A Look Into The Deep Dark Depths Of Stephan Franck’s Palomino

Stephan Franck, storyboard artist on Spider-Verse and Despicable Me, supervising animator on The Iron Giant and What If, and director of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is returning to his ardour mission Palomino, a neo-noir graphic novel collection set within the misplaced tradition of Los Angeles’ nation music golf equipment.

He wrote concerning the first quantity for Bleeding Cool in May 2020 when he was Kickstarting the primary quantity, and it was a convincing success. Three years later he’s crowdfunding the second and third volumes of Palomino collectively. He has eight days to go. And here is an unique take a look at that second quantity…

“Palomino follows the neo-noir, slice-of-life adventures of a man on thin ice,” mentioned Franck. “Eddie Lang is a former Burbank PD detective, who’s a private investigator by day and a working musician by night. In the new volumes, Eddie dives deeper into the murder case of a former TV actress and quickly finds himself uncovering too many deadly truths. Meanwhile, his old-soul teenage daughter Lisette just might be even more hard-boiled than her father. Lisette’s frustrated by her father’s refusal to reopen her mother’s cold case and she decides to begin her own investigation. What could possibly go wrong?”

Set in Los Angeles within the 12 months 1981, Palomino is ideal for followers of mysteries, onerous boiled dialogue, music, lived-in slice-of-life, and Los Angeles’ bizarre and forgotten historical past. The American Century is working on fumes, however the finish is not anyplace in sight. The cowboy remains to be America’s most central image—and from films, to music, to the President himself, all of it hails from Southern California. Across LA, six nights per week, working musicians, TV actors, stuntmen, cops, hustlers, and damaged souls all play their half within the cultural delusion making. Most of them are simply attempting to outlive—on the B-side of the City of Angels. This is Palomino — the place Farrah Fawcett hair reigns supreme, the place Ronald Reagan is starting his first time period as President, and the place LA’s hottest music spot is North Hollywood’s historic Palomino Club. Back in 2020, almost 700 Kickstarter backers supported Palomino on Kickstarter. The collection has acquired widespread accolades:

• “Palomino sits alongside Sin City, Stray Bullets and other hard-boiled classics while singing with an original, uniquely authentic voice. Lived-in, brutal, mature…this is comic book noir at its best.”—Zeb Wells (Amazing Spiderman, Hellions, Robot Chicken)
• “A fantastic comic! Highly recommended.”—Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth, Black Hammer)
• “PALOMINO continues in the best tradition of gripping crime comics… Anyone who happens to be a fan of mysteries with hard-boiled dialogue and historical significance shouldn’t miss PALOMINO.” — SCREENRANT
• “Stephan Franck has the unusual gift of being a great writer and an even better artist. When I read Palomino, I did it in one sitting and then went back to read it again, this time taking my time enjoying the simple graphic beauty of this amazing collection. It’s simply a thing of beauty.” —Jimmy Palmiotti (Harley Quinn; Starfire; Painkiller Jane)
• “With page one, Stephan Franck hooked me with his noir-styled use of line and shadow. As the story unfolded, I found myself transported to a seedy world full of jaded yet funny, colorful characters all out for something and willing to use violence to get it. Oh, and did I mention PALOMINO is set in L.A.? More please.”—Shawn Martinbrough, artist of Thief of Thieves, writer of How to Draw Noir Comics: The Art and Technique of Visual Storytelling
• “Fans of the Coen Brothers will dig what Franck does in PALOMINO–he’s created a gritty noir in a corner of time and space that some would overlook as inconsequential. Instead Franck draws and writes characters that leap off the page–you can almost smell the beer and denim.”  —Marco Finnegan, author/artist of the forthcoming Lizard in a Zoot Suit and artist of CROSSROAD BLUES: A NICK TRAVERS GRAPHIC NOVEL
• “A dark, moody piece that’s rife with colorful characters and a killer setting, Stephan Franck’s PALOMINO is the rare noir that nods to all of the genre’s recognizable tropes but also crafts something new, memorable, and chilling. Enjoy the ride.” —Alex Segura, acclaimed writer of Secret identification, The Black Ghost, and the Pete Fernandez Miami Mystery novels
• “Strap on your western belt buckle for this ride through the other side of Los Angeles. Stephan Franck’s knowledge of place and well-wrought characters echo long after the last page turn. Like in all great noir, the ghosts are knocking, and Franck’s surefire world building is a whiskey-soaked, Honky Tonk tune of longing for an unreachable past.”—Jonathan Lang, acclaimed writer of Meyer
• “PALOMINO reads like Spielberg took a cowboy story and wrapped it in noir. Jagged dialogue and sharp art take the reader into a story about dangerous people, high schoolers, and a world weary PI.  A great, fun read.”—Dave White, writer of the Shamus Award Nominated Jackson Donne collection
• “Well hot damn. To quote the great Bob Wills, the King of Western Swing, ‘AHAHH!!’ What makes a great and engaging narrative for me is frequently the synergy of character and place, of mise en scene…and to be blunt, Stephan Franck, in his new book, PALOMINO, delivers on those fronts in spades. His people, populating a beautifully depicted, too rarely examined piece of real estate in 1980s Los Angeles, are familiar and real, without ever becoming archetypes. To be clear, it’s been at least a decade since I’ve taken such unalloyed pleasure in reading a comic book. Trust me on this.” —Howard Chaykin, legendary creator of American Flagg
• “From the first panel, Palomino is a full-immersion buffet for the eyes, the soul, and yes, even the ears. You can hear the music rising up from the page. A propulsive mystery wrapped in a unique 1980’s noir Los Angeles that I never wanted to leave, Palomino is a masterwork of comics. It really is that good.”—David M. Booher (GLAAD-Nominated author of Canto, Firefly, Killer Queens, and Dungeons & Dragons)