THEY STRIPPED RIZZO OF EVERYTHING. NOW HE’S VOWED TO TAKE IT BACK.
Once Rizzo was a legend in the making, a kid from the flats on the way to achieving the dream of becoming a pro basketball player. Until he crossed the Martin family, regional directors of the Merit Party, and wound up on the Chain Gang, facing a slow, cruel death sentence of years of hard labor in service to the very people who stole his life. You worked till you dropped, and when you couldn’t work anymore, you died.
And some died before their time.
But in a world where US elections have been suspended, and the poor are taxed at a rate far, far greater than the rich, Rizzo watches the guards drag two men to their execution for a trivial offence and decides now is finally the time to embrace his plan. He’s going to return to his home town, form a crew of the best people he knows (Dennis, the smartest person ever to attend the flats high school and an expert on electronics, security systems, locks, and surveillance equipment; Mo, the sneakiest person alive and a self-appointed spy, always one jump ahead of the authorities; and Rhino, whose impulsive explosiveness with his unparallelled fists is both his weakness and his strength), and lead a revolution to overthrow the Merit Party. He’s already worked out where to start—by hitting them at their most sensitive point, their money, in an outrageous heist that shouldn’t be possible.
But first, there’s the matter of escaping the confines of his prison. And Rizzo has a plan for that too…
Illustrations by Benjamin Marra
Born in London, England, Ho Che Anderson was named after the Vietnamese and Cuban revolutionaries Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara. Anderson began his career as the author of numerous graphic novels, including KING, a biography of Martin Luther King, the horror thriller, SAND & FURY, and the science-fiction action-adventure, GODHEAD. During this time he also wrote the children’s novel, THE NO-BOYS CLUB. After a two-year stint as a Toronto Star reporter, Anderson embraced a lifelong fascination with filmmaking. He studied film production at the Toronto Film School and Sheridan College, during which he was involved in the production of more than 40 shorts as either DP, camera operator, editor, writer, or director. One of those films, LOTUS EATERS, won best picture at the 2014 TFS Festival of Films and was an official selection at the 2014 ReelWorld Film Festival. Following film school he joined IATSE Local 667 where he worked for several years as a camera assistant on numerous shows including Reign, Taken, and Designated Survivor to further hone his skills. Anderson wrote and directed his first feature in 2018, the supernatural heist thriller, LE CORBEAU, for Canada’s Telefilm, and is currently in development on a second feature with Antigravity Entertainment. He is also hard at work scripting several graphic novels, among them another tale of the supernatural called, THE RESURRECTIONISTS, for Abrams Books.
Benjamin Marra is the creator, writer, and artist of the comics NIGHT BUSINESS, AMERICAN BLOOD, and TERROR ASSAULTER: O.M.W.O.T. (One Man War On Terror), all published by Fantagraphics. Acclaimed writer Grant Morrison chose Marra as a collaborator on the first issue of the relaunched HEAVY METAL Magazine. Marra had two serialized webcomic series appear on adultswim.com. His most recent book is JESUSFREAK, written by Joe Casey and published by Image Comics. In 2016, he was named one of the Art Directors Club's Young Guns. He illustrated the cover of American Illustration 35. In 2017, he was nominated for a Grammy Award for his album art of Wayfaring Strangers: Acid Nightmare, a collection of obscure 1970s post-Age-of-Aquarius Heavy Metal.
