Pinocchio Vampire Slayer, Volume 2: The Great Puppet Theatre Book

More lies! More vampires! More... puppets! Pinocchio is back, but now he has to share the vampire-killing stage with his wooden siblings. The stakes are raised in this sequel to the acclaimed 2009 graphic novel, as Pinocchio unravels the mystery of the undead menace and his own shadowy background. But will turmoil within the band of slayers spoil their efforts as they battle the bloodsuckers across Italy and even at sea in this darkly funny take on the classic character?

Publishers Weekly

This second volume in the series sees a vengeance-obsessed Pinocchio joined in his quest to rid the world of vampires and their mysterious, off-stage master by a troupe of similarly magically animated puppets. The vampires are themselves obsessed with Pinocchio and possibly in possession of information that Pinocchio himself lacks about the origin of the magical wood used to make the puppet. While vulnerable to Pinocchio and his fellow puppets' wooden weapons, the vampires have the advantage of numbers and the ability to easily convert Pinocchio's human friends into monsters like themselves. As allies fall or are converted, Pinocchio oversteps and is faced with the consequences of a marvelous but inconvenient transformation. Higgins's art does a nice job of capturing the story and creating strong characters. Although inflicting the current fad for adding vampires and other undead to the settings of classic works of literature may annoy some, the original Pinocchio was itself both fantastic and filled with nightmare fuel; this is one of the few examples of this new genre that is arguably justifiable. (Nov.)