Calvario Hills Vol. 1 (Ignatz Series)

Back in the 1980s, American comics aficionados were bowled over by the hardboiled Chester-Gould-on-crack stylings in the graphic novel The Cabbie courtesy of Spanish cartoonist Marti (who also made mind-blowing appearances in several anthologies, including RAW). Now, after a long drought, Marti is finally back in the U.S.A. with a vengeance in the all-new "Ignatz" title Calvario Hills. The eponymous main story, set in a not-very-fictionalized American big city that mashes together elements of Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Washington D.C., is a conspiracy fantasia in which the sinister NRA (spearheaded by Charlton "Preston") is attempting to sabotage the election to mayor of Marion "Parry," while an imprisoned gangster kingpin, working the other side, schemes to enlist an army of crackheads to put him over the top. Can you say... "entrapment"? The back-up is the first chapter of an all-new "Cabbie" story in which our naively heroic protagonist's fare turns out to be the disgraced President of the nation; the Cabbie, loyal to the end, tries to assist him in his flight out of the country, with the help of the Cardinal who's said to have the inside track on being the next Pope... but an out-of-control gay parade, a garbage truck, and an infestation of lice abort the escape in a most disagreeable fashion.