Pinocchio as Re-Imagined by Mike Mignola and Lemony Snicket

For this unprecedented illustrated edition of Pinocchio, Beehive Books has teamed up with two of our favorite authors, Mike Mignola (creator of Hellboy) and Lemony Snicket (A Series of Unfortunate Events). Together, they’ve devised a completely new way to read Carlo Collodi’s novel.

In 1940, Walt Disney introduced the world to Pinocchio, a film that quickly became a beloved classic. Before Disney’s adaptation, however, few people were familiar with the source material. As with many fairy tales that Disney brought to the screen, the original story was much darker and more unsettling. Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio: The Story of a Puppet was first published as a serialized novel and was intended to serve as a cautionary tale about the consequences of bad behavior. In its original form, the story was far more grim, culminating in Pinocchio’s tragic hanging.

It’s only fitting, then, that in the 21st century, the dark and eerie sensibilities of Mike Mignola and Lemony Snicket have come together to revisit this classic tale, staying true to the morbid undertones that Disney chose to avoid. Collodi’s Pinocchio is steeped in allegories of hunger, illness, and death, themes that run throughout the narrative. The moral of the story emphasizes the importance of hard work, goodness, and diligent study. It is only when Pinocchio commits himself to these virtues that he finally transforms from a wooden puppet into a real boy, achieving the comforts and security of modern life.

This edition includes not only a suite of over fifty exquisite original illustrations from Mike Mignola, breathing a gorgeous new life into the charm, gloom, and chaos of this classic…it also includes a full-text annotation by Lemony Snicket, who takes the reader along with him for his own first experience of the text. The annotations are presented on typewritten sheets, inserted by Snicket as his confrontation with Carlo Collodi‘s text drives him slowly mad.