Diaz Canales - Juanjio Guarnido: Blacksad (Somewhere Within Shadows + Artic Nation)

Blacksad is a comic album series created by Spanish authors Juan Díaz Canales (writer) and Juanjo

Guarnido (artist), and published by French publisher Dargaud. Though both authors are Spanish, their main target audience for Blacksad is the French market and thus they publish all Blacksad volumes in French first.
The Spanish edition usually follows about one month later. The first volume, "Quelque part entre les ombres" (literally "Somewhere between the Shadows", but simply called Blacksad in the US), was published in November 2000.
The second volume, "Arctic-Nation", was published in 2003 and the third, "Âme Rouge" ("Red Soul"), was published in 2005.
An English translation of the third volume was delayed due to the bankruptcy of its North American publisher, iBooks.
In 2010, Dark Horse Comics published all three translated volumes as one volume.

 
JUAN DIAZ CANALES

At an early age, Juan Díaz Canales became interested in comics and their creation, which progressed

and broadened out to include animated films. At the age of 18, he entered a school for animation.

In 1996 he founded, together with three other artists, a company called Tridente Animation. Through this, he has worked with European and American companies, providing plots and scripts for comics and animation films, as well as directing animated television series and animation movies.

JUANJO GUARNIDO

Juanjo Guarnido (born 1967) is a Spanish illustrator and the co-author of the comic book series

Blacksad. Guarnido collaborated on several fanzines and produced work for Marvel Comics.
Unfortunately, the small size of the Spanish market forced him to turn to other means of earning a living. In 1990, he left Granada and moved to Madrid, where he worked on a TV series for three years. There he met Juan Díaz Canales, with whom he discussed producing comics. In 1993, Guarnido applied for a job with the Walt Disney Studios in Montreuil, France and consequently moved to Paris.
He was the lead animator for the character Sabor in the Disney film Tarzan.
After Guarnido left Disney, he reconnected with Canales.

SOMEWHERE WITHIN THE SHADOWS

Blacksad investigates the murder of the famous actress Natalia Willford, whom he used to be involved with

 – first as a bodyguard, then in a more intimate capacity.

His first inquiries lead him to Léon Kronski, a screenwriter and her last known lover, who has disappeared.

He finds Kronski already dead and buried under the pseudonym Noel Krisnok.

After Blacksad is severely beaten by two hired thugs,

 the police arrest him.

Smirnov, a police commissioner, explains to Blacksad that because of "pressure upstairs" he himself cannot investigate the matter any further. 

Smirnov offers him a deal, advantageous to both sides.

As Blacksad returns home, a goanna hitman and a rat goon attempt to kill him and each other. 

Blacksad shoots the rat, 

interrogates the dying goanna and finally uncovers the culprit of the whole affair: 

Ivo Statoc, a frog, the richest and most powerful businessman of the city, who considers himself above any law.

Statoc shot the actress himself because of her infidelity. 

After brutally infiltrating the office suite at the top of his skyscraper,

Blacksad confronts the completely calm and cold-blooded Statoc – who first offers him a job, and later a bribe. 

Blacksad rejects both offers as a matter of principle and shoots Statoc in the head. 

The police arrange it so it appears to be a suicide.

ARTIC NATION

This volume deals with inter-racial violence and racial segregation of the 1950s in a pseudo-American suburb called The Line. The book also obliquely addresses issues of economic depression, sexual repression and perversion, all intended to expose the social malaise and prejudice that exist beneath the apparently harmonious surfaces of communities.

Observing the aftermath of a lynching on a city street, 

Blacksad meets his future sidekick, Weekly (a least weasel). 

Blacksad initially rejects him due to his unpleasant smell and obnoxious behavior.

It is revealed that Blacksad is working for an old elementary school teacher, Miss Grey, who has asked him to search for a young girl named Kaylie. 

Miss Grey believes that Kaylie was kidnapped by Arctic Nation, a racist political organization.

After befriending Weekly, Blacksad is harassed in a bar by three Arctic Nation members.

Their leader, Huk (a white Arctic fox),

turns out to be a close friend of the local police chief, Karup (a polar bear).

Blacksad and Weekly are taken before Karup, who himself is revealed to be with Arctic Nation.

Blacksad confronts Kaylie's mother, Dinah, who has mysteriously failed to report her daughter's disappearance. 

He suggests an affair between herself and the son of Oldsmill (a white tiger), a rich white socialite, but doubts this lead when Dinah takes offense at the insinuation. 

Blacksad and Weekly cross paths with a violent black power organisation called the Black Claws, which were originally accused of Kaylie's abduction. 

They force Weekly to publish a statement denying their involvement in the kidnapping. Blacksad decides to meet Oldsmill, but discovers that Oldsmill's son is mentally handicapped and thus unlikely to have had an affair with Dinah.

Meanwhile, Weekly investigates the activities of Karup's wife, Jezabel, and discovers that she is having an affair with Huk. 

She also has an emotional meeting with Dinah, who appears to blackmail Jezabel by threatening to reveal 'what she knows'.

This compounds suspicion on Karup, who is already rumoured to be a paedophile.

When Blacksad returns to Dinah's apartment, he finds out that she has been murdered. 

Suspecting Karup of the killing, Blacksad directly confronts him with his suspicions and reveals Jezabel's affair with Huk. 

In consequence, Karup attacks Huk and argues violently with Jezabel; during their tête-à-tête, it comes to light that they have never had sex.

At the violent climax, a black magpie called Cotten – who has been complicit in Kaylie's abduction against his will –

 leads Blacksad to an Arctic Nation meeting, located in a derelict war factory. 

There, Kaylie and Weekly – himself kidnapped by Arctic Nation – are hidden. 

Blacksad saves Weekly after Huk betrays and hangs Karup,

 supposedly for kidnapping and child abuse. 

As the factory burns and Cotten is killed by Huk,

Blacksad rescues Kaylie and Weekly. 

Later, he finds Huk dead in his garage, stabbed in the eye with a screwdriver.

Blacksad corners Jezabel after Karup's funeral, 

proving, through a matching birthmark, that she is Dinah's twin. 

Jezabel reveals that Karup was her father, and had left her black pregnant mother to die after being turned by Oldsmill's racist doctrines. 

Fueled by revenge, Jezabel ascended white society under a false identity, eventually marrying Karup.

With Dinah hired as their maid, Jezabel seduced and manipulated Huk, using him to carry out the fake kidnapping and implicate Karup. 

However, Huk killed Dinah to ensure her silence, 

leading Jezabel to kill him in kind.

Blacksad meets with Miss Grey and compliments her on her dedication towards the neighborhood's children. 

After the two say goodbye, Blacksad finds Kaylie sadly staring at him, 

and he stares back sadly as well. The book concludes by highlighting Kaylie's innocence and her ultimate abandonment, but her fate is not made clear.

[There are probably some discrepancies between publications. Cotten is also seen as Hewitt, Kayleigh as Kaylie, and some versions of the book end with Blacksad scattering Cotten's (Hewitt's) ashes to the wind over Las Vegas, fulfilling his last wish.]