Crime noir takes center stage in First Degree: A Crime Anthology from comic publisher Humanoids. Screen Rant has an exclusive preview of this comic volume collecting short comics from POLAR Festival. This festival celebrates the thriller genre in film, television, comics, theater, and literature and now fans can take home some of the best visual stories the festival has to offer.
Festival POLAR de Cognac is an annual three-day festival in Cognac, France hosted in October. This year it will be held from October 15th to 17th. In celebration of the festival's twenty-fifth anniversary, some of the best comics are being gathered into a Humanoids anthology for comics fans to enjoy. POLAR is named after polar, which is a French term for the thriller genre. This festival began in 1996.
First Degree: A Crime Anthology is a compilation of crime comics written by some of the best writers in the genre, particularly French creators, like Frédéric Brrémaud and Pierre Taranzano. In France, comics are called la bande dessinée and the creators included are part of this global storytelling tradition that has taken many forms and names. Below is the self-contained story, "Premeditated" by Sydney Duncan, J.P. Mavinga, and Tom Napolitano, as a preview to the volume. Check it out:
A woman lures her husband and his secret lover to an abandoned house. Something sinister is happening inside the convent. A chef commits the perfect murder. In this anthology, a collective of almost thirty authors from all over the globe propose a collection of short crime noir stories that celebrates the genre as well as boldly leading it into the future.
The preview from Humanoids above tells the story of a woman with a fear of the world who winds up the victim of a murder - which was her own that she witnessed before it happened. Many more surprise twists and tales of thrilling crime and horror can be found within this volume. Tom Napolitano, who is part of the creative team for "Premeditated," has also lettered comics for DC Comics. David F. Walker - also included in this volume - wrote Shaft for Dynamite Comics. Jeanne Puchol - another featured artist - was part of the creative team for Red Poster from Europe Comics - a non-fiction graphic novel about Marcel Rayman - a Polish Jewish youth whose face is on infamous propaganda posters from when the Nazis occupied France.
This anthology also includes work from Michael Lark, Dave Stewart, Simon Bowland, Sydney Duncan, J.P. Mavinga, Tom Napolitano, Thierry Lamy, Pierre Taranzano, Brrémaud & Jean-Yves Segura, Oliver Jolivet, Carole Porche, Jean-David Morvan, Borris, Philippe Hauret, Séra, Jean-François Miniac, Alain Paillou, Catherine Moreau, Rémy Roubakha, André Le Bras, Éric Liberge, Didier Daeninckx, Mako, Raule, David Charrier, Luc Brahy, Éric Le Pape, Sébastien Corbet, David Morancho, Moutch, Facundo Percio, Algésiras, Servain, Nicolas Pothier, Yannick Corboz, Jim MacDonald, d-pi, Dan Curtis Johnson, Mark Vigouroux, Fred Le Berre, and Corentin.
Bernard Bec, organizer of the POLAR Festival says, "We love discovering new works. Our greatest reward is when award-winning artwork starts in Cognac because closed doors have been opened. This is why the opportunity presented to us in 2018 by Humanoids and its editor Bruno Lecigne - to create an anniversary comics anthology - felt like a continuation of our work and a way to preserve the fruits of our efforts. They deserve infinite thanks, as do the creators whose works appear herein, alongside new and classic stories added to this American edition."
This is a must-read volume for fans of not just the thriller and crime genres, but also of international comics. First Degree: A Crime Anthology from Humanoids releases August 3, 2021.