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]

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]

DigBoston and LeaguePodcast Comic Book Picks of the Week for April 23, 2013

COMICS

Mark Millar (Kick Ass) and Frank Quitely (Batman and Robin, The Authority) are back together with a creator owned title for Icon with Jupiter’s Legacy #1. Jupiter’s Legacy is the story of the next generation of heroes looking to live up to their parents in a story of epic scope. The universe in the new title is huge, so expect lots of new characters and Star Wars-like storytelling. … Brothers Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá (Daytrippers) are on art for Mike Mignola’s B.P.R.D.: Vampire #2 following Simon Anders to a small Czech town to find secrets of the vampire clan that cursed him. … Take a field trip to Apokolips after Fourth Period in the last issue of Superman Family Adventures from Aw Yeah Comics’ Art & Franco. This book marks the end of their work on Tiny Titans and Superman Adventures kid’s stories at DC, but look for them on The Green Team and their own creator-owned all ages books at Aw Yeah Comics Publishing. We like their books very much, Lois! … Picks this week from LeaguePodcast.com.

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DigBoston and LeaguePodcast Comic Book Picks of the Week! July 13, 2011

COMIX

My father dressed me up as The Bat once…Once! Make your own Johnny Dangerously references after reading Batman Gotham Noir #1 from eager beavers Brubaker and Philips (Criminal/Incongnito), they ain’t no slouches! … The Red Wing limited series from Jonathan Hickman is the fantastic saga of space-time fighter pilots battling over the fourth dimension! … B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: Monsters #1, torn from the pages of Hellboy, chronicles hot hands Liz Sherman taking on the Real Hillbillies of Sugar Hill Trailer Park, yee-haw! Picks this week from LeaguePodcast.com. - Clay N. Ferno

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EDIT: Dursin’s Druthers! - “Terry Moore: How To Draw Women”

“Seriously consider buying “Terry Moore: How To Draw Women” out today. I’m not even an artist & I think this is awesome” 

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