Exclusive Preview of Ann Nocenti's Neo-Noir Thriller Ruby Falls from Dark Horse

Karen Berger’s Berger Books imprint at Dark Horse Comics has been off to an incredible start, featuring acclaimed series like She Could Fly, Invisible Kingdom, and The Girl in the Bay all within the first year and a half of its launch. Now, Berger has again teamed with long-time comics editor Ann Nocenti on Ruby Falls, a mini-series that’s already gaining steaming ahead of its October release.

Weeks before the series is set to debut, Dark Horse has provided ComicBook.com with an exclusive look at four of the book’s interior pages with Flavia Biondi, an Italian artist making her American comics debut on the title. Along with the preview pages, Nocenti’s written a column about her time writing the series, which you can find below.

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“How Things Fall Together
Ann Nocenti

Making comics is a collaborative juggling act. Toss a few balls in the air to see what has enough weight comes back. Some notions are too light, and drift away, others sink into your unconscious and develop on their own, popping back reshaped by dream. Ideas can percolate in the mind for years, only to emerge when the time is right.

Comics seem close to visual poems, or short stories. For my first book for Karen Berger and Berger Books, with artist David Aja, THE SEEDS, the triad of obsession began with journalism, bees, and aliens. The juggling game went on, with both Karen and David batting away some ideas and helping keep others alive.

With RUBY FALLS, the fixations that emerged were memory, caves, and generations. Specifically, how memory is treacherous and we can’t trust it. How old mining town caves were still haunted by secrets from long ago days of bootlegging. And how women carry secrets through generations. As I tossed these ideas in the air, Karen again batted a few away, and helped develop the good ones.

Karen wanted this to be a story made by women, and showed me the work of a remarkable Italian artist, Flavia Biondi. Karen sent Flavia the pitch, which was then called “Shady” in that it was going to be set in a town called Shady, a story spun with the shadowy aspects of a Film Noir. When Flavia’s sketches came back, the story changed. Flavia has an amazing talent for inter-personal dynamics, and the story shifted to be more about relationships. I was in good, gentle hands with Flavia, and could make the story more personal. Flavia’s stunning sketches – the way Blair relaxed in her acrobat’s silks, how Raymond seemed lost in his stacks of research, the fierce look of Lana as the perfect femme fatale, and the signage of Ruby Falls (the town is an important character in the tale), and the fragility of Clara—it was only in the moment when those sketches arrived that the story became real for me.

Other things came into play. I was learning how to tightrope walk, and Blair came into focus as an acrobat, someone who could keep her balance while Lana spun off on precarious adventures. Lana has complicated relationship with the truth, and Blair is the solid tether which keeps their connection strong. I once fell in love with a red dirt town in New Mexico, and placed the mining town of this story in a red dirt town, so that the waterfall could sometimes run red as a metaphor for murders long ago. The story is about a so-called “fallen woman,” and those two things became a red waterfall and the title morphed into RUBY FALLS.

I was also thinking about my elders. Dear friends who were now in their 70s, 80s, and even 90s, and by listening to their fears, I became concerned about the issues facing humans during the end of their journey on the planet. The end stretch of the road brings forgetfulness, nostalgic, and curiosity about how their lives, memories, and actions had shaped them. Did life turn out how you expected it to? If not, have you made peace with your fate? By listening to my elders, Blake, Greta, Clara and Marty Byrne began to take shape.

I have mostly written super-hero comics. With super-heroes, you owe a debt to the creators that went before you and what the character represents. You are being handed an icon with deep history, a ready-made foundation for stories. Writing THE SEEDS and RUBY FALLS for Berger Books was more like being in freefall. There is no one better to have with you in that freefall state than Karen Berger. I am so grateful to her, and to her team – Richard Bruning’s wonderful design work, Sal Cipriano’s delicate lettering, Lee Loughridge’s lush colors, Rachel Boyadjis’s expert help with the details of the silks acrobatics, the team at Dark Horse, and of course, the dazzling work of Flavia Biondi.

I hope you enjoy our little tale of murder and memory.”

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Keep scrolling to see four preview pages from Ruby Falls #1, due out October 2nd.