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“Goin’ to the chapel and he’s…gonna get beat up”...plus, at long last, Mike Mignola’s take on Hellboy!

It occurred to me, as I was about four or five pages in to this, the latest Dark Horse Hellboy offering, how accustomed I’d become to seeing everybody but Mike Mignola draw the exploits of the hammer-handed demon and his pals. Back in 1996, it would have been hard to imagine anybody but Mignola doing the honors, but his own inability to crank pages out in what he considers a timely manner plus a host of distractions from the movie world and other directions has necessitated bringing in others to turn out stories of this world and try and satisfy the demand that those original graphic novels and miniseries has created. So, in the decade plus since everybody and his grandmother has taken a turn- a laundry list that reads like a who’s who of modern comics from Evan Dorkin to Craig Russell to Guy Davis to Richard Corben to Duncan Fregredo to Andi Watson…and it’s a testament to the undeniable charisma of the character, the broad appeal of the concept, and the efficiency, skill, and dedication to the fidelity of the concept the editors over the years have brought to the table that with a few exceptions, damn near all of the spinoffs have been first-rate.

And now, all of a sudden, Mignola has looked up from whatever has been occupying his attention in the last few years and decided he’d have a go once again, just for old times sake, I suppose, and that, naturally, raises expectations a bit. Which is part of the problem here- like that notorious playa Chris Sims says, “this is the kind of book that meets your expectations exactly.” It’s almost like a Hellboy’s Greatest Hits album, with echoes of previous stories and ideas just sorta stitched together to create a big quilt of Hellboy-ness. It approximates, doesn’t innovate, as if he really didn’t have a story ready, but had committed to one and the deadline was here already (where did the time go?), so OK, here’s this, and this, and that, and then that happens. The end. Whew. And that’s OK- really, even if it’s uninspired Mignola, it’s still Mignola, if you know what I mean, and Mike at his lamest (and I can’t think, offhand, of any examples of him ever turning in something all that lame) is heads and feet above the best efforts of many lesser creators.

Case in point: the opening scene, in which Mignola sets up the action to come in a extended conversation between HB and the friend of the artist whose presence in the titular structure causes the trouble in the first place; it’s an infodump, plain and simple, but the dialogue is naturalistic, even witty in places, and it shows how good a writer he’s become…it’s like that from beginning to end. I’m not sure that 1996 Mignola could have pulled it off as well. No one really gets Hellboy like his creator; fans of the movie version in particular should take note of how he under-plays his lead, giving him a taciturn, almost passive sort of presence which helps heighten the tension in whatever scene he finds himself in, quite the opposite of the more gregarious portrayal Del Toro and Perlman give us. Of course, art-wise, Mignola is still at the top of his game- he is without peer at staging and blackspotting, and his deadpan style helps to accentuate the tension in some scenes and the dry humor in others- the part in which he flips a magical coin at a demon, and the demon takes it in the eye then runs away, elicits chuckles at both the ludicrousness of the situation, as well as Hellboy’s annoyed reaction.

It’s great to see Mignola on both script and art again, and even if the story is a familiar one it’s very well told. Those who are looking for a good jumping-on point could do worse than to check this out. Hopefully, it will lead them to other, better installments in the series.

Hellboy: In the Chapel of Moloch
Written and Drawn by: Mike Mignola
Colored by: Dave Stewart

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