Leo Pulp, back to hard-boiled
Author: Claudio Nizzi
Artist: Massimo Bonfatti
Publisher: IDW Publishing (originally Sergio Bonelli Editore)
He vaguely looks like a badly-drawn caricature of the standard movie private eye. He lives and works in a foggy, damp, hot 1940s Los Angeles. His first case involves a guy called Dashiell Chandler. He will charge you “25 bucks per day, plus expenses”. He is not a private investigator: he is THE private investigator.
Written and created by Claudio Nizzi, well known in Italy as one of the most prolific authors of Tex, a series set in the Wild West that seldom fails to sell more than 200,000 copies per month, Leo Pulp brings us back to the heyday of hard-boiled fiction and movies.
Despite the comedic style of the art, Leo Pulp is a pedal-to-the-metal, story-focused mini-series (originally three 94-page one-shots). Alternatively supported and, more often, hindered by his “friend”, the local chief of police Nick Tracy (whom he tends to call Dick), Leo stomps through the city leaving behind him a trail of dead bodies and broken hearts. But, at the end of the trail, there is a solution to the case. And Norma, the owner of his local diner.
The tributes to hard-boiled literature are continuous: in the names of the characters, in the inside-jokes found here and there in the plot, in some details of the art.
Load your pea-shooters and keep your head down: Claudio Nizzi is driving, Los Angeles is shooting back. Intrigues, the lifestyles of the rich and famous, failed actors and screenwriters, serial killers, over-concerned parents, merciless criminal gangs. And Leo’s first-person voice-over, that I dare you to imagine not being gritty and world-weary, accompanying you through the events.
Correlati
IT: Nato e cresciuto a Padova, vive in un villaggio di 1500 anime sulla costa occidentale della Scozia dal 2004. Dopo varie esperienze come manager in diverse aziende, si è dedicato anima e corpo alla traduzione: tra le sue “vittime” annovera Victor Gischler, Allan Guthrie, Tony Black, Ray Banks, Mick Wall, Tim Willocks, Joe R. Lansdale (è solo un racconto ma vale lo stesso) e, dall’italiano all’inglese e con la collaborazione di Allan Guthrie, Matteo Strukul. È stato l’interprete ufficiale del secondo e del terzo festival Sugarpulp. Il suo debutto come autore è una novella scritta a quattro mani con lo stesso Strukul, “Trovate Skuld! Chimera: squadra anti nazi”, pubblicata in eBook nel 2013 da LA CASE books. È un membro (molto poco attivo) del Glasgow Science Fiction Writers’ Circle, e nel tempo libero legge birre e beve libri su YouTube. Inoltre, suona il basso con i Mojo Dodge.
EN: Born and bred in Padova, he lives since 2004 in a village on the west coast of Scotland. After working as a manager for several companies, he dedicated himself, body and soul, to the translation business. Amongst his “victims” are Victor Gischler, Allan Guthrie, Tony Black, Ray Banks, Mick Wall, Tim Willocks, Joe R. Lansdale (only a short story, but it still counts) and, with the precious help of Allan Guthrie, Matteo Strukul. He was the official interpreter in the second and third Sugarpulp festival. His debut as an author is a novella he co-wrote with Strukul, “Find Skuld! Chimaera: Anti-Nazi Squad”, published as an eBook in 2013 by LA CASE books. He’s a (not very active) member of the Glasgow Science Fiction Writers’ Circle, and in his spare time he reads beer and drinks books on YouTube. He also plays bass with Mojo Dodge.
