Calavera, P.I. – An Undead Investigator

A recently resurrected private investigator is hunting for a human trafficker in Calavera, P.I. Written and drawn by cartoonist Marco Finnegan (Morning Star), the four-part series is published by Oni Press. It will be in comic shops in November 2024.

In 1925, Juan Calavera was a hero who protected the Chicano barrios – where the police refused to work – until he was shot and killed. Five years later on Dia de Los Muertos, Calavera’s spirit is summoned by a former associate to help solve a kidnapping. Now, Calavera has just days to learn the identity of masked human trafficker La Fantasma before another tragedy occurs. He might have enough time to solve his own murder as well.

“Calavera, P.I. came about for two reasons. One, I love film noir/pulp novels and comic strips from the 1930s and ’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,” Finnegan said. “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 ‘30s, what kind of hero would I want to represent me? Thus: Calavera, P.I.”

Calavera, P.I. #1 features covers by Finnegan, Ramón K. Pérez (A Tale of Sand), Esteban Sánchez (Cruelty Squad), and J. Gonzo (La Mano del Destino).

“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,” Finnegan said.

The first issue of Calavera, P.I. will be in stores on November 6.