‘Hard Bargain’ Exclusive Preview: Get A Taste Of A New Nasty Horror Noir
Humanoids, the renowned Franco-American publisher, will continue the company’s 50th-anniversary celebration with a Kickstarter campaign for Hard Bargain, a graphic novel from film and TV powerhouse Steven S. DeKnight (Buffy, Angel, Daredevil) and acclaimed artist Leno Carvalho (Dean Koontz’s Nevermore). DeKnight and Carvalho have come together to create a grisly supernatural noir about a P.I. fighting criminals, monsters, demons, and more.
Read the full synopsis:
Battling the forces of darkness is another day at the office for Frank Harding, P.I.—but his current case may just be the one that puts Frank out of business for good. As he investigates a case deeply connected to his own murky past—as well as L.A.’s all-too-real history of prejudice and discrimination—Harding is forced to reckon with the fact that the sins of one generation will always be paid for by the next…
Eric Kripke, creator of The Boys series on Prime, said of the new series, “Steven DeKnight’s Hard Bargain, loaded with hairpin turns, crackling dialogue, humor, horror, and tragedy, is one of the best versions I’ve read. James Ellroy meets Stephen King, with a healthy splatter of Sam Raimi.”
As part of the Kickstarter campaign launch, Dread Central is excited to share an exclusive preview of Hard Bargain below:
DeKnight got his start in the entertainment industry as a staff writer on the groundbreaking television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer before going on to write, direct, and produce on the series Angel, Smallville, and Dollhouse.
He exclusively told Dread Central:
“It’s a razor-thin line separating noir and horror. And often that line disappears completely, as seen in Val Lewton’s masterful producing work on such classics as Cat People and The Seventh Victim. In these, staple noir themes of lust, desire, and murder are all explored in such a classic way that the audience could almost imagine tough guy gumshoe Philip Marlowe being dropped right in the middle of the action to sort things with his wits, fists, and trusty hand cannon. The only solid line between what we think of as noir in the Raymond Chandler detective story sense and actual horror is the additional element of the supernatural or violent, gory extremes often found in the latter. With that in mind, I guess you could call Hard Bargain a horror noir detective tale since these two worlds are entangled at the cellular level of storytelling.”
The Kickstarter campaign runs from July 8 through July 25, 2024, and includes both a deluxe edition and a slipcase edition.
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