The Cabbie: Definitive Edition

Ferrer (1955–2004) combines noir tropes with a distinctly underground comics sensibility in this intense, gritty journey through urban life, considered a classic since its first publication in the 1980s and finally available in a complete English translation. An unnamed cab driver metes out brutal justice against criminals (or those he deems as such; he isn’t too interested in collecting evidence) with a savagery reminiscent of Travis Bickle in the final moments of Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver or any such vigilante thriller about an outraged everyman driven to wage a lone-wolf war against criminals and corruption on behalf of the innocent. Ferrer subverts the trope, depicting his protagonist as driven less by compassion for others than by his own self-righteous moral rigidity and scorn for the lower classes. He presents the action in thick, bold lines and heavy black-and-white contrasts that recall Chester Gould’s seminal comic strip Dick Tracy, with a slightly edgier, grotesque flair, lending a sense of absurdity to the grim brutality on display.