Deer in the Headlights is a high-speed collision between a graphic novel and a traditional thriller. Imagine a 112-page crime novel with raw, primal language and art scrawled out onto cocktail napkins. It’s a story about booze, guns, drugs, cops, hookers, mobsters, thieves, and an unemployed cartoonist who gets tangled up with all of them.

The assignment was a slap in the face. A car slams into an out-of-work artist at 2am and veteran NYPD Detective Abe Marion gets stuck with the case. But the more Marion pokes around the less he understands, and what started as a simple hit-and-run quickly produces a dead body, a bunch of angry thugs, and some uneasy higher-ups within the New York City Police Department.