Hellboy: Double Feature of Evil

Hellboy (Ongoing Order) #50

by Mike Mignola, Richard Corben (Illustrator)

Eisner Award-winning horror masters Mike Mignola and Richard Corben present this bloodcurdling double-feature comic with Hellboy entering two very different, but very deadly, housesa carnivorous home and a pagan temple, both hungry for human sacrifices.

Genres: Comics, Horror, Fantasy, Comic Book, Graphic Novels

32 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2010

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

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mike Mignola is a master of Short stories, they're all so engaging and a quick and fun read.

[Shawn Robare · Rating 3 out of 5]

There’s something off about these Mignola/Corben stories. Though I dug the Mexico tales, this duology and the Appalachian story are weird in that they both seem so haphazard. Hellboy is just already at the place where the junk is going down, but seems aimless and wandering. He feels added at the last moment, or like someone else wrote him besides Mignola. I wonder if these are all Corben and Mignola just threw his name on them?

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes you can feel the influence of pulp movies on Hellboy, and this just goes for it, not only in the title but in the framing of both tales as flashing across a movie screen watched by an audience of the dead. But hey, the dead talk to Hellboy, so they would probably enjoy watching him.

Neither story plumbs new depths or motivations, but if the solutions are simple things roll along pretty quickly.