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B.P.R.D.: 1946 #1

B.P.R.D.: 1946 #1 It is arguable that the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (B.P.R.D.) series did not really hit its stride until the Plague of Frogs story arc, when Guy Davis took over the art duties. The fact that Guy Davis has penciled all 30 issues since Plague of Frogs is a testament to how his unique and unsettling artwork deeply affected readers, and really had made the series his own. And so it was great apprehension that I picked up the first issue of B.P.R.D.: 1946, which is the first B.P.R.D. comic book with artwork by someone other than Guy Davis in almost four years.

Artwork duties for 1946 fell to Paul Azaceta, and while his heavy black lines and minimalistic detail are strikingly different from Guy Davis’ jittery sketchy approach, they lend a sense of heaviness and dread that is perfect for B.P.R.D. The stark contrast in style also serves to help the reader travel back in time to 1946, long before the events in Killing Ground, which was perhaps Guy Davis’ finest (and final?) work on the series. Paul Azaceta definitely provides a very nice classic horror vibe, so different it really defies comparison.

Master Mike Mignola and Joshua Dysart handle the story, which sends a young Professor Trevor Bruttenholm investigating Nazi occult experimental programs on vampires! If you have any lingering doubts about 1946 like I did, click here to read the first few pages of B.P.R.D.: 1946 #1, and you’ll see that there’s nothing to be afraid of. Well… nothing except those vampire wenches and that creepy little girl and those nazi super-soldiers and that doctor with the huge needle and…