See also
- Black Dahlia
- For the James Ellroy novel, see The Black Dahlia (novel)
- For the film adaptation of the novel, see The Black Dahlia (film)
| The Black Dahlia | |
|---|---|
| Date | June 7, 2016 |
| Main characters | Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert, Lee Blanchard, Kay Lake |
| Page count | 176 pages |
| Publisher | Archaia Entertainment |
| Creative team | |
| Writer | Matz with David Fincher |
| Artist | Miles Hyman |
| Letterer | Deron Bennett |
| Editor | Sierra Hahn |
| Original publication | |
| Published in | Casterman |
| Issues | Payot & Rivages |
| Date of publication | November 13, 2013 |
| Language | French |
| ISBN | 220304568X |
The Black Dahlia: A Crime Graphic Novel is a graphic novel adaptation of James Ellroy's novel The Black Dahlia , by Alexis Nolent and David Fincher, and illustrated by Miles Hyman. [1] Originally published in 2013 in French [2] as Le Dahlia Noir, it was published in English in June 2016, by Archaia Entertainment, a division of Boom! Studios.
Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert celebrates his first day at the Warrants division of the Los Angeles Police Department, a prestigious position where most police in Los Angeles dream to work. He is teamed up with Leland "Lee" Blanchard, as he was a former boxer. He also meets Kay Lake, a woman who lives with Lee, but doesn't have an intimate relationship with him. The three form a "fairy tale triangle."
In January 1947, they begin to investigate a murder as horrible as publicized: that of Elizabeth "Betty" Short, nicknamed "The Black Dahlia" found dead and mutilated in a vacant lot.
Bucky and Lee's personal and professional lives begin to unravel as the investigation continues. They both become obsessed with Elizabeth Short. Bucky discovers that Lee's celebrated case—"The Boulevard-Citizens Bank Robbery"—was actually orchestrated by Lee. It was an attempt to frame Bobby DeWitt, Kay Lake's pimp at the time, and to save Kay from the violent DeWitt, who scarred Kay's body with a knife.
In the course of the investigation, leads in the murder case point to Mexico. Lee heads there alone, and eventually Bucky follows him to Mexico as well, because of the length of Lee's absence. Bucky finds Lee murdered, in a site used to dump bodies.
Returning to Los Angeles, Kay reveals many truths about Lee Blanchard's life, as well as hers. Despite this, Bucky and Kay marry May 2, 1947.
Bucky begins to deteriorate over the years, but successfully solves Elizabeth Short's murder. Kay has left him at this point because Bucky has become obsessed with Elizabeth Short. Bucky is fired from the LAPD because of his own conduct. Bucky receives a letter from Kay, informing him she is pregnant, postmarked from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Bucky leaves for a flight to Boston, Massachusetts, to reunite with Kay. [3]
Miles Hyman used charcoal drawings in The Black Dahlia. Each page contains three comic strips, an idea proposed by Fincher. [4]
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times , Matz, one of the two co-authors of the book, described the process of adapting the original novel into the comic book medium. He stated he did not originally start the script in French, but in English. He also said James Ellroy had to approve the script, stating "If he didn’t approve it, the graphic novel was killed. Simple as that." He mentioned how he had known David Fincher from when Fincher was going to adapt Matz's series, The Killer , into a film. Fincher was also previously attached as director to the film adaptation, but had left the project to direct Zodiac . Matz said Fincher's input was "very valuable" and "Having him onboard made a big difference." [2] [5] [6] [7]
The Black Dahlia: A Crime Graphic Novel received mostly favorable reviews. An article from Nerdgeist said "This book is further reason why graphic novels are not just for kids, it’s mature, dark and a real gripping read, that does its source material more justice than the film ever did and helps keep alive the memory of someone that died all too young in an all too horrific manner." [8] ComiXology gave it 4 out of 5 stars. [9] An article by 20 minutes stated, "As captivating, neat and dense as the novel is, this graphic version enjoys an incredible combination of know-how. It would be surprising that it does not box in bookstores." [10] Le Figaro wrote "The authors have fully understood, and the case Betty Short has not finished to upset the souls, thanks to the masterful reinterpretation of Fincher, Matz and Hyman." [11] A review from Forces of Geek praised the graphic novel adaptation, saying "The three together condense the novel into a visual form that exceptionally captures the tone and style of the best noirs without ever feeling derivative or referential. They are handling one of the biggest stories in noir folklore and one of the biggest noir novels of the last 30 years, which is a heavy task, but they achieve in so many places where the film failed." [12] Larry Harnisch, a former writer for the Los Angeles Times , critiqued the graphic novel for "compressing and compacting" the source material of Ellroy's 1987 novel, as well as "exposing many weaknesses that aren't apparent in the original book", real life historical inaccuracies, artwork appearing stiff and clunky, and difficulty in telling characters apart. [13]
Lee Earle "James" Ellroy is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a telegrammatic prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, staccato sentences, and in particular for the novels The Black Dahlia (1987) and L.A. Confidential (1990).
The Black Dahlia (1987) is a crime fiction novel by American author James Ellroy. Its subject is the 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short in Los Angeles, California, which received wide attention because her corpse was horrifically mutilated and discarded in an empty residential lot. The investigation ultimately led to a broad police corruption scandal. While rooted in the facts of the Short murder and featuring many real-life people, places and events, Ellroy's novel blends facts and fiction, most notably in providing a solution to the crime when in reality it has never been solved. James Ellroy dedicated The Black Dahlia, "To Geneva Hilliker Ellroy 1915-1958 Mother: Twenty-nine Years Later, This Valediction in Blood." The epigraph for The Black Dahlia is "Now I fold you down, my drunkard, my navigator, My first lost keeper, to love and look at later. -Anne Sexton."
Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia, was an American woman found murdered in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, on January 15, 1947. Her case became highly publicized owing to the gruesome nature of the crime, which included the mutilation and bisection of her corpse.
My Dark Places: An L.A. Crime Memoir is a 1996 book, part investigative journalism and part memoir, by American crime-fiction writer James Ellroy. Ellroy's mother Geneva was murdered in 1958, when he was 10 years old, and the killer was never identified. The book is Ellroy's account of his attempt to solve the mystery by hiring a retired Los Angeles County homicide detective to investigate the crime. Ellroy also explores how being directly affected by a crime shaped his life - often for the worse - and led him to write crime novels. The book is dedicated to his mother.
The Black Dahlia is a 2006 American neo-noir crime thriller film directed by Brian De Palma and written by Josh Friedman, based on the 1987 novel of the same name by James Ellroy, in turn inspired by the widely sensationalized murder of Elizabeth Short. Starring Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Aaron Eckhart, and Hilary Swank, the film follows two Los Angeles Police Department detectives investigating Short's murder, leading them through a series of shocking discoveries. Mia Kirshner, Mike Starr, Fiona Shaw, John Kavanagh, Rachel Miner, and Rose McGowan appear in supporting roles.
The Black Dahlia is a nickname given to 1940s murder victim Elizabeth Short.
The Big Nowhere is a 1988 crime fiction novel by American author James Ellroy, the second of the L.A. Quartet, a series of novels set in 1940s and 1950s Los Angeles.
White Jazz is a 1992 crime fiction novel by James Ellroy. It is the fourth in his L.A. Quartet, preceded by The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, and L.A. Confidential. James Ellroy dedicated White Jazz "TO Helen Knode." The epigraph for White Jazz is "'In the end I possess my birthplace and I am possessed by its language.' -Ross MacDonald."
Boom! Studios, is an American comic book and graphic novel publisher. They are headquartered in Los Angeles, California, United States. The company is a subsidiary of Random House division of Penguin Random House since September 2024.
The L.A. Quartet is a sequence of four crime fiction novels by James Ellroy set in the late 1940s through the late 1950s in Los Angeles. They are:
Archaia Entertainment, LLC, commonly known as Archaia, is an imprint of American comic book and graphic novel publisher Boom! Studios.
Alexis Nolent is a French writer. He writes scripts for video games and has also written a novel and, under the pen name Matz, a number of comics.
Iconology Inc., d/b/a ComiXology, was a cloud-based digital distribution platform for comics owned by Amazon, with over 200 million comic downloads as of September 2013. At its height it offered a selection of more than 100,000 comic books, graphic novels, and manga across Android, iOS, Kindle Fire, Windows 10, and the Internet. In 2023, the ComiXology app was officially retired and the material was made available exclusively on the Amazon Kindle app.
JFH: Justice For Hire is a mixed martial arts themed entertainment property that encompasses a series of comic books, films, videos, music, and animations. The JFH story follows two sons of a duo of vigilante fathers who get their family's hero-for-hire business legalized, spawning a worldwide industry of heroes, villains, and mercenaries for hire dubbed the Retribution Industry. Produced and published by Creative Impulse Entertainment, JFH remains one of the first examples of transmedia storytelling in the comic book industry.
Creative Impulse Entertainment is a transmedia production company founded by Jan Lucanus in 2003. With the company mantra "Intrigue, Entertain, Inspire Social Change", CIE bills itself as a home for artists that create content across multiple forms of media. CIE's production portfolio encompasses comic books, film, video, animation, music, and games, with subsidiaries dedicated to each craft.
Perfidia is a historical romance and crime fiction novel by American author James Ellroy. Published in 2014, it is the first novel in the second L.A. Quartet, referring to his four prior novels from the first L.A. Quartet. Perfidia was released September 9, 2014. A Waterstones exclusive limited edition of Perfidia was released September 11, 2014, and includes an essay by Ellroy himself titled "Ellroy's History – Then and Now." The title, Perfidia, is Italian for the word perfidy, and is also the name of the big band song, Perfidia.
Stephen Christy is an American film and television producer, entertainment executive, and former graphic novel editor. He is the President of Development at graphic novel publisher Boom! Studios, where he oversees Boom!'s first look deals with Disney/20th Century Studios and Netflix. He was formerly editor-in-chief at Archaia Entertainment, where he won two Eisner Awards, as the editor of Jim Henson's Tale of Sand and Return of the Dapper Men.
True Confessions is a noir novel by John Gregory Dunne and published in 1977. The novel was inspired by an actual event, the 1947 Black Dahlia murder.
The following is a list of unproduced David Fincher projects in roughly chronological order. During his career, American film director David Fincher has worked on a number of projects which never progressed beyond the pre-production stage under his direction. Some of these projects fell in development hell, were officially canceled, were in development limbo or would see life under a different production team.
Miles Hyman is an author and illustrator best known for his graphic novel adaptation of Shirley Jackson's short story The Lottery, called Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery": The Authorized Graphic Adaptation.
This book is further reason why graphic novels are not just for kids, it's mature, dark and a real gripping read, that does its source material more justice than the film ever did and helps keep alive the memory of someone that died all too young in an all too horrific manner.
As captivating, neat and dense as the novel is, this graphic version enjoys an incredible combination of know-how. It would be surprising that it does not box in bookstores.
The authors have fully understood, and the case Betty Short has not finished to upset the souls, thanks to the masterful reinterpretation of Fincher, Matz and Hyman.
The three together condense the novel into a visual form that exceptionally captures the tone and style of the best noirs without ever feeling derivative or referential. They are handling one of the biggest stories in noir folklore and one of the biggest noir novels of the last 30 years, which is a heavy task, but they achieve in so many places where the film failed.
But compressing and compacting the plot to the spare dimensions of a graphic novel exposes many weaknesses that aren't apparent in the original book.
Works by James Ellroy | |
|---|---|
| Stand-alone |
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| Lloyd Hopkins Trilogy |
|
| L.A. Quartet |
|
| Underworld USA Trilogy |
|
| The L.A. Quintet |
|
| Short story collections |
|
| Non-fiction |
|
| Original screenplays |
|
| Film adaptations |
|
