Death to Pachuco #1 // Review
June 3rd, 1943. Los Angeles. A movie theatre. It’s not a good time to be a Mexican. Things are getting ugly. There’s a newsreel running about the importance of wool for the war effort. There are a few sailors in attendance. They single out a few latin guys. Maybe they really ARE angry about the zoot suit fashion. Or maybe they’re just reacist. Wither way, a fight breaks out at the beginning of Death to Pachuco #1. Writer Henry Barajas opens a whole new historical action series with artist Rachel Merrill and colorist Lee Loughridge. It’s a compelling look at an overlooked part of life on the home-front during World War II for a subset of the US population.
The man hands a woman his business card. “Detective Pachuco Agency” He certainly looks the part: huge suit. Huge wide-brimmed hat. Very classy-looking. She asks him if he’s police. He tells her that he’s the guy when you CAN’T call the cops. He tells the woman in question that LAPD hauled-in hundred of Mexicans. All in one day. Not exactly the sign of a great police force. Actually it kind of sounds like desperation. THat’s not a good sign.
Brarajas takes the traditional idea of a private investigator in Los Angeles and move it into decidedly more political territory that it often covers. The classic hard-boiled detective story gets a splash of life around the edges that feels remarkably refreshing. There's more than enough personality to launch this beyond the traditional confines of 1940 Detective thriller. It's cool to see the way it comes together on the page. The ensemble of characters seems interesting enough to carry itself through a potentially very long and winding mystery thriller.
Merril babe is the page in inks. It's a very shadowy world. As sunny as LA is, this is clearly more of a mood for nights and dusks and odd hours. Theoretically the protagonist could have been a little bit more flashy. Could I worked a little bit more visually striking. That was the whole idea of the zoott suit after all. Historically, speaking anyway.Merril prefers to focus on subtlety and shadow and his rendering of opening an chapter that is fused with a substantial amount of mood thanks to the work of colorLee Looughtidge. There's some very sharp work being done on the page. It’s very sharp stuff.
There’s a lot of potential in this series. There could be a great deal of focus on the Latin American struggle in the 1940s. This could theoretically be really, really interesting in its own right. However, even if it's just a superficial element of things moving forward. It could be really cool to see the traditional hard-boiled detective story told from a slightly different perspective. And, of course, there's always the potential of it going in a completely different direction that might even a draw on some fantasy elements. Theoretically, that could be handled in the way it wouldn't be at odds with everything that's managed to make it into the first issue. The first issue with such a nice launching point for that sort of things.
