I knew I probably wasn't going to love this going into it, but it is really well researched. All the information in the back makes me appreciate it more. My biggest problem was that although the illustrations are great, I honestly couldn't tell many of the characters apart from each other.

Solid noir detective story. I like the art, but I tend to prefer grittier styles. Bonus it comes with further reading. Great beginners guide to Hollywood in the 1930s.

Missed this series when it was going monthly, but caught up with the trade. Really well-researched and well-written. Love the way Harvey expands the world with every issue. Murder plot can get a bit lost, but otherwise really strong.Full review here: http://thepopbreak.com/2017/08/21/rev...

A good noir tale set in the golden era of Hollywood. Pretty well researched and real life characters make an appearance, but the effect is diminished by confusing art work that makes some characters indistinguishable. But overall a goodread, and the short sections at the end about some incidents from that era adds value.

Solid noir with (almost) excellent art. I was left a little baffled by the unnecessarily large number of characters at the end (and the fact that they all looked basically the same), but most of the loose ends were tied up in a satisfying manner. The liberal usage of real-life characters felt a little shoe-horned. I appreciated the history lessons in the end papers, but I'd rather see straight fiction or straight non-fiction.

This is an outstanding graphic novel. Jane Harvey mixes the best elements of 1930s Hollywood film noir and true crime fiction into a very sophisticated and enjoyable whodunnit. Harvey appears to draw upon her background writing Batman comics with strong female characters to create Dolores Dare, a would-be Hollywood starlet from the midwest who becomes an unlikely mob enforcer to make ends meet. When her friend from "back home" turns up dead in a dumpster and the corrupt LAPD will not investigate...

There will always be opportunism around the cool of Noir: lesser talents grabbing the most obvious visual aspects of the style while neglecting the themes and tone. That is NOT the case with this book. This book is True Noir. The gorgeous colorful artwork has little to do with flat expressionistic shadows -although some shadows are just a Lang dream like in the cover for book 5-, the hardboiled gumshoe guy is neither -our hero is a beautiful enforcer for the mob dressed to the nines named Dolore...

It's ambitious to try to cover this ground in a short graphic novel. James Ellroy took a few novels in a cycle to tell a similar tale. So it doesn't really cover new territory, but it does put it all into a graphic format that is fun and PG rated. My main complaint is that the characters are all drawn in a style that makes it really difficult to tell them apart. The Japanese guy looks like the mobsters who look like the Latinos, etc.

I am probably going to be Dolores Dare for Halloween this year. I love her so much. I don't care that it's only January, Dolores deserves cosplays and Halloween costumes!Dolores is not your average aspiring starlet. She's tired of being a cigarette girl, and when she gets goosed on the job and reacts by beating the guy up, she wins a job as the local mob boss' newest enforcer--and his girlfriend. But Dolores' best friend just turned up dead, and Dolores can't just leave her murder alone, especia...

I loved this for what it was, just a gangster story. The art is impeccable and perfect for a noir feel without a full noir style. I love the cross of fictional and real gangster history. It was interesting and okay with blood but not unnecessarily gory. It’s nothing to write home about in terms of doing something spectacular but it does a beautiful job of doing exactly what it set out to do.

I adored this Film Noir romp. It is an enjoyable - if not terrible original - story of a wannabe starlet, her photographer maybe boyfriend and various bad guys. I think my favorite part were the write ups at the end... or maybe it was her motorcycle...

When you think of noir stories, you think of stereotypical tough guys and loose women—gun molls, prostitutes, hat check girls—passive, dumb, sidekicks, sex objects. Of course there is a long history of women detectives, and even a pretty long history of lesbian detectives, helping us rethink and rewrite the classic true crime western stories as told by James Ellroy and others of Bugsy Siegel and the “Ice Cream Blonde,” the Black Dahlia, and “Girl 27.” Historically, these are largely women-as-vic...

I feel like I need to already know the story to follow what’s going on. All the gangster drama, it’s really hard for me to tell who’s who since all these white dudes look the same. Which gangster is doing what? I have no idea unless they’re named on the page.

This could've been really cool - Old Hollywood, a murder, the mob - there were a lot of really appealing elements in this one. Unfortunately, ALL OF THE CHARACTERS LOOKED THE SAME. Like, seriously. I couldn't tell them apart. And in a story with a ton of characters told in a graphic format, that's pretty important. It made it reaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllly hard to follow the story, which I think I would've otherwise liked. The story also felt a bit rushed - instead of being told in 5 issues, i...

Angel City: Town Without Pity by Janet Harvey is one of those small print publications that will be missed by alot of comic book fans and that is too bad. Every so often step back to that one comic book wall in the store that few people frequent and check it out. Oni Press has a good one here and it is crime noir, Hollywood style. SummaryDolores Dare is a tough skinned blond that has tossed aside her dreams of stardom and settled into the seedier side of Hollywood. She uses her beauty, her brai...

I gave the book 3 stars mostly for what it tried to do. It was ambitious project to take the classic LA crime noir story and flip the narrative so that the female characters drive the story. However, the story felt rushed. At times we jumped from scene to scene where I felt like I missed something. The story may have benefited from more chapters/space to let the story breathe and develop more naturally. Plus, the characters designs was poor. With the exception of Joe and Gino Volante, every char...

Pure unabashed Hollywood noir that can swing with the best of them but with important modern messages that still need to be told.

Enjoyable noirish old Hollywood tale. I enjoyed it. The art of people's noses really bothered me, though. Not sure why.

Really a good story, loved the artwork by Megan Levens and the story by Janet Harvey. Really well done