Released 14 June, the series is set in the 1970s and is the result of a writing collaboration between US noir queen Megan Abbott (You Will Know Me) and suspense writer Alison Gaylin (What Remains of Me). Raised alongside her little sister by a single mother, Normandy is now a sheriff out somewhere in small town America. But when Lila, her sister, is murdered in a Washington, DC, hotel room, she sets out for justice. The trail takes her into the city’s shadowy side, with prostitution and seedy politicians to the fore, but this corrupt web might just lead all the way to the White House. It looks like her hunting knife is going to come in handy…
The internal penciling is being done by experienced artist Steve Scott, who already has credits on Batman, X-Men Forever, Justice League of America and The Graveyard Book. Issue one will bring you a choice of covers if you pick it up in the comic shop. Aside from Steve Scott they’re emblazoned with artwork by Fay Dalton, Alex Shabao, Kody Chamberlain and Elias Chatzoudis.
Megan Abbott is a writer more than willing to experiment with various media and tie-ins. One of the first short story anthologies we featured on Crime Fiction Lover was a book based on the computer game LA Noire to which she contributed. We’ve also reviewed The Fever and Dare Me, and she also contributed to In Sunlight and In Shadow. She follows authors like Gary Phillips and Christa Faust from the world of noir into comic books with Hard Case Crime.
You’ll get an idea of how the story starts if you look at the internal artwork below, and we’ve also brought you all the alternate covers. Issue one lands in June, with the first graphic novel compilation coming out in January.
Here’s an internal art sequence from the beginning of the story, drawn by Steve Scott…
Alternate cover by Fay Dalton.
Alternate cover by Alex Shabao.
Alternate cover by Kody Chamberlain.
Alternate cover by Elias Chatzoudis.