Hellboy: Being Human

Hellboy (Ongoing Order) #54

by Mike Mignola, Richard Corben

A horrible witch and her zombie servant host a dinner party for a family of corpses, and Hellboy and Roger turn up to blast them all back to hell in this team-up story from Roger's early days at the B.P.R.D. Art by Richard Corben (Hellboy: The Bride of Hell, Hellboy in Mexico, Hellboy: The Crooked Ma). Features an early team-up with fan favorite Roger! Twenty-eight story pages of blood-curdling horror!

Genres: Comics, Fantasy, Comic Book

32 pages, Comic

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Mike Mignola was born September 16, 1960 in Berkeley, California and grew up in nearby Oakland. His fascination with ghosts and monsters began at an early age (he doesn't remember why) and reading Dracula at age 13 introduced him to Victorian literature and folklore from which he has never recovered.

In 1982, hoping to find a way to draw monsters for a living, he moved to New York City and began working for Marvel Comics, first as a (very terrible) inker and then as an artist on comics like Rocket Raccoon, Alpha Flight and The Hulk. By the late 80s he had begun to develop his signature style (thin lines, clunky shapes and lots of black) and moved onto higher profile commercial projects like Cosmic Odyssey (1988) and Gotham by Gaslight (1989) for DC Comics, and the not-so-commercial Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser (1990) for Marvel. In 1992, he drew the comic book adaptation of the film Bram Stoker's Dracula for Topps Comics.

In 1993, Mike moved to Dark Horse comics and created Hellboy, a half-demon occult detective who may or may not be the Beast of the Apocalypse. While the first story line (Seed of Destruction, 1994) was co-written by John Byrne, Mike has continued writing the series himself. There are, at this moment, 13 Hellboy graphic novel collections (with more on the way), several spin-off titles (B.P.R.D., Lobster Johnson, Abe Sapien and Witchfinder), three anthologies of prose stories, several novels, two animated films and two live-action films staring Ron Perlman. Hellboy has earned numerous comic industry awards and is published in a great many countries.

Mike also created the award-winning comic book The Amazing Screw-on Head and has co-written two novels (Baltimore, or, the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire and Joe Golem and the Drowning City) with best-selling author Christopher Golden.

Mike worked (very briefly) with Francis Ford Coppola on his film Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), was a production designer on the Disney film Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) and was visual consultant to director Guillermo del Toro on Blade II (2002), Hellboy (2004) and Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008). He lives somewhere in Southern California with his wife, daughter, a lot of books and a cat.

Reviews

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Score: 3.50 out of 5
Grade: 70% (B-) | Nice Little Detour

It's really throwing me off how the omnibus has these short stories organized in a different order than the volumes, but nonetheless, this was another good Hellboy side quest. I just really dig Hellboy as a character.

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some lush images of Southern decay, but finding some of Roger's humanity would be more uplifting in a story that showed humanity as any bit better than what is in here.

[Jacob Saltis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this one. I like Roger, the homunculus, he’s really cool. He did good for his first job.

My favorite part of this issue was the art though. It’s much more detailed, and I personally love it. The usual art style is good, it’s stylized, simple and less detailed, but it’s not my favorite and sometimes it’s hard to follow with what’s going on.

I liked this one cuz it’s two non humans, one trying to learn how to live the life of a man, and the other who is trying to teach him, while not knowing his true self.

[Shawn Robare · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really didn’t care for this one. Again, there’s just something “off” about the Mignola/Corben collaborations. The Hellboy comics tend to have an EC comics feel to their morality, a “just desserts” kind of approach to who gets killed, why and how. Having Roger kill the Voodoo priestess as a lesson on being human felt like a wrongheaded story choice.

[Victor Hugo · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best!

[Tina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aw, I really like Roger. Bless him. This had a good lesson about being human and what it means to be human, and it proved that even Roger could be just as human as Hellboy.

[The Smoog · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty enough to look at in a slightly off-kilter kind of way, not much else to say.