B.P.R.D. (2002), Volume 4

October 15, 2005
Perhaps Mignola is weaning himself from Hellboy spin-off " B.P.R.D." For " Plague of Frogs" (2005), he replaced himself with artist Guy Davis, and now he has a coauthor, John Arcudi, taking on a lot of the writing, according to the afterword. Davis' craggy, line-y style replaces Mignola's high-contrast, volumetric manner with no loss of creepy atmospherics, and Arcudi's dialogue fits the mise-en-scene as well as Mignola's ever did. The plot is double--stranded. While fire-starter Liz Sherman, Roger the homunculus, and permanently disembodied medium Johann Kraus gain a new partner in risen-from-death special-ops captain Ben Daimio and investigate an abandoned weapons lab in the mountains of Colorado, their Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense teammates Dr. Kate Corrigan and amphibious Abe Sapien delve further into the New England cult of " Plague of Frogs." The Colorado quartet unearths an erstwhile Nazi researcher and a doorway to what he thinks is paradise, and Abe is wooed by a figure out of his past. Just as good and betimes as piquantly subdued as superior" X-Files" episodes. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)