Among the usual suspects on Italy's bestseller lists this holiday season – mysteries, thrillers, romantic novels, pop science books – a curious exception jumped out: The new graphic novel from radical left-wing underground cartoonist Zerocalcare.

Italy's fallen under the spell of this hilariously ironic, quirky and politically charged 39-year-old Italian-French graphic artist who's immortalized himself as a fast-talking, obsessive, perceptive and doom-struck punk rock kid from Rome's suburbs.