‘Los Monstruos’ TPB (review)

Written by James Robinson
Art by Jesus Merino
Published by Dark Horse Comics
Available 1/6/2026

I have to say, it was definitely the creative team that brought me here to read this.

I have long been a fan of James Robinson as a writer and I do enjoy his work very much. He’s written some really great comics like Starman and Firearm and I always give anything that he does a chance.

That goes the same for artist Jesus Merino who I feel is sort of an undervalued and under appreciated comic book artist. Everything that he does is solid.

If you put either of these creators on a book then I am going to try it out. But having them both together?

Now that is something to really be excited about.

So what is the story of this book?

Well, it is something that feels like it was torn right out of a Hammer horror film. It also has a good sense of film noir in it. It feels as though the creative team took these two things and mixed them together for good effect. This book takes place in an alternative version of the 1950’s in the fictional city of Los Monstruos (a good stand in for the city of Los Angeles). Of course, all of the population is made up of monsters and creatures of myths. We get to see a good view of how this city works right from the get go. We then start meeting some of the major characters of this book.

The main character is a werewolf who is also a private eye named Perry Cutter.

Perry is known for going after cases that nobody else is willing to. This has gotten him into all sorts of trouble, and has given him a reputation. When we first meet Perry, it is in the middle of an exciting chase scene. He is chasing a gillman who had kidnapped a child. We quickly get to see this resolved. We also get to see what kind of werewolf Perry is, and the lengths they he will go to complete a job.

This sets up the series and it is a nice introduction to the main character.

It establishes the world pretty concisely. The whole narrative is  all done with characters and environment. We get to see all of this set up before the plot starts kicking in.

Once it does, Perry finds himself in quite an interesting set of circumstances. He may not end up surviving them, in fact.

A human man comes to him with a job.

He wants Perry to help him find his vampire lover. Perry decides to take the case. He figures what the hell, a job is a job, right? Except when he starts investigating and looking deeper, he quickly discovers that it is anything but that.  He starts to find himself in over his head in pretty short order as well and in a lot more crazy trouble than he might have bargained for.

Throughout the book, we are constantly learning new things about Perry.

We find out some bits about his past, and how he ended up where he is today. It is all very intriguing and well handled. We also get to meet Rosie, who works at his favorite diner. Rosie is a waitress at the diner and she is actually a vampire!

Perry has a crush on her as well and it turns out she has a crush on him too! Their relationship and chemistry really makes the book shine. I smiled a few times during the interactions they had and I was definitely rooting for them. We also get to see a “Frankenstein” kind of cop that Perry goes up against. It is fun also to see their interactions and to see the animosity between the two of them.

The character development is what James Robinson excels at and this book has that in spades. The characters are great and the dialogue is top notch. The art by Jesus Merino is incredibly detailed and beautifully done. It is a lovely book to look at. I enjoyed every aspect of this book and the world building in it is really great.

Hopefully there will be more forthcoming adventures with this comic. It is certainly a strong read and highly entertaining.

RATING: A-