Devilishly good

Continuing on the theme of “Stuff Evan Should Be Up On But Isn’t,” I finished reading eight volumes of Hellboy a few weeks ago. I don’t know if it’s everything that’s in print but it seems like it’s the bulk of Hellboy-related material. My first memory of seeing Mike Mignola’s work was either on Marvel’s Alpha Flight or the house ads that were running in Marvel Comics for the Rocket Raccoon mini-series in the eighties. I remember thinking that his blocky, ink-heavy style immediately stood out from other prevailing sensibilities at the time and it still does more than 20 years later.


Hellboy’s a demonic spawn summoned to earth who winds up working as a paranormal investigator. The premise essentially riffs on the Entity That Should Be Evil But Isn’t idea, which probably goes back a long ways. (Of course, now I can’t get the Son of Satan, Marvel’s 1970s-era character of my head.) The thing I’ve grown to love about the Hellboy character is his almost-blasé, workaday attitude when it comes to dealing with bizarre creatures or macabre revelations about the Dark Forces of the Universe. He’s like a shit-talking, gun-wielding plumber (with the Right Hand of Doom, of course). Slimy, tentacled Elder God about to breach the borders of our reality? For Hellboy, it’s just time to make the donuts.



Maybe it’s because I inhaled the bulk of it in a short span but it’s pretty striking how much Hellboy is its own thing. In the trade paperbacks, Mignola’s not shy about citing influences and sources but he manages to make them into a singular experience. There’s a real sense of mythos here that you’d be hard pressed to find anywhere else in comics nowadays. All throughout the collective work, Mignola’s lean plainspoken dialogue really lets the moodiness of his art emanate from the panels.

I’ve never seen the Hellboy movie but loved Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, so I’m looking forward to renting the DVD and seeing what kind of job Ron Perelman does as the big red guy.


If this two-page sequence makes it into the movie, then I'm there opening day.