Hellboy: The Midnight Circus

Written by Mike Mignola
Art by Duncan Fegredo

There is often a paint-by-numbers quality to Mike Mignola's Hellboy comics.  In recent years, he's tried to stretch the character into new territory by killing him and dumping him in Hell, but the stories are much the same as they were before.  He's also started exploring Hellboy's earlier years a little more, and to me, that's been a more interesting and successful endeavour.

The Midnight Circus is a one-off hardcover graphic novel that came out in 2013 and features art by the amazing Duncan Fegredo.  The story is pretty straight-forward - young Hellboy sneaks out of the BPRD offices one night to try smoking, and ends up visiting a strange circus.

Mignola does not push this into any new directions.  The person running the circus is a demon or something, and is interested in testing the lad, while the woman with him wants to try to kill Hellboy, fearing his prophesied future.

While the story is nothing special, the art is very nice.  Fegredo is always good, and colourist Dave Stewart really knows how to bring out his better qualities.  I like the way the colours help separate the circus-world scenes from the rest of the book.

This is a very quick read, but it's still a decent comic.

BPRD Vampire #1

Written by Mike Mignola, Gabriel Bá, and Fábio Moon
Art by Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon

I was very excited to hear that the twins would be returning to monthly comics for a little while, and to the BPRD universe in particular.  I'm a huge fan of Bá and Moon's work, and am often disappointed in how rare their output has been since the wrap of their phenomenal Vertigo series Daytripper.

Vampire is a new stand-alone BPRD mini-series that follows up on the 1940s stories, the most recent of which was set in 1948.  The twins drew the 1947 story (which is what drew me into the Mignola-verse), and this tale now returns to the ideas laid out in it.  Anders was the central figure of that story, and in it, he had a pair of vampires imprisoned in his soul (or something like that - it's not all that clear).  We saw in 1948 that his behaviour has become erratic.

As this new series opens, he takes a leave from the BPRD to try to find the places where Hecate-worshiping vampires congregate, although it's not all that clear what he plans on doing when he gets there.  At the same time, we see that some of the vampires are restoring themselves to full health in order to get ready for something.

That's really all that happens in this issue, which is incredibly slight story-wise.  It is, however, a gorgeous comic as the twins have only gotten better with time.  I see that they are sharing the co-writing credit with Mike Mignola, but I don't feel a whole lot of their influence on the story, at least not yet.  Still, this is one of the nicest looking books on the stands.

Hellboy: House of the Living Dead

Written by Mike Mignola
Art by Richard Corben

Over the last couple of years, I've found myself getting very bored with Hellboy stories set in the current continuity.  The trilogy with Duncan Fegredo, which resulted in HB's death, did very little for me.  The current Hellboy in Hell series has me contemplating dropping the title completely, as it seems to be all pretension, scenes of HB falling through floors, and boring prophecy.

Then I pick this one-off graphic novel up, and remember just what makes this character work well in the first place.  House of the Living Dead is a follow-up to the excellent Hellboy in Mexico one-shot that was also drawn by Richard Corben, and that established that for a while in the 1950s, Hellboy was a Mexican luchadore.

This story picks up on the time where Hellboy was hanging around Mexico, fighting, and drinking himself to oblivion every night over what had happened to his friend Esteban, who had been turned by vampires.  It is while in this state that a man approaches him, and gets him to come to Dr. José Luis Kogan's creepy castle, where he has a Frankenstein monster he wants Hellboy to fight.  The rest of the comic is a bit of a tribute to the Universal movie monsters, as HB has to deal with this monster, a werewolf, and a couple other surprise appearances.

The story is a lot of fun to read, and lacking any of the prophecies that seem to follow Hellboy around everywhere.  Corben's art is always wonderful, and is worth the price of admission on its own.

Baltimore: Dr. Leskovar's Remedy #1

Written by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden
Art by Ben Stenbeck

As part of the continuing glut of Mike Mignola-written comics coming from Dark Horse this year is a new Baltimore mini-series, featuring the angry vampire hunter who is searching the world for the vampire who killed his family.

This two-parter opens in a small fishing camp in Croatia.  Baltimore crashes into the beach when his airplane comes under attack, and is recovered by the locals.  He learns that their village has fallen victim to the horrors unleashed by a Dr. Leskovar, who has been trying to cure vampirism.  Baltimore being Baltimore, he soon enough sets out for the village, looking to kill the monsters that Leskovar unwillingly created.

This is the third mini-series to feature Baltimore, and they all more or less follow the same formula (Baltimore shows up in a place plagued by monsters, deals with them, finds clues to the location of Haigus, the vamp he's pursuing, leaves).  This looks to be the same kind of thing.

I really enjoy Ben Stenbeck's art in this series.  He does a great job of capturing the bleakness of the Croatian coast, and manages to sneak some crabs onto just about every page.  I was a little surprised to see that Baltimore is fluent in Croatian, but otherwise, this is a good comic.

BPRD Hell on Earth: The Transformation of JH O'Donnell

Written by Mike Mignola and Scott Allie
Art by Max Fiumara

The character of Dr. O'Donnell has been lurking around the pages of BPRD for a very long time now - he's the wild-haired stooped over old guy who usually shows up making pronouncements of doom.  Very little has been told about him, and so he's been given his own one-shot as part of Mike Mignola's plans to push his Mignola-verse as close to the point of market saturation as is possible for a group of titles with one common writer.

O'Donnell's story is told as a flashback to a time in the late 80s when Professor Bruttenholm sent O'Donnell and Hellboy to investigate the library of a recently deceased necromancer.  Hellboy ended up getting into a fight with some kind of monster (I love how the narrator dismisses this part of the story so casually, since it does happen in every single Hellboy story), while O'Donnell ended up deep beneath the house, part of a ritual that involved just about every famous dead occultist you can think of, changing him forever.

The art for this issue is provided by Max Fiumara, an artist who has caught my eye on his Four Eyes series with Joe Kelly, and also impressed me with some issues of Amazing Spider-Man.  His odd figures look right at home in the BPRD world, and Dave Stewart's colours burnish his art perfectly.

There really has been too many BPRD-related comics coming out lately, but when they're all this good, it's hard to complain...

BPRD Hell on Earth: The Devil's Engine #1

Written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi
Art by Tyler Crook

The Mike Mignola brand has been practically flooding the market lately, with at least three mini-series going at any one time.  As Hellboy, Mignola's central (although not best) book is on hiatus for a while, he's been running two concurrent BPRD series for the last few months.

This may be bad for my financial situation, but it has been good in that it has allowed Mignola and his co-writers (John Arcudi seems to work on the 'main' book, while Scott Allie writes the more peripheral one) the chance to examine different aspects of the post-Apocalyptic 'Hell on Earth', and spotlight characters that don't often get much screen time.

This new three-parter, 'The Devil's Engine' is focused on Andrew Devon, the BPRD agent who has been most critical of the organization, and who more or less betrayed Abe Sapien a while back.  Devon's been sent to recover the girl Fenix, who we first saw a little while ago leading a ragtag band of 20-somethings across America based on her poorly explained predictions or feelings about the future.

In this issue, Fenix and Devon plan on boarding a train to take them to Colorado, although that goes against Fenix's sense of danger.  There is also a scene involving the Zinco Corporation, where dastardly things are afoot. 

Not a whole lot happens in this issue, but it's nice to see Tyler Crook, who has drawn a couple BPRD mini-series, back drawing again.  He was originally announced as Guy Davis's replacement on this title, but I guess that was before the powers that be decided to expand the line, necessitating a rotating stable of artists.  He's very good, as is this comic.

Lobster Johnson: The Burning Hand #5

Written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi
Art by Tonci Zonjic

I wasn't all that invested in this series when it began, but by the end, I was really pretty happy with it.  I think the first issue started off a little too slowly for my liking and was too mired in the standard trappings of a pulp vigilante to really catch my interest.  What kept me coming back was the strength of Tonci Zonjic's art (no surprise there - the guy's stuff is gorgeous), although I slowly developed more of an interest in the story.

The biggest problem with this series is that I don't care about Lobster Johnson at all.  The guy is a cipher - we know nothing about his motivations, or why he has such a dedicated network of helpers.  He doesn't seem like the type that anyone would go out on a limb for.  I think that future stories featuring him will really need to work at fleshing him out - it's not like when he first appeared in the Hellboy comics and fit in a supporting role - if he's going to star in his own book, there has to be a reason to care for him.

Still, I did enjoy this series in the long-run, but mostly because of the incredible set pieces that Mignola and Arcudi set up for Zonjic to draw.  Previous issues had some very cool scenes featuring the Black Flame, and this issue has an amazing image of the Lobster and a basement full of cannibals (although I don't understand how they are distinct from zombies).

BPRD Hell on Earth - The Pickens County Horror #2

Written by Mike Mignola and Scott Allie
Art by Jason Latour

I'm a couple weeks late in reading this comic (thanks Diamond!), but it was well worth it, as these short little BPRD mini-series that the people in the Mike Mignola department of Dark Horse are putting out so many of these days are really quite excellent.

Everyone loves a big epic, sweeping story, but we sometimes forget that a focused, taut little mini-series can be just as, if not more, rewarding.  With the Pickens County Horror, Mignola and co-writer Scott Allie have crafted a terrific little look at the types of missions undertaken by the agents of the BPRD who aren't Abe Sapien, Johann Kraus or Liz Sherman, but that are regular people involved in some deeply weird crap.

This issue concludes the story of just what some American vampires (no relation to Scott Snyder's Vertigo characters) have been up to in rural South Carolina.  Mignola has rarely shown vampires in his Hellboy-verse (which is not in the same continuity as his Baltimore stories), but whenever they've appeared, there have been hints at a larger plot to literally seed the world with vampires, preparing for a particular date when they would all awaken.

In this story, Agents Vaughn and Peters have taken refuge in a shack covered in crosses, and lived in by an old man who is there to study vampires.  Peters is quite ill, and we learn that whatever the strange fog is that has descended on the town every night, it's had a hand in changing Peters into something else.

This issue is mostly filled with action, and Jason Latour has done a terrific job of filling the scenes with some creepy images.  The creatures that come out of the fog are kind of like jellyfish-people, which he makes work, and his establishing shots are great.

When I first saw that Dark Horse was planning on flooding the shelves with BPRD mini-series this year, I was annoyed (for the same reasons I don't like Marvel's double-shipping of their titles), but I do really like the way they are using these short series to examine different aspects of the 'Hell on Earth' status quo in this series.  So long as they keep giving us new situations like this, with such terrific art, I'm going to be buying whatever they come out with.

BPRD Hell on Earth - The Pickens County Horror

Written by Mike Mignola and Scott Allie
Art by Jason Latour

The side of me that prefers my comics to be monthly, and not double- or triple-shipped in a month is annoyed that the Mike Mignola machine is pumping out so much product these days in the wake of Hellboy's removal from the schedule, but the true comics fan in me is happy to be getting a second BPRD mini-series, interwoven with the other one that is currently running (The Long Death).

The thing about the BPRD that makes such a publishing frequency work, as compared to superhero comics, is that since the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense is such a large organization, there is always space for new stories within it (as opposed to stories that star Wolverine, who never sleeps or even has time to go to the bathroom).  This two-part mini-series features two agents, Vaughn and Peters, who have probably been knocking around this title for some time in the background, but whom I don't really remember.  The story does a good job of bringing us up to speed where they are concerned though, and there's a cool little Hellboy cameo to boot.

The Bureau is stretched pretty thin since things started going crazy worldwide, and so two agents are all that can be sent when a town in South Carolina calls in reporting strange fog in the mountains, and the disappearances of locals.  It seems that there is a family of vampires living in the hills, although just what they're doing is not all that clear.  Late in the book we are introduced to a vampire researcher (who strangely goes unnamed), who is in the area looking for connections between these local vamps and a creature who first came to America to help quell the Revolution in the 1700s.  Vampires have only rarely been used in the Mignola-verse, so it's interesting to see where this story is going to go.

This arc is being drawn by Jason Latour, who is an interesting addition to the ranks of BPRD artists.  He has a very clean look to his art, and is terrific at capturing the weirdness of backwoods Carolina.  I'm glad that this is a short mini-series, but I am definitely enjoying it.

BPRD Hell on Earth - The Long Death #2

Written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi
Art by James Harren

The Long Death, the latest mini-series featuring the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, has been terrific.  Writers Mignola and Arcudi have taken a pause from the global weirdness that the various members of this book have been dealing with over the past two years or so (since they added 'Hell on Earth' to the title) to feature one of the more interesting cast members, Johann Kraus.

Last issue had Johann lead a team into the woods of British Columbia to look for some missing hikers and park rangers.  Johann promptly ditched them, and they were attacked by a creature that is familiar to long-term readers of the book.  This issue picks up with Johann sitting at the bedside of new character Agent Giarocco, explaining why he was absent when she was attacked.  As it turns out, Johann is up there hunting for Captain Daimio, who used to work with him before turning into a jaguar-god creature, and slaughtering a number of BPRD personnel, and killing the clone body that Johann was inhabiting.

We've seen before that Johann often works his own agenda.  This leads to another run-in with Daimio that is visually stunning, as Johann uses his ability to animate dead bodies quite creatively.  I don't want to spoil the scene, but I strongly suggest that people flip through this comic on the stands if you haven't already bought it.  New artist James Harren is a very strong addition to the Mignola-verse of comics, and I hope to see him continue to work with these characters for some time to come.

Dark Horse Presents #9

Written by Mike Mignola, Brian Wood, Paul Pope, Tony Puryear, Erika Alexander, Robert Alexander, Edgar Allen Poe, Richard Corben, Rich Johnston, Alan Gordon, Steve Horton, Caitlin R. Kiernan, and MJ Butler
Art by Joe Querio, Kristian Donaldson, Paul Pope, Tony Puryear, Richard Corben, Simon Rohrmüller, Thomas Yeates, Steve Horton, Steve Lieber, and Mark Wheatley

Dark Horse, as a comics company, has been on fire lately.  Where two years ago, I was only buying one or two titles from this company, and now I think I'm getting somewhere around nine a month.  Like they did back in the day, with the first run of Dark Horse Presents, they are wisely using this monthly anthology title as a proving ground or launch pad for new series and ideas.

This month has some pretty impressive comics.  There's a Paul Pope story, which was a nice surprise.  Basically, Pope shows us what happened when the Apollo 12 lunar module landed on the moon.  It feels pretty authentic, and is perhaps a bit of a strange choice for Pope, but it's also a wonderfully drawn piece of history.

The book opens with a Lobster Johnson story by Mike Mignola and artist Joe Querio, which follows the usual trajectory of a Mignola short story.  These are always good reads, but I am beginning to get a little bored of them.

The second chapter of Brian Wood and Kristian Donaldson's The Massive introduces another new character; this time it's a Tamil boy who tried to kill fishermen who were poisoning the ocean where his family fished.  I'm much more interested in what Wood is doing with this story this month than I was last.  This is beginning to feel like it could be as great a story as DMZ.

Tony Puryear's Concrete Park continues to interest me.  Puryear has said that this his story is going to be moving to its own title soon; I'll definitely be on board for that.  Richard Corben adapts an Edger Allen Poe poem, which is creepy and interesting.  Rich Johnston's 'Many Murders of Miss Cranbourne' continues to be amusing, and it's nice to see how the old lady is manipulating half the town she lives in to aid her in her murderous work.

Of less interest were the Tarzan and Skultar stories.  Two new features, Amala's Blade and Alabaster: Wolves were not all that impressive, but thankfully, there was no new chapter in Neal Adams's horrible Blood story.

BPRD Hell on Earth: The Long Death #1

Written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi
Art by James Harren

This start to the latest BPRD mini-series felt, in many ways, like a return to form for the series, which has been consistently good, but perhaps floundering for a while (since Abe Sapien got shot, I'd say). 

The issue opens on a strange scene shared by Johann Kraus and Captain Daimio, which is quickly revealed to be a dream.  That is significant, since Johann, who is a ghost, hasn't had a dream since he died and began living in a containment suit.  He believes that the dream is indicative of the normalizing effect of his new suit, which he got in the Russia arc.  Panya sees it more literally, but before they can explore it further, Johann is dispatched to lead a mission.

It's great to see Panya in the book again.  She's an ancient mummy from Egypt who is somehow still alive, if rather brittle.  She's been a favourite character of mine since she debuted in the series, and we haven't seen much of her of late.  I'm not sure that she can be trusted, and some of the scenes in this issue help that along.

Johann's mission is in the same area of British Columbia where Abe encountered Captain Daimio a while back, and like Abe did on that mission, Johann ditches his troops to search for his former colleague.  The troops don't do so well though, as a creature attacks their bivouac.

There are two things I found especially enjoyable about this issue.  The first is the introduction of Agent Giarocco, who takes charge after Johann's disappearance.  Apparently, she's been around the margins of this title for some time, but in just a few pages, Mignola and Arcudi flesh her out into a pretty likeable character.  The second thing I liked most about this comic was the art.  James Harren had worked on the Abe Sapien mini-series of a few months ago, and it was good, but this issue looks much, much better.  I was enjoying Tyler Crook's work on this title, and hope to see him again, but for now, I'm very happy with Harren.  Also, I love this cover by Duncan Fegredo.

Dark Horse Presents #8

Written by Mike Mignola, John Arcudi, Evan Dorkin, Tony Puryear, Neal Adams, Howard Chaykin, Alan Gordon, Brian Wood, Martin Conaghan, Rich Johnston, and MJ Butler
Art by Duncan Fegredo, Jill Thompson, Tony Puryear, Neal Adams, Howard Chaykin, Thomas Yeates, Kristian Donaldson, Jimmy Broxton, Simon Rohrmüller, and Mark Wheatley

There are a lot of new things popping up in Dark Horse Presents lately, as some of the inaugural series in this anthology have conclude or gone on hiatus.  With these new stories come some big-name creators, and some people with whom I'm unfamiliar but am very curious to see more from.

This issue starts with a Kate Corrigan story.  Kate is a central character in Mike Mignola's BPRD, and in this story she reacts to the news of Hellboy's death, after meeting his companion Alice in a cemetery in England.  Some of the emotion in this story feels a little forced, and I found myself much more interested in what was happening between Kate and her German boyfriend Bruno than I was in the death of Hellboy.

There is an excellent Beasts of Burden story by Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson, involving our usual cast of animals meeting a group of strange sheep one day.  Dorkin and Thompson have just about perfected their approach to these horror stories that feature talking animals.  Normally, I'd stay away from something like this, but these two have made these characters so loveable, and their stories so sad and loving, that I can't stay away.  This is one of the best comics being made these days.

I continue to be very interested in Tony Puryear's Concrete Park.  It's a near-future gangster science fiction story, and while he's still really just establishing characters and their relationships to one another, I find it pretty fascinating.  I've always been drawn to strong world-building in comics, and I'm appreciating the level of thought and planning on display in this series.

Howard Chaykin's Marked Man ends well.  I haven't always enjoyed this story of a hired thief and assassin who, after many years of successfully anonymous crime, is exposed, and his family killed.  He gets his revenge in this chapter, and Chaykin makes some interesting choices.

There is a very strange Tarzan story that starts in this issue.  It's set in a future world where most of our world lies in ruin.  Tarzan lives in a series of hidden apartments which are also greenhouses (I think), and gets approached by some people to do something.  Really, I think I need to read this again.  I did enjoy Thomas Yeates's art, which always looks so old school and so great.  This story reminded me a lot of Arvid Nelson's Zero Killer series of a few years back.

Brian Wood and Kristian Donaldson's new series The Massive debuts here, although what all it's going to be about is not yet clear.  We do get some very cool visuals of an independent military contractor being the only survivor after an oil rig that has been taken over by eco-terrorists gets buffeted by insanely strong waves.  It's Wood, so I know this is going to be great.

Martin Conaghan (who?) and Jimmy Broxton (who I loved on Knight & Squire, and who has reached some internet notoriety of late over his involvement in the failed Kickstarter sequel to Smoke) give us a very cool done-in-one story about time travel and cloning (two things which should never mix).

Rich Johnston, of Bleeding Cool fame, starts off a new series here, 'The Many Murders of Miss Cranborne.'  This is about a little old British lady who kills men of the cloth who she believes are not pure in their intent.  With Simon Rohrmüller's art, and the doughty speech patterns of the murderess, we are strongly in Agatha Christie meets Rick Geary territory, and I love it.

There are also new chapters of Skultar, which is kind of funny, and Neal Adams's Blood, which is still god-awful.  It's a shame there isn't a new chapter of Finder this month - that would have made this just about perfect.

Dark Horse Presents #7

Written by Mike Mignola, Andi Watson, Neal Adams, Howard Chaykin, MJ Butler, Stan Sakai, Tony Puryear, Brandon Graham, Felipe Melo, and Carla Speed McNeil
Art by Mike Mignola, Andi Watson, Neal Adams, Howard Chaykin, Mark Wheatley, Stan Sakai, Tony Puryear, Brandon Graham, Juan Cavia, and Carla Speed McNeil

There are some new members to the the exclusive Dark Horse Presents library this month.

I don't know who Tony Puryear is, but the first chapter of his Concrete Park definitely has my attention.  It's set in a place called Scare City, a place beset by gangs, pimps, and protests, in what I assume is a not-too distant future.  These eight pages are spent introducing a few characters, and setting the scene, and I can't wait to read more.  This has a real DMZ meets Love and Rockets feel going for it.

There is also a Brandon Graham story, which is a huge treat.  He is moving into some more abstract territory than King City, with this tale about a man's voice who left him, returning over after the man's death.  He has to deal with the various Secrets, Ideas, and Doubts that are inhabiting the man's labyrinthine home.  Graham is working on some other level, with some of his usual puns being given centre stage, in a story that deserves to be read a few times over.

MJ Butler and Mark Wheatley give us the beginning of Skultar, a very self-aware barbarian fantasy parody that is decent, if not all that special.  There is also a Usagi Yojimbo story.  I can't ever really get into these.

Mike Mignola has a Hellboy story, recounting one of the more mysterious cases during HB's time in Mexico.  This is a very standard Hellboy story - there are monsters, bodies rising from the grave, and Hellboy falls down.  Mignola needs to shake this stuff up a little bit; it's getting a little old.

Among the established stories, the Finder chapter is the best, as Jaegar meets a person with abilities that both represent the pinnacle of his profession, and which nullify the need for someone like him.  McNeil's art is really evolving into something wonderful lately; it's much richer than before (and I like her early stuff a great deal).

Howard Chaykin's Marked Man is almost over, and that's a good thing.  I hope Neal Adams's Blood is going to be finished soon; it's unreadable.  The Andi Watson story is decent, in a Borges-for-children way, and The Adventures of Dog Mendonca and Pizzaboy is pretty sub-par.

Baltimore: The Curse Bells #4

Written by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden
Art by Ben Stenbeck

The character of Lord Baltimore, the one-legged vampire hunter who is the star of this Mike Mignola title that is not set in the Hellboy continuity, has stayed more or less a cipher since he was introduced to comics with his last mini-series (I still don't know about how he was portrayed in the novel).  Sure, we've learned why he is on such a single-minded quest for revenge on the vampire Haggis, but we know very little about his character.

Some of who he is stands revealed with this issue, where he is given a choice.  He has the opportunity to kill Haggis, and thereby complete his mission, or he can stop the recently returned Madame Blavatsky from cursing the bells in the large church complex where this story is happening, and thereby save thousands of people from a life on ensorcelled servitude.  In most comics, the decision would be clear, but in this one it's not.

Mignola and Golden have built up a nice scenario for this character, and it helps the reader learn a lot about him.  The rest of the comic plays out like many Mignola comics do - it's heavy on symbolism, with a hint of pretension about it (especially when the guy trying to take power quotes Poe at length), but it's a very good read with nice, moody art.

Abe Sapien: The Devil Does Not Jest #2

Written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi
Art by James Harren

I'd felt that the first issue of this two-parter was a little too familiar.  So many Hellboy, and Hellboy-related comics involve creepy old houses that have something creepy living in the basement (and really - how often do people fall through floors in these comics?), and this just felt like more of the same, but featuring Abe Sapien instead of HB.  It was competent, but it didn't stand out.

I feel like this issue makes up for that somewhat, because of the addition to two things: hallucinations, and Hellboy.

We learn that Abe has been infected with some sort of demonic hallucinogenic compound, and so things get a little psychedelic (although not ever to the extent of Dave Johnson's brilliant cover).  It adds a nice touch to the story, and makes it visually very interesting.  James Harren handles this stuff very nicely.

The other welcome element is Hellboy himself.  It's become so rare to see him interacting with characters with whom he has a long-standing relationship, and that's a shame.  The camaraderie between him and Abe was a key part of the earlier stories, although for some reason, most flashback stories have him working solo missions for the Bureau.  I'd like to see more like this, even though the two characters only had a couple of panels together.

BPRD Hell on Earth - Russia #2

Written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi
Art by Tyler Crook

Putting Dave Johnson on covers for this title and the Abe Sapien mini-series was really a very good idea.  I've missed his cover work since he stopped working on Unknown Soldier a while ago; there is just about no one better at covers than him in the business.

This Russia arc is really pretty cool.  It's always a good idea to explore counterparts of characters in other nations, and it's a comics tradition to have those counterparts be Russian, so even though the Cold War is long over, this concept works here.

As it turns out, the Russian BPRD, called the SSS, is run by a monster, Iosif, who we last saw in the Abe Sapien Abyssal Plain mini-series (which I know I read, but can't really remember at the moment).  We learn why he needs the Bureau's help, which is pretty specific to Johann's talent set.  Johann's been acting very weird for a while now, so it's good to see him returning to his usual function.  I would have liked for there to have been at least one scene devoted to what's going on with Abe though.

Crook's art is continuing to impress me.  There is a full-page spread where Johann meets the person at the centre of this mission, which is very nice looking.  The person in chains looks like he could have been drawn by Bá or Moon, which is the highest praise possible from me these days.

Abe Sapien: The Devil Does Not Jest #1

Written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi
Art by James Harren

I'm a couple of weeks behind on this, because it was only shipped to my comic store today for some reason.

I really like Abe Sapien, who has been getting the shaft of late in BPRD (assuming he's even still alive - they are being vague about this).  He's become a competent and capable agent in recent years, but his earlier missions were marred by his uncertainty.

This story takes place in 1985, which means that Abe has not been a field agent for long.  He goes to Maine to investigate the fifty-year-old disappearance of a writer whose work he enjoys, only to stumble upon a bit of a supernatural mystery, complete with a creepy old house and a giant creature in a basement.

Really, the set-up of these types of stories in the Mignola-verse is getting pretty old.  I feel like we've seen this exact thing played out time and again in these books, with only the setting and the protagonist switching up.  I understand why they are written like this - the formula works - but just once, I would like to see Mignola and his collaborators play with our expectations a little more, and give us some genuine twists.

The art for this book is by James Harren, another newcomer to the Hellboy/BPRD fold.  His art is pretty good and is not that different from other newcomer Tyler Crook.  It fits the house look of these books nicely.  I love the cover by Dave Johnson.

BPRD Hell on Earth: Russia #1

Written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi
Art by Tyler Crook

After spending a little too long focusing over the last two BPRD mini-series on Liz Sherman, it's nice to return to the core cast of characters in this book, as Johann and Kate head off to Russia to meet with the Russian counterparts to the BPRD.

Now, this is always something that I liked about comics growing up as a kid - every organization or team has a Russian counterpart.  It's always led to some pretty derivative characters, but some great stories (of course, as of right now the only example I can think of is the Soviet Super-Soldiers, but I know there are more - help!).

Since changing the name of this comic to incorporate the Hell on Earth concept, I've enjoyed seeing just how messed up things have become around the world.  As Corrigan and Johann travel to their meeting in Moscow, they are suddenly attacked by a man who has undergone a strange conversion into a scabrous, hunchbacked creature.  What makes this scene work so well is the utter indifference of all the Russians, for whom we assume this is a common event.

Tyler Crook, the new artist, is continuing to impress me.  He draws Johann much like Guy Davis did - as an actual bag of gas, with wobbly arms that bend wherever it is convenient, instead of at an ectoplasmic elbow.  I'm liking this new arc a great deal, and look forward to seeing where it heads.

Baltimore: The Curse Bells #2

Written by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden
Art by Ben Stenbeck

When in the mood for melancholic, uber-gothic vampire comics, you can't go wrong with Baltimore.  In this issue, we are really treated by artist Ben Stenbeck to a number of fantastic visuals, as Lord Baltimore investigates a convent that had been taken over by his enemy, Haigus, although that's not the case anymore.

There are great scenes of Baltimore infiltrating the convent as the nuns stand sentry on the roof.  There's an even better scene, where Baltimore and his new companion, the journalist Hodge, attempt to consecrate their weapons at a church, only to learn that it has been taken over by another entity.  I also loved the shout-out to Madame Blavatsky.

In a lot of ways, I find that I prefer Stenbeck's brand of creepiness to Mignola's.  They are similar artists, but having seen Mignola work on much the same stock of images for so many years, Stenbeck's approach feels fresher and more interesting.

Despite having collected comics my whole life, I've never started collecting original artwork, and have only rarely felt the need to.  That said, I would love to own the last page of this comic.