman hasn't given up on his Valentino, Film Detective series. A little more light-hearted, perhaps, and only five novels so far, but I really, really wish there'd be another. Please.
She Could Be "The Stiletto Gumshoe"…
So well composed and deceptively simple looking, this piece by UK artist Mike Redman is almost as much a graphic design as it is an illustration. I think it always catches my eye because it reminds me so much of my own in-progress work on 'The Stiletto Gumshoe', Sharon Gardner (real name Sasha Garodnowicz) described as "more comfy atop a barstool than behind a receptionist's desk".
This art pops up frequently at Pinterest, Tumblr and random blogs…it'd be nice if Redman's name accompanied the image more often…
The Landlady
"Landlady" from 1961, by west coast beat-scene and proto-hippie counterculture chronicler Wallace Berman (1926 – 1976). Let's guess she had some troublesome tenants, seeing as how she's taking a nap with a revolver in hand.
More Than Barbarians (If Given A Chance).
Several cult-fave illustrators like Frank Frazetta, James Bama or Basil Gogos, will always be linked to SF/Fantasy and Horror. Even moreso with Boris Vallejo, known almost exclusively as a fantasy artist, with infrequent forays into movie poster work (though even those were clearly assigned to capitalize on his fantasy style).
Boris Vallejo was born in Peru in 1941, started painting at age 13 and got his first paying work at only 16. He attended the Escuela Nacional Superior Autonoma de Bellas Artes on a five-year scholarship, then worked locally for a few years before emigrating to the more lucrative U.S. marketplace in 1964. The U.S. is also where Vallejo met his partner and, ultimately, wife-to-be, Texan Julie Bell, a fellow fantasy artist with her own considerable rep, though in recent years she's been transitioning into an award-winning wildlife painter.
Yes, we know Boris Vallejo for sword-wielding nearly-naked winged fantasy femmes. But seeing what the master illustrator could do with other subjects makes me wish he (and others among the comics and fantasy art scenes) took a crack at crime/pulp/noir subjects more often. I've previously shown Vallejo's cover art for Lee McGraw's 1976 hard-boiled private eye novel Hatchett (link below and an image above), and this post also shows "At The Door" from 1994 (below) and an intriguing bit of pencil work from 1967 at the top. There's almost a familiar hint of Robert McGinnis or Ron Lesser evident in that sketch, and I'm liking it.
I'll always appreciate the skill employed by so fantasy artists' elf maidens, aliens, angels, demons and warriors, even though the SF/Fantasy genres aren't my thing. But when I see those talented illustrators' work, it makes me wish that more would take a closer look at the thugs, gumshoes, femmes fatales and midnight lovers lurking in the noir shadows.
https://thestilettogumshoe.tumblr.com/post/188674058874/just-a-few-years-too-early-perhaps-lee
The Mic's Art, Not The Book.
Oh, Orrie. Another 'shattering novel of a nymphomaniac'. I can guess how Orrie Hitt's 1962 Love Thief goes, having read my share of Hitt's novels, and I'll wager this is one of those postwar paperbacks boasting a cover that's way better than the book itself. The art's often listed here and there as uncredited, but is attributed to Clement Micarelli in some locations. Well, I'm going with that.
Nicknamed Mic to family and friends, Micarelli took his first Rhode Island School of Design figure drawing class at age 12 in 1941, and vintage paperback and retro sleaze enthusiasts have treasured some of his late 1950's illustration gems for years since. The artist passed away at age 79 in 2008.
A Direct Hit.
Ah, the seventies: Indulgent drugs and disco-decadence…and Dior. Model Lisa Taylor's shot by Chris von Wangenheim (that is, unless she shoots first) for Christian Dior sunglasses in 1976.
More From Leder's "Fire Walk With Me".
The remaining images from Jonathan Leder's 2010 Vice magazine shoot, "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" with models Amelia Gilliam and Brittany Nola. See the preceding post for the opening images…
Leder's "Fire Walk With Me".
It's beloved by some, reviled by others: David Lynch's 1992 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is a follow-up (a prequel, more accurately) to the ABC 1990-91 TV series Twin Peaks. As for me, I'm in the often-puzzled but still intrigued camp when it comes to David Lynch, typically glued to the screen but left unsettled or even disturbed by some of the sequences and visuals. (Okay, and occasionally groaning at some of the 'artistic' self-indulgence.)
Woodstock, New York filmmaker and photographer Jonathan Leder was presumably intrigued as well, as evidenced by his 2010 shoot for Vice magazine titled "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me", styled by Anette Lamothe-Ramos, with models Amelia Gilliam as Sheryl Lee's Laura Palmer and Brittany Nola as Moira Kelly's Donna Hayward.
See the next post for the remaining images…