Baca’s Contract Graphic Novel: A Bacá Comes to Tennessee

An old Caribbean bargain, a modern drug crew, and a monster that collects.

Baca’s Contract is a new horror graphic novel written, pencilled and inked by MAS, an Iraq War veteran and former investigator. The Baca’s Contract graphic novel is crowdfunding on Kickstarter until 12 November 2026. It starts with a killing in broad daylight. Witnesses say the killer was a Bacá, a shape-shifting creature from the folklore of Hispaniola, and the police have to decide whether to believe them. The campaign offers digital and print editions, an alternate cover by Nico Pico and signed copies. Here is what the book is, where its monster comes from, and why the word “contract” in the title matters so much.

In the folklore of Hispaniola, a Bacá is what you get when you want money you did not earn. Baca’s Contract puts that old bargain inside a modern drug crew, and the page where a gang boss orders the dog let loose shows MAS knows exactly what kind of monster he has borrowed.

A Monster You Buy With a Promise

In the borderlands of Hispaniola, a Bacá is something you pay for. You make a deal, it brings you wealth, and one day it comes to collect.

That is why the title of this book is so well chosen. Baca’s Contract is not just a monster story with a Caribbean name. The contract is the whole point. A Bacá is a debt with teeth.

UCLA historian Robin Derby has spent decades on these stories. Her book Bêtes Noires: Sorcery as History in the Haitian-Dominican Borderlands came out from Duke University Press in 2025. In a UCLA interview, she ties the Bacá to ill-gotten wealth. It lets people get rich in secret, and the cost is terrible. She calls them “commodity familiars”.

Dominican folklore often pictures the Bacá as a large dog or a bull, with burning red eyes. It can take many animal forms. The deal behind it is said to cost at least one soul. Sometimes it is a child. Sometimes it is the one who made the deal.

Even the shapes have a past. Derby points out that the beasts a Bacá becomes are the ones the Spanish brought to the island: cows, horses, mules, pigs and dogs. The monster wears the shape of the conquest. It is a small detail, but it tells you how deep these stories go.

Now look at the creature on the covers MAS has released. It is a huge, grinning, dog-like thing. That is not a random monster. That is the folklore.

Baca’s Contract Graphic Novel: Folklore Meets the Police Procedural

The press release sets up the story in a few lines. A brutal murder takes place in broad daylight. Witnesses say a Bacá did it. Police who expected a plain killing find they are facing something else.

The book’s listing on Google Books adds a little more. The case gets tangled up with gang violence and pressure from above. The police chase more ordinary suspects. Slowly they face the worst thought of all: the witnesses may be telling the truth.

It is a good set-up. Nobody on the case wants to be the one who says it out loud.

That is a strong engine for a horror story. Police work runs on evidence and doubt. Folklore runs on belief. Baca’s Contract puts the two in the same room and makes the detectives choose.

The pages in the press kit show where the case lands. On one, two agents in jackets marked TBI stand behind crime scene tape. A caption explains it means the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. One of them says it plainly: “I can see why they called us.” So this is a monster from Hispaniola loose in the American South.

Cash, Product and a Dog Let Loose

The most telling page in the press kit is not the monster. It is the people who own it.

A gang boss in mirrored glasses gives his orders. Get the cash. Get the product. Shoot the police, burn the rest, and let the dog loose. One of his crew asks if he is sure about the dog. Another points out that someone called Clutch is not there. The boss does not care.

That page is the folklore done right. In Derby’s reading, a Bacá is a way of making money that stays hidden, and the price comes due later. A drug crew is a business built on hidden money. Giving that crew a Bacá is not just a twist. It is the old legend moved into a new world.

It also hints that the creature is not fully under control. The worried question about the dog, and the missing handler, point to a contract that may not hold. In the old stories, that is when a Bacá turns on the one who owns it.

The last page in the kit shows the creature on the roof of a mobile home at night. A row of trailers and power lines stretch out behind it. It is the kind of image that sells a book on its own: a monster of old sorcery, crouched over a trailer park in the dark.

A Veteran’s Eye on the Procedural

MAS wrote, pencilled and inked the book himself. The press release says he served in Iraq and worked as an investigator. He brings that to the story’s police and military scenes.

The Google Books listing adds that he is an immigrant, a former law enforcement officer and has a background in graphic design. The book is published by Tuff Taino LLC.

You can see that on the covers. One shows soldiers with rifles and night vision, firing on the creature. The other shows police in uniform and tactical gear fighting it up close. The kit is drawn with real care. That kind of detail is easy to get wrong, and it is part of what MAS is selling.

It matters for horror, too. The police half of a story like this has to feel real, or the monster has nothing to push against. If the police work rings true, the moment the witnesses turn out to be right will hit much harder.

The Weight of a Borrowed Legend

There is a harder question here, and it is worth asking out loud.

The Bacá is not a neutral monster. Derby’s work shows it is bound up with the history of Hispaniola: colonial violence, slavery, dictatorship and the long strain between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. In the Dominican Republic, she notes, many believe only Haitian sorcery can make or destroy a Bacá. The stories are also taboo. People rarely talk about them in public.

Any horror story that lifts that legend out of its home and drops it into a Tennessee crime scene takes on some of that weight. Done badly, it becomes one more tale where Caribbean belief is just a source of scary dogs.

But the pages here point the other way. MAS ties the creature to money, greed and a criminal deal, which is what the folklore is really about. The press release does not say how MAS came to the legend. That is the question we would most like to put to him, and the answer will shape how this book reads.

For readers who like their horror rooted in a debt that cannot be paid, our review of Kentucky Dragon by Michael Park covers another story of a bargain that haunts a family down the years.

How to Back Baca’s Contract

The Kickstarter runs from 13 October to 12 November 2026. According to the press release, it offers:

• digital and physical editions of the graphic novel
• exclusive artwork
• an alternate cover by artist Nico Pico
• signed collector’s editions

The book’s retail listing gives a publication date of 15 December 2026.

You can see the campaign and back it here: Baca’s Contract on Kickstarter.

MAS posts about the book on Instagram and Bluesky.

In the old stories, the person who buys a Bacá always thinks the deal will hold. Baca’s Contract looks set to show what happens when it does not. And this time, the people left to clean up are the police.

For more independent horror worth your attention, see our horror features and the rest of Ginger Nuts of Horror.