Mike Mignola's occult adventure comics B.P.R.D. (that's short for Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense) and Hellboy (about a demon who fights for the side of Good) combine furious action set pieces on a literally biblical scale with a wry and nuanced understanding of very human emotions. The novelist Christopher Golden has written many popular works of dark fantasy. Together, the two men have produced the illustrated genre novels Baltimore, or, the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire, a dark tale of war, vengeance and bloodsucking; and the considerably warmer, steampunk-inflected Joe Golem and the Drowning City.
Like those previous works, their latest collaboration, the tight but slight illustrated novella Father Gaetano's Puppet Catechism, is steeped in a rich sense of place. In this case, the place is Sicily during World War II, at a Catholic church ravaged by battle. The nuns of San Domenico have turned their convent into a haven for their town's many war orphans, and a new priest arrives to instruct the youngsters about God.
But young Father Gaetano faces a difficult task: The horrors the children have witnessed and the grievous losses they have suffered have hardened their hearts to any talk of God's mercy. He must find some way to get through to them.
An abandoned puppet theater in the church's basement provides the answer he seeks, or seems to. At least until the puppets ... well. You see where this is going, especially if you've ever caught an episode of The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone or any similar anthology tale plotted like a narrative mousetrap.
Enlarge Jacqueline Semrau/Courtesy of St. Martin's Press
Christopher Golden's novels include The Myth Hunters, Wildwood Road, The Boys Are Back in Town and The Ferryman. He previously collaborated with Mike Mignola on the illustrated novel Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire.