Sunday on a Monday Trade: B.P.R.D.

B.P.R.D. Hollow Earth & Other Stories created by Mike Mignola, story and art by various

The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense is the secret U.S. agency that Hellboy is part of. The B.P.R.D. spin-off follows the agency members who aren't Hellboy on missions. The main portion of this first volume is the story Hollow Earth co-written by Mignola, Christopher Golden & Tom Sniefoski, drawn by Ryan Sook, inked by Sook and Curtis Arnold, colors by Dave Stewart and letters by Clem Robins. In it pyrokinetic Liz is kidnapped from the remote monastery where she had secluded herself by subterranean proto-men. So B.P.R.D. sends her friends Abe Sapien, Roger the Homunculus and new recruit ectoplasmic entity & medium Johann Kraus...

The rest of the volume is rounded out with a Lobster Johsnon story, The Killer in My Skull (written by Mignola, pencils by Matt Smith, ink by Ryan Sook, colors by Dave Stewart, letters by Pat Brosseau) about a series of locked room murders. Then Abe Sapien Versus Science (same creative team) with Abe contemplating his past while watching the B.P.R.D. scientists study the currently inert Roger the Homunculus. And lastly Drums of the Dead (written by Brian McDonald, art by Derek Thompson, colors by James Sinclair, letters by Pat Brosseau) a ghost story set at sea involving the history of the slave trade. With Abe and B.P.R.D. medium Garrett Omatta...