Created by Henry Barajas & Rachel Merrill
Set against the backdrop of June 1943 Los Angeles, Death to Pachuco is a five-issue comic mini-series (later a graphic novel) from Image worth investigating.
The US has just entered World War II, but tensions — racial, political, cultural, economic — are ratcheting up back home, particularly in Southern California, where hundreds of thousands of Black and Mexican workers are swarming into Los Angeles looking for work, thanks to the war effort, taking over the jobs of workers who had gone overseas (or in the case of Japanese citizens, internment camps).
Meanwhile, 21-year-old private eye RICARDO “RICKY” TELLEZ is on the hunt for someone who may (or may not) be the so-called “Sleepy Lagoon Killer,” named after the east side swimming spot popular among young Hispanics, where 22-year-old José Gallardo Díaz had been found barely alive the previous year, his skull fractured, in the aftermath of a gathering. Díaz died shortly after in hospital, and the cause of death remains unclear to this day — it may have been due to a car accident or simply repeated falls (he’d been drinking heavily).
The LA press had a field day, however, sensationalizing the “murder,” and laying the blame solidly on a “Mexican crime wave,” and the rising Pachuco culture, popular among young Hispanics, which favoured Zoot suits, huge pompadours, and plenty of jazz and R&B, that would eventually result in the LAPD arrest (and subsequent imprisonment) of seventeen young men — all Hispanic – on charges of murder. Ricky’s client is a young Hispanic woman whose twin sister has been accused of being an accessory to the murder.
Meanwhile, a series of increasingly fierce clashes between white US servicemen and young Hispanics are breaking out all over the City of Angels.
Which isn’t making Tellez’s job any easier. Of course, he’s got his own problems, not the least of which is that he’s a junkie living in a dump of an office on 219 Baker Street in the Chavez Ravine area. His slogan may be “I’m the one you call when you can’t call the cops,” but it’s just not a good time to be Hispanic in Los Angeles.
Or to be asking too many questions.
It’s all incredibly well researched, and while the occasionally confusing rough, thick-lined artwork could have been tightened up, the tale itself was fascinating enough that I was prompted to plow through the tons of untranslated Spanish using my iPhone.
Yep, anyone looking some 1940s good Pachuco profanities, come see me.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Henry Barajas is a Latinx author from Tucson, Arizona, best known for his graphic memoir about his great-grandfather Ramon Jaurigue, La Voz De M.A.Y.O. Tata Rambo and Helm Greycastle. He has contributed to anthologies that benefit mass shooting victims and The Southern Poverty Law Center, such as Where We Live and The Good Fight. Barajas is the new author of the long running comic strip , Gil Thorp, about a high school coach. He lives in North Hollywood, where you can find him cycling up Griffith Park.
COMICS
- DEATH TO PACHUCO | Kindle it!
(2025,Image Comics)
5 issues
Written by Henry Barajas
Art by Rachel Merrill
Colours by Lee Loughridge
GRAPHIC NOVELS
- DEATH TO PACHUCO | Buy this book
(2026, Image Comics)
FURTHER INVESTIGATION
- City of Angels, City of Dicks
Los Angeles Eyes
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
