Oni Press unveiled CALAVERA, P.I. – a daring new four-part series coming this November from cartoonist Marco Finnegan (Morning Star, Night People)! On November 6th, walk the shadow-shrouded alleys of Hollywoodland to solve the mystery of Calavera—a newly resurrected private investigator whose first case is about to straddle the blood-soaked boundaries between the living and the dead . . .
In 1925, Juan Calavera died a hero. After a career spent outside the law defending the Chicano barrios where the police refused to operate, he earned a reputation for fearlessness . . . and a gunshot in the stomach. Now, five years later, on Dia de los Muertos, his restless spirit has been summoned from the grave to help a desperate former colleague unravel a kidnapping all too close to home. With only days to solve the case before he is called back to the underworld, can Calavera reveal the identity of the masked human trafficker known as La Fantasma before tragedy strikes again . . . and solve the mystery of his own murder in the process?
“Calavera, P.I. came about for two reasons,” said author Marco Finnegan. ”One, I love film noir/pulp novels and comic strips from the 1930’s & ’50s. Those set in LA I love even more. There’s something about seeing the underside of a town you’re familiar with reflected back at you in black and white or written about in newsprint.
“The second reason is that as I learned more about the history of Chicanos in Los Angeles, the more it nagged at me how none of this history was reflected in those noirs I loved. Occasionally [Raymond] Chandler would have a Mexican driver give Marlowe some hot tip, or the Continental Op would chase a Latino hood in a [Dashiell] Hammett novel, but for the most part, we were erased. So I thought, if I lived during the thirties, what kind of hero would I want to represent me? Thus: Calavera, P.I.
“Originally I wanted to do a straight P.I. story until I saw the drawings of José Guadalupe Posada. One in particular showed a Calavera in a hat having a drink. It was such a noir cliché that I started riffing on that, imagining a Calavera that could be the hero of the ignored and the erased during a time where Chicanos were being deported en masse, blamed for the country’s problems, and being treated as less than their white neighbors. Not much has changed. Calavera was made to be a pulp hero that reinstates the Chicano presence in LA and hopefully honors the pulp/noir heroes of the time in a fresh way.”
Featuring a haunting gallery of covers from the noir-saturated talents of Marco Finnegan (Morning Star, Night People), Ramón K. Pérez (A Tale of Sand), Esteban Sánchez (Cruelty Squad), and J. Gonzo (La Mano del Destino); CALAVERA, P.I. walks where angels fear to tread – in comic shops everywhere on November 6th!
