Chance in Hell

A three-act story following the life of a young girl adopted out of a hellish slum by a decent man. She eventually marries a kind, well-to-do man, but finds that she can’t escape the darkness and violence she left behind.

Gilbert Hernandez’s first original graphic novel from Fantagraphics follows on the heels of his acclaimed graphic novel, Sloth, from DC’s Vertigo Comics in 2006. Chance in Hell tells the story about a little orphan girl who lives in the slum of slums. Nobody knows who she is or where she’s from, but her fellow shantytown inhabitants collectively look over her. The three-act story follows our heroine as she is adopted by a decent man who raises her well, and she eventually marries a kind, well-to-do man, only to discover that she can’t relate to the good life and the comforts it provides.

This is the first in a series of standalone stories depicting the fictional filmography of Gilbert’s Love and Rockets character, the B-movie actress Fritz. Hernandez wowed critics in 2003 with his epic work, Palomar, collecting more than 20 years of groundbreaking comics called “the most substantive single work that the comics medium has yet produced,” by Booklist. Chance in Hell further establishes Hernandez as one of the great cartoonists of our age.