The Fade Out #6 and Velvet Volume 2 Out Today, and a Noir City Cover Story.

A brief post to note two new arrivals at your local comics retailer -- and an extensive look at noir comics in a nationally published e-magazine.

The Fade Out #6 is out today, continuing Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' sprawling look at Hollywood's Golden Age and its seedy underbelly.  The issue evidently focuses on former child star "Flapjack" Jones, who has been a very minor character up to this point, and Comic Book Resources has just released a five-page preview. 

Also out is Velvet Volume 2: The Secret Lives of Dead Men.  Ed Brubaker's other project is his spy comic with Steve Epting, for which the second trade paperback collection reaches stores today.

Noir fans will also be interested in the spring issue of the Noir City e-magazine, published the Film Noir Foundation.  The non-profit foundation is dedicated to preserving America's nor heritage, and to that end it organizes the yearly Noir City film festival in San Francisco, publishes a quarterly e-magazine, and produces an annual that collects much of the magazine's content in print. (UPDATE, 6/2:  added a direct link to the magazine.)

The spring issue of their magazine, issue number 15, focuses on comics, with features on The Spirit, Batman in the 1970's, and Batman: Year One.  The issue's cover story is an extensive interview with Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, which concludes with a list of Brubaker's five favorite noir films.

The magazine's cover uses Phillips' striking cover art from "The Last of the Innocent" #3, and the interview discusses both Criminal and The Fade Out, calling the latter the best noir currently being produced, "a spellbinding, richly evocative murder mystery set in Hollywood at the height of the film noir era."

The issue is available, along with a full year's subscription, to those who join the foundation's mailing list and contribute a donation of $20 or more.