Creating a New Noir Atmosphere: Talking with Alexandre Tefenkgi, Artist Behind “The Good Asian”

Alexandre Tefenkgi is a freelance French comic book artist whose artistry speaks for itself. Currently working on many Image projects, his latest endeavor is bringing the noir crime thriller, The Good Asian, to life.

BlackNerdProblems: What would your elevator pitch for why folks should read The Good Asian? Alexandre Tefenkgi: They should read the first because it’s a good mystery book, good detective book, and it takes place really interesting era, and the way it’s written is really entertaining. BNP: How did the collaboration process with your writer go? How were the script handoffs, and how did you translate some of his stuff from words to the page? AT: Here we are in a really precise time period, so when I received the script, I also received a folder with Pornsak’s research and documentation about the architecture and the fashion of the time and a lot of what is going to be needed for the pages. Then, I extended that with my own research with Google and Pintrest and whatever I could find to help with the job. BNP: What are some of the challenges of illustrating a noir comic as opposed to say like a sci-fi series like your other on-going series, Outpost Zero? AT: Of course, it’s different, but I didn’t make a u-turn with my art. I just tweaked my style to match the project. I wanted to be fairly authentic to the noir, but I wanted to keep my style and I didn’t want to use too much black or too heavy atmosphere. I wanted to keep the expression, the facial expressions, a…