Hellboy: Weird Tales, Vol. 2

Mike Mignola’s character has never been more popular, especially in the wake of the long-awaited feature film, and unprecedented success in bookstores. His award-winning series Hellboy has been lauded as much by other artists as it has by award ceremonies and fans. Over the years, many of the best artists in the industry have asked if they could do a backup story just to get a chance to play with the characters and worlds Mignola has created. As Dark Horse basks in the glow of critical praise for the 2004 Hellboy motion picture, we present this lavish collection of stories.

From School Library Journal

Grade 10 Up-Weird Tales was a horror/fantasy/pulp anthology published in prewar America. Hellboy is a paranormal detective from Hell (where else?). This collection of stories is in the spirit of the original, featuring Hellboy depicted by a wide variety of comic creators; some stay true to the appearance of the original character. The plots are as varied as the creators. In a softly drawn story by Haden Blackman and J. H. Williams III, Hellboy gets hit on by a sexy female fellow investigator; courtesy of Kia Asamiya and Akira Yoshida, he has a manga-style adventure; and in Evan Dorkin's entry, he experiences a sickly hilarious run-in with a Norwegian black metal band. Mignola gave these artists free reign, and they do indeed take it-though each story is 10 pages or less, the plots are elaborate yet self-contained. Dorkin's contribution, for example, also features a giant regurgitating baby and a fake psychologist, which make perfect sense by tale's end. It's not necessary to be a Hellboy fan to enjoy the selections.-Jamie Watson, Harford County Public Library, MD Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Hellboy, the demon-turned-paranormal-investigator who recently made the move from comic books to the big screen, returns in another collection of adventures in which he tracks down phenomena ranging from a poltergeist World War II pilot to a ghostly Grand Guignol troupe. Here, as in the first Weird Tales [BKL F 1 04], Hellboy creator Mike Mignola turns his creation over to pinch hitters including mainstream superhero artists Jim Starlin and Gene Colan, fan-favorites Jill Thompson (Sandman, Scary Godmother) and P. Craig Russell (The Ring of the Nibelung), and acclaimed alternative-comics writer-artists Craig Thompson (blankets) and Scott Morse (Barefoot Serpent), who seldom dabble in genre work. A bonus section sports full-page illustrations of the hero by such stellar illustrators as Dave Stevens, Michael Kaluta, and Frank Cho. The package is uneven but seldom less than entertaining, and a wide range of approaches to Hellboy, from Kia Asamiya and Akira Yoshide's manga-like story about ghostly children to Evan Dorkin's cartoony tale of Norwegian metalheads and a baby frost giant, make for a heterogeneity most similar collections lack. Gordon FlaggCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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