Today Fireclaw is publishing a new noir detective comic “Chase”. It is a common Italian-Ukrainian production by Stefano Munarini (screenplay) and Rodion Scherbinin (artist), and of course, the whole Fireclaw team!
Here we offer you to get to know the author, who told us about the history of the creation of this story, and how it happened to be published by Fireclaw.
Stefano Munarini:
“It all started in Italy, back in 1994…
When I started this project, I simply called it “Joe”. That was the time before my works were ever published, and before I knew how to think of naming. But it was a good chance to work with comics and spend some quality time with my friends.
At that time, yet less popular Giuseppe Camuncoli (future famous artist of many characters, including the SpiderMan) liked my idea and even started drawing sketches. And Giovanni Lambertini started making the inks. Then we all left for other projects, and Joe had to go gather dust on the shelves.
A few years later I came back to the idea of bringing Joe back to life. I got other artists, including Marcello Albano, interested in my detective comic. We started from zero. Joe’s face changed with every new artist coming in, along with the title. It didn’t even get the time to be remembered.
In the end, I decided I want to name it “A guy named Joe”, like in the 1943 movie with Spencer Tracy. It would really show the character of my main hero. But then I realized that the name was way too popular. Just for you to understand: Marvel Universe on its own has at least nine similar titles. So, I went on thinking.
This whole process was exciting and painful at the same time. The positive part was that starting all over I thought about every detail over and over. And it helped me to find the key element of my creativity.
After a while, I also came to the style that would be perfect to show the spirit of this noir detective comic.
Noir isn’t an easy genre for a comic. It’s hard to reproduce it in a way that it doesn’t seem trivial, monotonous, or hackneyed. But those who like this genre, know that Chandler, Hammett, and all their followers up to Ellroy, have always filled their stories with humanism, a sense of disorientation, and black humor. And those are finding perfect visualization in hard-boiled detective comics.
In 2012 we have finally finished and published the comic. Sometime later I met Edoardo Lando. But I couldn’t even imagine that that meeting would lead to cooperation with the Fireclaw team.
Even though my comic was of a different genre and style than those usually done by Fireclaw, the idea of drawing a remake excited us.
I decided to rewrite the original story for Fireclaw and its readers. And it was a pleasure to work with my Joe again.
Like I said, previously it took a long time to find an artist for my comic. But the work of my Ukrainian partner Rodion captured my eye after his first trial pages. And he had never done comics before! I am sure we’ll hear more about his works in the future.
Thank you for reading!
In the end, I’d like to share my favorite quote from The Beatles: “Happiness is a warm gun”.
-Stefano Munarini-