Pariah Redux

In a modest Manhattan walk-up, a group of survivors are on their last legs. As the end seems nigh, a teenage girl is spotted on the avenue, not only alive but repelling the undead like Moses parting the Red Sea. When she comes to their aid questions of who, what and why she’s immune to attack arise.

Almost like a play, this single location-centric story features a strong cast of archetypal, yet fully fleshed-out, distinct, characters. The artist; the young widow; the elderly couple; the bros living a new normal, for one of whom it’s also finally living his truth; the country boy who’s turned his back on his faith only to have it return in earnest. And the mysterious stranger that arrives as their savior, only to confound them, even as she complies with their ever-increasing impositions. PARIAH sets the classic zombie tropes on their ear as the element of immunity to attack is introduced into the mix. Very contemporary, but also taking cues from the classic New York cinema of Martin Scorcese, Neil Simon, Woody Allen and other gritty cinema and literature, PARIAH thrusts the reader into a truly dire survivors’ tale, capturing the desperation and resolve of its disparate cast. 

Best known for the comic series Minimum Wage, Fingerman’s contributions to the world of comics have been many and varied.

While still in attendance at New York’s School of Visual Arts, he created work for Harvey Kurtzman (creator of Mad magazine and Playboy‘s “Little Annie Fanny” as well as Humbug) on the young readers anthology NUTS! At the same time Fingerman produced a series of parodies for the European market, which ran in such periodicals as France’s L’Echo Des Savanes and Spain’s infamous El Vibora.

In the ’90s he decided to focus on comics, doing a stint on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He also created covers and short stories for Dark Horse Comics, and DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint. During this time he created his first graphic novel, White Like She, a social satire about a middle-aged black man whose brain is transplanted into a white teenage girl’s head.

Fingerman then decided to turn his attention inward. The result was the semi-autobiographical series Minimum Wage, which charted the bumpy relationship of Rob Hoffman and Sylvia Fanucci.

Fingerman then branched out to prose. His debut, the darkly humorous vampire novel, Bottomfeeder (M Press), dropped in early 2007. Then came Connective Tissue (Fantagraphics, May 2009), a trippy illustrated novella, and From the Ashes (IDW), a “speculative memoir” set in post-apocalyptic NYC. In 2010 the collected edition of From the Ashes was released, followed by his second novel, Pariah, from Tor. He also had a short stories in the popular zombie anthology The Living Dead 2 (Night Shade Books, October 2010) and the classic pulp magazine Weird Tales.

Maximum Minimum Wage, a deluxe reissue of his defining comic series, was released in March 2013 from Image Comics and lead to new the all-new Minimum Wage, Focus on the Strange (Image, October 2014) and Minimum Wage, So Many Bad Decisions (May 2016). 2014 also saw the Image Comics release of the 20th anniversary edition of White Like She.

In 2018 Bob became one of “the usual gang of idiots” in MAD magazine, with his features “Boonies Burbs & Burgs” and “Lukey & Mukey”. His most recent book is Dotty’s Inferno, a collection of humorous stories set in Hell.

A lifelong New Yorker, he has recently relocated to California.