Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer

Top Shelf

Written by Van Jensen; Art by Dusty Higgins

Jul 02, 2014 Top Shelf By Ryan E.C. Hamm

For a comic that sounds like it’s either a one-note joke or cashing in on a tired tween trend, Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer, written by Van Jensen and illustrated by Dusty Higgins, is a remarkable story about love, sacrifice, and really bad action movie one-liners. This is Pinocchio as you’ve never seen him, a darker (and truer to the source material) puppet who’s staving off vampires that have taken over his town and killed Geppetto. How does he slay the titular vampires? Simple: he lies, grows his nose out, breaks it off and stabs the bloodsuckers through the hearts. It leads to wonderfully ridiculous lines and sight gags. A story that takes itself very seriously in all the right ways, its real power lies in its heart: Pinocchio’s dream is to become a real boy and to find love, but what good is being real if he can’t share it with anyone? Along the way, Jensen plays with mythologies (Muslim-phobic Crusaders, Christian legends, Norse mythology, and Vlad the Impaler are all here) with aplomb, making a jokey book into one that sticks with you. (www.pinocchiovampireslayer.com)

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