Ballroom Dancing And Crime Noir Are Dance Partners in Bang!Tango this February

Vinnie’s years working in the New York mob have faded from memory, and now he’s the best tango dancer in San Francisco. Then Autumn, the one who broke Vinnie’s heart, blows into town to pull him into one last heist—robbing the mob boss who wants Vinnie dead. Autumn will be able to pay for the gender reassignment that will make her the woman Vinnie’s always wanted.

“I’d never tried a crime book before, but knew that if I was going to go there, I was really going there,” said writer Joe Kelly. “The characters in Bang!Tango aren’t just broken, they’re shattered. They are also complicated, sexually provocative, over-the-top and on occasion… even a bit redeemable. But this is a crime noir… no one really gets out clean, do they?”

“Bang!Tango is one of my more offbeat comic children, and I love every twisted bit of it,” Kelly added. To Kelly, Bang!Tango deconstructs crime genre archetypes, and redefines the roles of the Tough Guy and the Femme Fatale. And while it creates the seamy and sordid atmosphere of the crime genre, it twists the conventions of the form as it exhibits them.

In 2009, Vertigo published an earlier rendition of this tale, but artist Adrian Sibar has given the new edition a face lift. Unlettered preview pages appear below. The Image edition of Bang!Tango can be pre-ordered now, and arrives February 11th at comic shops and February 24th at quality booksellers.