Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1952 TPB (review) at FORCES OF GEEK

Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1952 TPB

Written by Mike Mignola, John Arcudi

Art by Alex Maleev

Colored by Dave Stewart

Cover by Mike Mignola

Published by Dark Horse Comics

Cover Price: $19.99

Diamond ID:APR150064

ISBN: 978-1-61655-660-0

Published: August 12, 2015

Buy it HERE

Hellboy embarks on his first mission with the B.P.R.D. Team and wouldn’t you know it, there are demon monkeys, drunken priests and someone out to get the Big Red One.

Returning to Hellboy for the first time since 2003 is frequent Bendis collaborator Alex Maleev for art duties on this Mike Mignola & John Arcudi penned tale set in 1952.

Of course, regular Hellboy colorist Dave Stewart joins the fun on this fantastic adventure.

Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1952 is part mystery, part adventure story and explores some growth and development to how Hellboy came up in our world.

The 5 issue series is collected in one volume to hit shelves next week. This is a highly recommended addition to your Hellboy collection and also a great introduction this world as it focuses on a younger Hellboy and Maleev’s art fits the world of the B.P.R.D. so well.

Hellboy fanatics have likely grabbed these issues in floppy form, or perhaps are waiting until this trade drops to line up the spines perfectly with their other Hellboy volumes. However you end up consuming this (Dark Horse is finally onComiXology, FYI), be prepared for some familiar faces as well as some creepy introductions.

Mignola admits to being a bit of a control freak when it comes to other artists drawing his stories. What evolved from tweaking camera angles on Alex’s initial sketches eventually became Mike sending his own thumbnails to the artist. I’m sure the two got along fine, however. The pages and storytelling have the patina of classic Mignola Hellboy tales or old vampiric horror movies. You know how you feel when you read Hellboy Vol. 1: Seed of Destruction? You feel the same here.

[READ MORE AT FORCES OF GEEK]

Triple Shot With A Digital Chaser HALLOWEEN EDITION! Advance Look at HELLBOY AND THE B.P.R.D. #1, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS #1, CUTTER #1 Plus Monkeybrain's BOO! HALLOWEEN STORIES V. 2!

We’re keeping it grimly fiendish here on this Halloween edition of Triple Shot! 

We were lucky enough to start in the scariest state in the union, Connecticut, to preview December’s Hellboy and The B.P.R.D. #1 from Mike Mignola and superstar artist of the dark arts Alex Maleev.

Then we cut your expectations into an animal shrubbery with a new Edward Scissorhands #1.

If that wasn’t enough evisceration, tune in to Cutter from Top Cow for the real bloody stuff.

Cap off this bag of tricks with Monkeybrain’s devilishly pieced together Boo! Halloween Stories Vol. # 2devised to make your blood curdle!

HELLBOY AND THE B.P.R.D. #1
Writers: Mike Mignola, John Arcudi
Artist: Alex Maleev
Colorist: Dave Stewart
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics 
Pub. Date: December 03, 2014
Price: $3.50
UPC: 7 61568 26148 6 00111
More Info HERE


A true treat for fans of Hellboy in his twentieth year is this story set in 1952 written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi.  Frequent Bendis collaborator Alex Maleev, who’s painterly style defined a Daredevil run and slight to redefine a schizophrenic Moon Knight is a treat to see return to the Hellboy-verse. 

To those familiar and to newcomers as well, the story takes place in the 50s — as we bear witness to Hellboy joining the B.P.R.D. in the field for the first time.

No doubt as this arc progresses, he will learn a lot about himself as he interacts with the team. Already he faces challenges like Agent Stegner’s prejudice and an uncertainty of his abilities in the field after being raised and coddled by the Department since he was discovered.

A series of 33 murders in a Brazilian village prompts the investigation into the supernatural which will be Hellboy’s first mission. Stay tuned to this series to see if he succeeds or fails. 

Hellboy and the B.P.R.D. #1 is available on December 3. Highly recommended for Hellboy fans or new readers, considering the nature of this quasi-origin story.

[READ MORE at FORCES OF GEEK]

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HELLBOY WEEK: MIKE MIGNOLA, PART 2 — MEETING YOUR HEROES - AT 13TH DIMENSION

Continued…

With Dark Horse declaring March 22 Hellboy Day, we decided to bring you HELLBOY WEEK. Today is Part 2 of Clay N. Ferno’s interview with the masterful Mike Mignola.

If you missed Part 1, shame on you. To make amends, it’s right here.

Unlettered cover to Hellboy in Hell #6: The Death Card, due out in May.

By CLAY N. FERNO

Just curious now, what is it like for you when you meet a Will Eisner? You’re a giant yourself, and you are rubbing shoulders with your heroes. Are you sort of intimidated to meet other artists like that? Or are you all pals? How does it feel for you?

I’m trying to think of guys like that that are still around. It is very strange to me now, that people I’ve known for a very long time have achieved a sort of legend status. I knew them when they weren’t that. It is very cool. And the 16- and 17-year-old version of me — if that kid I was could have ever imagined that I’d be eating lunch with Richard Corbin!

Richard was probably the guy that I worked with in the past few years that I grew up in awe of his stuff. He is one of those guys that never in a million years would I have thought I’d have any contact with that guy, let alone work with him, or go to his house to eat lunch with him. That is possibly the biggest leap for me, as far as being a fan to the intimacy of working with the guy. I can’t think of another case like that.

The weirdness or another one of those, is Bernie Wrightson. I’ve had lunch with Bernie Wrightson, I’ve hung out with Bernie Wrightson. As a kid, I wanted desperately to be Bernie Wrightson! So, even though we haven’t really worked together, the fact that he even knows who I am is pretty amazing. I have been very fortunate to interact with some of my heroes.

Wrightson’s handiwork.

I even met Frazetta once, and he said something very nice. He was one of those guys I didn’t want to meet because I was so in awe of him, he was such a huge influence on me. (But) I heard some not terrific stories about Frank as a guy. Someone had introduced us, Hellboy had just came out, I showed him a copy and he made a nice comment. I just thought, “Holy shit! I just met Frazetta. I’m not gonna push it, or make it a longer conversation.”

But it was very nice and it is a wonderful memory. I have been very fortunate to have met a lot of these guys.

And then you have your peers, who are all absolutely amazing.

And it is weird when your peers are guys like Art Adams, and I knew him as a kid. To me, while I think if him as a phenomenal artist, to me, he will always be the guy who broke into the business around the same time I did. It is very cool to sit back and watch, your contemporaries are guys that are legendary and people are in awe of.

One of my best friends from art school was the co-director of the last Pixar movie, “Brave.” It is wild when you grew up with these guys who grew up to do these things.

Adams print at his website.

As a fan, it makes you feel good that there is a) reverence and b) respect for one another. I know there can be rivalries but besides that, it seems very nice.

It is always nice when there aren’t rivalries. I am very fortunate that my group of close friends, and not a lot of us went into the comics field, but a lot of us went into such different places and we achieved success in completely different ways. I was never going to be Art Adams, we weren’t going up for the same jobs. Steve Purcell (Pixar) went in a completely different direction.

[READ MORE AT 13th DIMENSION]

HELLBOY WEEK: MIKE MIGNOLA TALKS LITERARY AND PULP INFLUENCES - AT 13TH DIMENSION

The first Hellboy collection.

Dark Horse has dubbed this Saturday, March 22 as Hellboy Day. If you’re reading this, you’re probably well aware of who Mike Mignola is and how considerable his impact on the comics industry has been. But it’s still an eye-opener to read his official bio:

MIKE MIGNOLA’s fascination with ghosts and monsters began at an early age; reading “Dracula” at age 12 introduced him to Victorian literature and folklore, from which he has never recovered. Starting in 1982 as a bad inker for Marvel Comics, he swiftly evolved into a not-so-bad artist. By the late 1980s, he had begun to develop his own unique graphic style, with mainstream projects like DC’s Cosmic Odyssey and Batman: Gotham by Gaslight. In 1994, he published the first Hellboy series through Dark Horse. As of this writing there are 12 Hellboy graphic novels (with more on the way), several spinoff titles (B.P.R.D., Lobster Johnson, Abe Sapien, and Sir Edward Grey: Witchfinder), prose books, animated films, and two live-action films starring Ron Perlman. Along the way he worked on Francis Ford Coppola’s film “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (1992), was a production designer for Disney’s “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” (2001), and was the visual consultant to director Guillermo del Toro on “Blade II” (2002), “Hellboy” (2004), and “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” (2008). Mike’s books have earned numerous awards and are published in a great many countries. Mike lives somewhere in Southern California with his wife, daughter, and cat.

In this first installment, Mignola and our Clay N. Ferno jump right in and talk about the literary and pulp influences behind everyone’s favorite demon — such as Conan and Solomon Kane.

By CLAY N. FERNO

Clay N. Ferno: Tell us what sort of literary influences come up in Hellboy.

Mike Mignola: It’s funny, I was doing an interview the other day and trying to pin down the roots of the Hellboy stuff — not comic book roots as much as they are pulp magazine roots.

I was listening to the 8 billionth comment about H.P. Lovecraft and I said “Yeah, that stuff is in there, but I think that the bigger, fundamental structure of the Hellboy stuff came from pulp magazine guys like Robert E. Howard and Manly Wade Wellman. Specifically the idea of this kind of character who kind of wanders around and runs into stuff. Also, the short story format, which, at least in most mainstream comics is not the most common way for doing stories, but after the first miniseries, I went quite a bit to doing short stories, and not just short stories, but short stories that don’t take place in a chronological order.

We saw this with Robert E. Howard doing Conan and Solomon Kane and these kind of characters that kind of wander all over the world and they’ll run a story on a character who is old, and then about when he is young, and it is for other people to cobble them all together into some kind of coherent order. I think that was very much informing the way I did Hellboy.

[READ MORE AT 13th DIMENSION] 

WILL EISNER WEEK - MIKE MIGNOLA INTERVIEW - MIGNOLA ON EISNER: “A SHINING EXAMPLE OF WHERE YOU CAN GO” - AT 13TH DIMENSION

WILL EISNER WEEK: Clay N. Ferno spoke recently with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola on a number of topics (more on that soon). But it’s Eisner’s birthday today so Clay made a point of asking one of comics’ modern masters about one of the all-time greats:

Clay N. Ferno: Do you have a favorite Will Eisner story?

Mike Mignola: You know, I’ve never thought about it. I love Will’s stuff — it would probably be one of The Spirit comics … it all kind of blurs together for me. I know there is a period of The Spirit stuff I like more than other Spirit stuff, but it is hard—I couldn’t specify a story. I have a general love for Will Eisner, but not a specific story in mind. …

Certainly, as an artist that transformed as a guy doing The Spirit to other work like “A Contract With God” and these kind of things, he’s just one of those artists that is a shining example of where you can go if you don’t stand still and retread the same material. “The Building” — about the transformation of a city — it is just genius stuff.

Will is a guy I always thought was extremely intimidating. I spent a little bit of time with him but I was always afraid to say anything. Because even in his later years, he was someone who was more knowledgeable about what was going on in comics than I was.

Here I was, a guy five or ten years into my career, and Will was more current about what was going on in Europe, the future of where comics would go. Here I was trying not to embarrass myself by saying something stupid. He was a very sweet guy.

I guess you would include Eisner in the group of guys that you would be shocked if people came up to your table and the person didn’t know them. Or you’d want to enlighten them, I suppose.

Sadly, I guess I wouldn’t be shocked. It would be sad. He is one of the guys like Kirby, or Wally Wood that you assume everybody knows them. One of the inspired things about Will was that when he died, he had work at the printers. He was working right up to the end.

One of the last things he did was The Spirit and The Escapist. It is just so good. To be that good, right up to the end. Already, I can tell with my stuff that’s not gonna happen. But yeah, Will is just one of those huge inspiration guys.

[READ MORE AT 13th DIMENSION.COM]

EARTH PRIME TIME: THE WATCHER’S LOOK AT BOSTON COMIC CON

This past weekend, citizens of Earth Prime finally got their Boston Comic Con at The Seaport World Trade Center. After much anticipation, the show was a glaring success for the fans, promoters, organizers and vendors. I am Uatu, The Watcher. I have taken an oath to aid humanity and monitor key points in human history without interfering. Here just some of the events happening at Boston on Saturday and Sunday, for us Watchers to study.

Boston Comic Con is angling to be a major independent comic book show in the country, and even after a reschedule and change of venue, founder Nick Kanieff has his target on being the number #3 show in the country behind touchstone San Diego Comic Con and New York Comic Con. If what I have seen from this past weekend is any indication, they may just make it. From the long entry lines, to the elaborate cosplay, to the amazing panel artists and guests the Beantown nerd and geek culture crowd uproariously rejoiced, seemingly forgetting about the unfortunate events of the Marathon Bombings in April that caused the show to move.

Observe! Boston Comic Con Fans Fanning Out on Fan Pier

As The Watcher, I’ve seen some things. but never have I seen a line for tickets in Boston for something other than October baseball.

Nick Kanieff’s initial attendance prediction of 12,000—15,000 people was exceeded, and with a venue three times the size of The Hynes, one wonders if this is the best spot for the convention in 2014.

But I am just an observer, sworn not in interfere with my cosmic juju.

[READ MORE at DIGBOSTON.COM]

TRIPLE SHOT: SUPERMAN FAMILY ADVENTURES #12, JUPITER’S LEGACY #1, B.P.R.D: VAMPIRE #2 - FORCES OF GEEK

The thing about history, baby, is that it goes way back.   All the way back.

We stroll down memory lane with Miss Lane, get lost in a Legacy and follow B.P.R.D’s Simon Anders back to a small Czech town to investigate the origins of the vampire disease.

Will he escape unscathed before having to unleash his concealed garlic? 

SUPERMAN FAMILY ADVENTURES #12
WRITER: Art Balatazar & Franco
ART: Art Balatazar
Publication Date: April 24, 2013
Price: $2.99
Publisher: DC Comics
UPC: 76194130973601211
Buy it HERE

Aw yeah, everybody. It’s the end of an era, not only for Superman and his family, but for fans of a certain kind of book formerly put out under the Johnny DC banner.

In 2008, Art (Baltazar) & Franco gave us elementary school versions of our favorite Titans in Tiny Titans.

The Eisner Award winning book proved itself to be fun for all ages, including not only great stories for kids but nods to serious DC continuity and clever plays on the DC tropes. A Lunch Lady Darkseid ruled the cafeteria with Anti-Slop.

After the New 52 reboot, Cyborg gets new shoes and the guys were put on a new book, Superman Family Adventures, filled with all of the clever comic book industry and Superman movie quotes of the previous series, but concentrating on the family aspect of Superman. We’ve got Clark, The Kents, Jimmy, Chief, Lois, Connor, Kara and the Super Pets.

Nearly all of the Tiny Titans, the Justice League, Steel, Lex and even Miss Teschemacher sneak their way into the send off issue of this book. It is a bittersweet moment to end this five year run of the best kids comics DC has ever done.

Even Superman’s parents Lara-El and Jor-El make an appearance in the final issue, with an interesting twist on how the two survived the explosion on Krypt’n.

Unfortunately for us, we won’t get to see any more of Art & Franco on this book but look forward to them taking on The Green Team in the New 52, a story about trillionaire teenagers. And guess what? For more all ages comics, Art & Franco have launched a Kickstarter for new publisher Aw Yeah Comics and are fully funded. Expect some issues of Aw Yeah Comics #1 starring Action Cat and Adventure Bug at C2E2 this weekend, and distro to our hands very soon.

Aw yeah. Congrats, Art & Franco! And thanks for loading up the cover with lots of pink. I like pink very much, Lois! True story.

JUPITER’S LEGACY #1
WRITER: Mark Millar
ART: Frank Quitely
Publication Date: April 24, 2013
Price: $2.99
Publisher: Image Comics
UPC: 70985301350100111
Buy it HERE

This is the first issue of a highly anticipated book here from industry juggernauts Mark Millar and Frank Quitely, last seen working together years ago on The Authority.

In recent years, Quitely had a great run on Morrison’s pre-New 52 Batman and Robin whereas Millar has been working on more movie deals, overseeing his comics become movies and has teamed up with Dave Gibbons on Secret Service and Lenil Yu on Super Crooks, and Steve McNiven on Nemesis.


There’s probably more (ahem Hit Girl, Kick Ass 2, Superior) worth mentioning as well, but the aforementioned series all had me hooked.

Millar has, if not a formula, at least a very structured format to his limited series. All are meant to stand alone in about 6 issues. All can very easily be made into a movie. He’s great at that. Icon and Image produce the books, and he can retain all of the creator owned rights. Some series likeWar Heroes never see completion! Too bad, though, I think the book would do well in the current market.

I guess all the filibustering I’m managing to churn out about Millar’s career is that while this is a highly anticipated book, supposedly of much scope, and featuring a mysterious long lost island mixed with two generations of superheroes is to have us chomping at the bit for more. We’ve got the old crusty Superman and Justice Society types taking down the bad guys while the sons and daughters are either partying or vying for attention from the media.

I’m sorry, this book doesn’t have me after the first issue like Nemesis, Super Crooks and Secret Service did. On the last page reveal on issue #1, I was just sort of glad it was over. I want my comics to make my heart pound on a cliffhanger, not just be glad that some superheroes’ daughter might have possibly OD’d. Why would I care? I only spent 3 pages with her. I don’t know, maybe I’m salty. Maybe issue #2 will pick me up like a cup of coffee but this one was snoozeville. 

Quitely’s pages are amazing, of course. Great to see him draw classic superheroes and then beautiful teenage girls. Brandon Sampson looks a little like the artist himself. We’ll see how it goes. Maybe the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo wakes up from her drug crash next issue. Sure. Whatever. I guess. Take my money.

B.P.R.D: VAMPIRE #2 (of 5)
WRITER: Mike Mignola, Fábio Moon, Gabriel Bá
ART: Fabio Moon, Gabriel Ba, Dave Stewart
Publication Date: April 24, 2013
Price: $3.50
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
UPC: 76156820686900211
Buy it HERE

I’m not exactly sure why I’m getting at this book in the second issue of the series and completely missed the first, but I know I’m in for the long hall.

Hellboy mastermind Mike Mignola writes this vampire tale that acts as a direct sequel to B.P.R.D.: 1948. Brazilian brothers Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá that brought us the Vertigo mini-series Daytripper in 2011 are credited as co-writers and also the artists on the book.


We bask in the shadows of a classic vampire origin tale, following former merchant marine and current B.P.R.D. field agent Simon Anders to a Czech town.

When he gets there he discovers there are only women in the town that is also occupied by a large castle built in 1253. A wonderful series of alias for the vampire Wilhelm in various period garb throughout the ages was reminiscent of Bruce Wayne’s travel back to the present inBatman: The Return of Bruce Wayne.

Nothing to report from the castle, but a witch grabs Simon’s hand and urges him and companion Hana to follow the “serpent to the heart”. Likely this means follow the river to the woods, where they will discover more about the vampires. In the forest, it looks like they have been set up!

This issue has all the best that Hellboy, Daytripper, Buffy and Doctor Who have to offer, replete with a cute female companion to act as a guide and balancing force in the story. Moon and Bá have a thick line cartooning style that complements the look of the B.P.R.D. / Hellboy universe and draw conversations between people very naturally.

Great art and story here. Worth investigating further…into the woods!

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