DASHIELL HAMMETT (1894-1961), is the unquestioned master of detective-story fiction in America, and is universally recognized as a literary pioneer of the highest distinction. Among his many works of noir fiction are Red Harvest (1929), The Dain Curse (1929), The Maltese Falcon (1930), The Glass Key (1931), and The Thin Man (1934).

HANS HILLMANN (1925-2014) was a major German graphic artist and illustrator; he is best known for designing 130 film posters between 1953 and 1974 for Neue Filmkunst, the film distribution company that introduced the films of Bergman, Buñuel, Antonioni, Goddard, Eisensten, and Fellini to German audiences. Hillmann's posters won many design awards and were featured at national and international exhibitions. With the demise of the film distribution company, Hillmann conceived of doing a graphic version of Hammett's Fly Paper.

ART SPIEGELMAN was cofounder/coeditor of RAW, the acclaimed magazine of avant-garde comics and graphics, and has been a staff artist and contributing editor at The New Yorker. He is the author of Maus (winner of the Pulitzer Prize and twice nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award), Breakdowns, and In the Shadow of No Towers. He lives in New York City with his wife, Françoise Mouly.