Written by Mike Mignola
Illustrated by Scott HamptonWhile chasing a giant bat through the forest, Hellboy meets an old man with insider knowledge of the coming vampire apocalypse.
For the first time, Mike Mignola teams up with artist Scott Hampton (Batman, The Books of Magic) for this gothic tale.
While this doesn’t continue on the main story thread for our man Hellboy, it is Mike Mignola doing what he does best – telling awesome Hellboy stories.
Find out what I think of this book after the jump.
Via email, Multiversity writers have ongoing threads about what is happening in the world of comics. Currently, there is a debate going on about Superman books vs. Batman books, to which I say “who cares? I’ll take Hellboy.” If you’re looking for a well conceived universe with consistently great storytelling from more than one book, you’re not going to find it in either of the places they suggested, but you will find it in Mike Mignola’s universe filled with monsters and demons and the like as well as the forces set out to stop them.
This week, there’s a new mini-series for Hellboy fans titled “Hellboy: The Sleeping and the Dead” starting up, and it’s another example of the consistently good work that Mignola and his stable of artists have been putting up for the last while. This tale finds Hellboy in rural England in 1966 on a vampire hunt, and predictably (given the fact it involves Hellboy) it goes both really well and really poorly.
I think the two biggest reasons these Hellboy books are so consistently great is that a) Hellboy is a phenomenal character that Mignola could write in his sleep and b) that Mignola has such a great grasp on horror tropes and environment. Those two aspects work very well in this book, as there is an intense amount of dread that develops throughout this book, but dread that is tempered by the levity Mignola instills via Hellboy (and to a lesser extent the way too excited character Ted early on in the book). The atmosphere and storytelling is so precise, it’s almost a style that exists only in Mignola books. They have a feel quite unlike other comics, yet one that is so excellent that it seems shocking that more out there haven’t tried to impersonate it at the very least.
Scott Hampton joins on art with this mini-series, and while it’s his first time working on a Hellboy book, I have to say he fits in very well. I’m not sure if the artists Mignola picks to work on this book already have similar styles to him or they just match him to fit the book, but either way every issue seems to have a unifying art style that defines them. Hampton’s work fits that, but with a looser, more painterly style that gives some of the scenes a more ethereal look that is atypical for the series but very fitting for the book. It’s a nice looking book that doesn’t jump off the page like a Fegredo or Corben joint, but something that works entirely.
This is, by nature, a standalone Hellboy book that ultimately won’t matter for those who are simply looking for the ongoing story Hellboy is in the midst of. That will be found in the upcoming mini-series “The Fury.” But for those that just enjoy the character and are looking for another mini-series that highlights this superb creation, you’ll definitely find at least the start of that here.
Final Verdict: 8.5 – Buy
