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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2014 14:24:04 GMT -5
I've been holding off on the Lobster books hoping for a BPRD type omnibus, but I really want to read them.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Oct 19, 2014 14:27:25 GMT -5
There are certainly enough stories to do a good sized Lobster Johnson hardcover, and I'd probably buy it as the stories are loads of fun.
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Post by DubipR on Oct 19, 2014 15:06:42 GMT -5
Where do the Bill Wray Hellboy Jr issues fit into all of this? I love those...
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Post by thwhtguardian on Oct 19, 2014 15:25:13 GMT -5
They were a good laugh, I think I'd need to rebuy them though as I lent them to an ex and never got them back.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Oct 20, 2014 22:26:49 GMT -5
Ask and you shall receive! Pancakes
Dark Horse Presents Annual 1999 Story and Art by Mike Mignola Colored by Dave Stewart (2000 for Hellboy Vol. 4) Edited by Scott Allie Year:1947 Synopsis: At the BPRD headquarters in New Mexico Hellboy is called into the mess hall for breakfast where he is offered pancakes for the first time. Hellboy originally wanted noodles but the General insisted he try them despite his protests, and upon actually trying them he decides that pancakes are the best thing ever. Meanwhile in Hell, hordes of demons riot in the streets of Pandemonium and when Astaroth asks what the matter is Mammon replies that the boy has tasted pancakes and will now never return.
Review: As stated in the Right Hand of Doom this story started out as a gag by Mignola when he was asked to do a story about a young Hellboy. He didn't think much of the idea and just slapped down the first thing that came to mind...and it worked! I've been talking about how great Hellboy is because of the layers that Mignola puts into his stories but here what makes this story so fun is the simplicity of the story. It's the tale of a little boy trying a new food for the first time, it's something familiar, something we've experienced in our families or even done ourselves in our youth and that Hellboy was the same makes him that much more relate able.
But as simple as it is, this story is not without it's importance either. This isn't just Hellboy's first encounter with pancakes but also our first meeting with the demon Astaroth who is Hellboy's paternal uncle. He's just a face in the crowd here but in latter stories he becomes a very important character.
Also of note is the difference color really makes, I love Mignola's moody art but at least here I feel like Stewart's bright colors really make the story come alive but with both images posted I'll let you guys decide which you like better: Grade: B+, it's not very dramatic but it's very human and the absurdity of it is hilarious. </div>
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Post by earl on Oct 20, 2014 22:44:51 GMT -5
The page before where the General is having to convince the "kid" Hellboy to give them a try is really funny and does setup this punch line. Mike Mignola has done some really good short stories with Hellboy.
The whole Hellboy comic universe is really starting to shape up into a pretty impressive amount of material. I'd say the whole thing is getting close to 250 comic issues, nearly a long box. Hellboy itself is over 60 issues. When I look at it that way, it is pretty impressive.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,735
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Post by shaxper on Oct 21, 2014 4:50:37 GMT -5
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeees!
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Post by thwhtguardian on Oct 21, 2014 19:20:08 GMT -5
The page before where the General is having to convince the "kid" Hellboy to give them a try is really funny and does setup this punch line. Mike Mignola has done some really good short stories with Hellboy. The whole Hellboy comic universe is really starting to shape up into a pretty impressive amount of material. I'd say the whole thing is getting close to 250 comic issues, nearly a long box. Hellboy itself is over 60 issues. When I look at it that way, it is pretty impressive. It is sprawling landscape at this point and its about to get that much larger with the addition of a Frankenstein book next year. It just keeps growing.
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Post by earl on Oct 21, 2014 19:27:35 GMT -5
Mignola's Hellboy is a very cohesive fictional comic universe. I'm not sure there is a more cohesive for the amount of comics that exists, especially one with multiple creators.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Oct 21, 2014 21:22:33 GMT -5
Absolutely and I don't think Scott Allie gets anywhere enough credit for that in my mind. He over sees an entire line of books that has many titles that all interact fairly regularly as well as titles that take place during different points in time, with different writers and artists and it all still feels like the same narrative.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Oct 24, 2014 19:55:30 GMT -5
BPRD: 1947 #1 Written by Mike Mignola and Joshua Dysart Art by Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon Colors by Dave Stewart Edited by Scott Allie
Year: 1947
Synopsis: It's been a year since the BPRD, with the help of their Soviet counterparts, stopped the Nazi's final solution to WWII: Project Vampir Sturm, and while they thought that was the end of their vampire problem now seems to have been only the beginning. Not content with the mere destruction of the mutant vampires the vampire lord, Baron Konig has decided to take his revenge on all of mankind, but first he starts with the surviving members of the third reich. It's these attacks that ultimately attract Professor Bruttenholm's attention and so he assembles eclectic team comprised of the cast offs from the the United States armed forces and sends them to France to investigate the ruins of an old chateau, which he believes may be connected to the vampire's gruesome killings. Not being true believers most of the team decides to spend their first night in France at a local bar swapping war stories but one of the men, Simon Anders, decides that since the professor made special arrangements one of them might as well go to the library and see what books were set aside for them. Once there he encounters a French woman who tells him that if he really wants to learn what happened at the chateau its best to just visit it and see for yourself and so she leads him to it. But as the mist rises and the chateau begins to rise above it Anders notices that his mousy guide has begun to transform into a beautiful looking noble woman, and what was supposed to be a ruined mansion seems to be very much alive...
Review: While it's an interesting setup, and I like that Mignola and Dysart take the time to flesh out their new heroes, defining them all as men haunted by the ghosts of war which meshes well with the French countryside recovering from the war itself, I none the less find the pacing to be far too slow right up until the end where it kicks into high gear for the last few pages. It's maddening, but the beautiful art by Ba and Moon saves it. The two are just similar enough in style that it can be difficult to distinguish between them at times, though the division of labor in the art is clear with one handling the more realist scenes with clean, neat lines and crisp coloring by Stewart while the other artist took the more supernatural scenes with the art being more stretched and the coloring more gauzy which gave it a very unreal feeling which was fantastic. An while this isn't the first comic to use two different artists to illustrate a difference between two settings I think this is the only one with utterly seamless transitions, and being brothers who often work together the reason why they are able to attain the subtle change is obvious and the choice in hiring them for this book a stroke of genius.
Grade: B
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Post by thwhtguardian on Oct 27, 2014 10:47:19 GMT -5
Hellboy: The Judgement Bell June 2007 Written and Illustrated by Tad Stones
Year: 1947
Synopsis: After having read a Lobster Johnson comic book little Hellboy decides to go out and do some justice. Equipped with a pair of flight goggles, a towel and a official Lobster Johnson fan club stamp Hellboy takes to the night for a series of adventures around the military compound where he imagines himself as Lobster Johnson. First he attacks a group of Military Police seeing them as Nazis, the MP's are less than amused and give chase but Hellboy escapes by hiding behind some trash cans. While hiding Hellboy sees a boiler of some kind being wheeled out of a hanger and he decides that it is none other than Professor Doctor Herman Von Klemp and his giant robot. Thinking that the only way to stop that mechanical menace would be to crash a tank into it Hellboy leaves the scene to find one and he succeeds!...only its a car and he's pulled from the wreck by Professor Bruttenholm who tells him no more comics.
Review: While not officially a part of continuity I love how this story crosses Hellboy and Calvin and Hobbs with its mix of action and humor. You'd think a cute story like this would feel out of place in a line of horror comics but strangely it works and I can't really say why other than it made me smile and that is always a plus for any comic. As I mentioned in "Pancakes" the simple human nature of this story really works to establish that Hellboy is just like anyone else. A lot of heroes have these kind of human stories but although I generally like them there is usually a part of me that says," If he had these normal kind of events growing up, why isn't he more like this now?" There's a disconnect between Bruce Wayne going to the movies with Alfred as a kid and the adult he is as Batman...but there isn't a disconnect between lil' Hellboy and the adult he becomes later. Sure, he's a bit gruffer and rougher around the edges, but he still has that same smile while facing danger that he did when he was a kid and he still has that same devil may care attitude.
As an aside not only is Von Klempt one of my favorite Hellboy villains but it's also a fortuitous addition here in the time line as Von Klempt just made an appearance in 1946, so it makes sense that Hellboy might be reading about him.
Grade: B
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Post by thwhtguardian on Dec 1, 2014 16:48:07 GMT -5
BPRD:1947 #2 Written by Mike Mignola and Joshua Dysart
Art by Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon
Colors by Dave Stewart
Edited by Scott Allie
Summary: The next morning Stegner,Russel and Ruiz awaken to find that ,contrary to their hopes the night before, Anders never returned to the hotel and so they set off to find him. They go first to the library, where Anders had said he was going, but strangely the librarian said that not only did Anders never arrive but that the books that Bruttenholm had asked him to put aside were never checked out. Striking out at the library the team decides to search the chateau. While the search unfolds however we see how Anders spent the night with Katherina(the woman he met at the library) and her sister Annaliese. We see the Chateau in all of its glory as an elaborate masquerade ball is taking place. But at the stroke of midnight the party breaks up and surprising all the guests start to float off into the sky taking Anders with them. They land somewhere in the country side at a cross road temple structure where all the guests are dancing in circles invoking the goddess Hecate. Surrounded by vampires Anders makes a bold move, instead of trying to fight his way out he instead unveils the reason he is among them, namely that he is there to track down Baron Koning who has broken the Vampire pact of nonaggression towards humans.
Review: While in the last issue the art changes between Ba and Moon were so subtle that the differences were difficult to discern, here thanks to the obvious separation between the two halves of the story those differences were much clearer. Despite the differences in art it wasn't jarring as the two brothers manage to keep the look of Anders the same which bridges the two pieces nicely together. On the narrative side we learn that the reason we don't see noblemen vampires running amok all through Europe is not because that stereotype is a myth but rather because the vampires decided that humans were getting too good at killing vampires and so if they were to survive then they should vanish until humans thought they were nothing but myth and so forget how to defend themselves. It's an interesting concept, one that allows the classical hollywood vampire to exist and allows for a reason why such a visible creature could remain a myth to most people giving us the best of both worlds. That said, though an improvement over the last issue the pacing here is still pretty sluggish and gives you the feeling that a lot is going to have to happen real quick in order for this story to reach its conclusion which is a troubling proposition.
Grade: B
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Post by thwhtguardian on Dec 2, 2014 23:13:09 GMT -5
Hellboy: Midnight CowboyHellboy: Weird Tales #2(2003) Story and Art by Eric Powell Colors Eric and Robin Powell Summary: Mean while back at the base in New Mexico, which if I haven't mentioned before is a thinly veiled Area 51, Hellboy sees a large object on the back of a flatbed truck which is tantalizingly covered by a sheet, get loaded into the forbidden hanger 7. Despite being warned to stay away, Hellboy and his dog Mac sneak into the hanger under the cover of darkness to see if what they saw is actually a secret circus where the young Hellboy believes there may be hotdogs. Once inside Hellboy discovers that it is not a circus that they are keeping secret but rather a wrecked alien space craft and several alien corpses inside tubes filled with a green goo. While Hellboy is admiring the aliens Mac eats some of the green goo that was leaking out of one of the tubes and begins to mutate. Just then Hellboy hears shouts and figures his intrusion must have been noticied, he first tries to hide Mac's mutation by sticking a bucket over his head but Mac continues to mutate and begins to grow in size so Hellboy hides him in a closet. When the soldiers arrive they find Hellboy standing by the closet with an army helmet on, he tries to say he's a soldier just doing his duty but they obviously know that's not true so he says he uncovered a "Wild injun stalking our women folk" and locked it in the closet and that he has it all under control so the soldiers can just go back to bed. Just then though the mutated Mac breaks loose and makes a run for it, but before he can escape Hellboy manages to lasso him but instead of stopping him is only dragged behind him into the dessert. Mac continues to run, trailing Hellboy behind him, until his stamina runs out and he falls to the ground exhausted. As he lies there in the sand panting the green goo slowly leaks out of him an he transforms back to normal.
Upon hearing of his son's adventure Professor Bruttenholm's only response is "No more Gene Autry for you."
Review: This was, until the forthcoming Midnight Circus, my favorite little Hellboy story. It has action, friendship and humor rolled into one....and art by Eric Powell. His sort of chunky art mixed with near photo realism just works soo well with Hellboy that I have always wished he had time to do a full length story, but until that happens I suppose this shot will have to do.
Grade: A
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Post by thwhtguardian on Dec 5, 2014 21:15:44 GMT -5
BPRD:1947 #3Written by Mike Mignola and Joshua Dysart Art by Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon Colors by Dave Stewart Edited by Scott Allie Summary: Stegner,Russel and Ruiz are slowly searching the chateau for Anders when they come upon two stone coffins in the basement whose lids bare carvings that look like Katherina and Annaliese. They gather around, stakes barred, ready to strike...only to find them empty. They laugh, thinking they are in the clear when the undead servants from the previous night's party erupt from the ground. The servants quickly overwhelm the fledgling BPRD team, the burly Russel is killed instantly causing Ruiz to panic and throw his whole pay load of incendiary grenades. Though the explosion begins to bring the ruins down around them it does succeed in giving Stegner and Ruiz a rout for escape, but just as they reach the door more servants burst from the floor in all their flaming glory and start to drag Ruiz with down them but before they can Stegner pulled out his pistol and shot Ruiz once in the head deciding it best to give him a quick death.
Meanwhile, back at the crossroads the other noble vampires take Anders' accusations to heart and begin to confront Konig. Rather than deny it, Konig confesses and passionately argues that the time is right to take back the Earth from the humans. His pleas fall on deaf ears and one by one the other vampire lords step forward in a ceremonial stripping of his rank and position and once they have all extracted a token from him they behead him and his body turns to ash, leaving only his gold rings behind. As Heccate leaves the crossroads the sun begins to rise and the vampires depart, witht he sisters taking Anders with them. As the last of the party vanishes a lone robed figure is left behind, last seen sweeping up the ashes of Konig and his gold rings.
Review: Here it is, we finally get the action! and the vampire servants are really cool looking...and they kill half the cast which while giving the book an "anything thing can happen!" kind of vibe feels a little repetitive after 1946. And although the action is cool so much of it feels rushed so that despite that "anything thing can happen" feeling it fails to really shock you which is a shame. Still, it's not a total wash, the art is amazing and despite being rushed the ending with Bruttenholm and Varvara gives some great characterization of Anders as the scenes where we see him in the boat alone on the water are so real that it feels more horrifying than any of the vampires seen so far. I'm usually one for saying that I wish stories were told more concisely, and although I previously expressed a feeling that the previous issues were too slow I really wish they slowed this down and split this issue in two. Pacing issues aside though there is a lot to enjoy, and I loved the scene where the vampire lords disrobed and killed Konig, it was a little anticlimactic its true, but the way it was done was beautiful and the scene where his ashes were gathered up at dawn was a great Hammer film homage.
Grade B-
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