Written by Guest Contributor: Jordan North B.P.R.D. continues being my favorite monster book on the shelf. The attention to detail of the world, the writing of characters that feel like real people I could reach out and touch. A mythology lovingly crafted over years and years of time combine to make something that yes, is about huge monsters and weird heroes and guns and guts but is also, first and foremost is a damn good story.

As our monthly crew of misfits makes their way through a decimated Manhattan nobody knows what to expect. The tension is palpable and after issue after issue of building up the ground zero that is Manhattan (nobody has heard from the whole city in months) we, the reader feel it alongside our heroes. Everything is eerily desolate. Gore from monsters litters the street. The city is black. The horror our heroes feel is translated expertly to us and all the classic good monster-story tropes are present alongside it: nervous banter, infighting, and the abject cluelessness that go with being alone in the dark. Mignola has man vs. macabre beast stories down to a science.

Adding to it all profoundly is a new artist in James Harren who I will say raises the bar. Gone are the old cartoony same-faces but what’s more Mr. Harren has a powerful gift for dynamic drawing. His style feels like highly sharpened sketch anime and some shots in his panels are so creative and well picked here that you’ll swear this thing was drawn through the eye of some great cinematographer. Basically, this guy’s stuff is fun to look at.