Balloonist of Bleeker Street
A Graphic Novel

About this book:

In the smoke-choked bullpens of 1974 Manhattan, Leo Drake makes his living squeezing words into balloons—two dollars a page, no credit, no royalties, just the steady *scritch* of a Gillott nib on Strathmore board. He's a letterer, the invisible hand that gives voice to caped heroes and jungle girls, until a routine job for Atlas-Triumph Comics reveals something that shouldn't exist: microscopic, mechanically perfect text gouged into the gutter margins of the original art. *OCT 28 PIER 41 MANIFEST 109 NOT COPPER.* The message is drafted with the same precision Leo uses every day, but it's not in the script. It's not on the schedule. And it names a dead editor.

When Leo asks questions, the only answer he gets is a warning to stay off the Brooklyn docks. But the trench cut into the paper fiber doesn't lie, and the rain-slicked streets between Bleecker Street and Red Hook are full of men who trade in secrets heavier than ink. As the press deadline looms and the rotary cameras prepare to shoot, Leo realizes he's not just lettering a comic anymore—he's the only one who can read the story hidden between the panels.

*Balloonist of Bleeker Street* is a love letter to the analog craft of comics and a noir thriller where the clues are measured in thirty-seconds of an inch. For anyone who's ever wondered what lives in the white space between the action, this is the story of the man who puts the words in the balloons—and what happens when he finds a message that was never meant to be printed.