A folk hero returns from the dead to solve a kidnapping in Calavera, P.I, a four-issue miniseries coming from Oni Press later this year. Marco Finnegan writes and draws the story of Juan Calavera, a private investigator who defended the Chicano barrios in Los Angeles until he was murdered — but on Dia de los Muertos, he returns to continue his mission.
“Calavera, P.I. came about for two reasons,” Finnegan said. ”One, I love film noir/pulp novels and comic strips from the 1930s and ’50s. Those set in L.A. 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.“
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