Written by Mike Mignola and John ArcudiArt by Guy Davis and Mike Mignola
This volume of BPRD is unlike the previous ones, in that Mignola and Arcudi are more focused than ever before on the characters in the story, and the plot is quite secondary.
Kate Corrigan, a generally underused character to this point, travels to a remote region in France to see about purchasing an incredibly rare old book, which may have the answer to reviving Roger, the homonculus killed in the previous volume. This being a Mignola story, the rather odd bookseller is of course a long-lived Marquis who lives in a painting and who has lured her there as a way of acquiring another homonculus for his collection.
While Kate deals with this on her own, the usual members of the team get together in a coffee room and share stories about their pasts. We finally learn how Captain Daimio was killed (although not how or why he came back), and see other glimpses into Liz and Johann's lives. In Abe's case, he tells a Hellboy story featuring a Wendigo, largely because he's not ready to share what he has recently learned about himself.
I really liked the way this story slowed down and helped build up these characters. Daimio's inclusion into the book was abrupt, and this is the first that the reader had any chance to gain some insight into his personality beyond the brusque military man we usually see.
Davis's art is as great as ever. I love the way he draws his women - they are so much more realistic than 95% of the women in comics, and somehow so much sexier because of it. Mignola provides the epilogue to this story, which is very touching and flawlessly executed.
No comments:
Post a Comment