Hellboy Animated: #1

Genre action Author Jim Pascoe, Tad Stones Publisher Dark Horse External Links Official Dark Horse Website

The etymology of licensing can be very confusing at times. For example, Hellboy Animated #1 is a comic based on the Hellboy Animated cartoon feature, which is based on the original Hellboy series created by Mike Mignola. To summarize: this review is for a comic based on a cartoon based on a comic. Confused? Oh, and don't forget that there is actually a Hellboy live-action movie, whose actors (Ron Perelman and Selma Blair, among others) did their character's voices for the animated feature. The reason we have to split hairs on all of this is because The Hellboy Animated cartoon and subsequent comic are designed as NOT part of the continuity and "universe" of the original Hellboy comic series. Presumably, this is so Mignola can control the canonical story and characters, yet all involved can produce additional materials related to Hellboy for what seems to be a large number of fans that desire them. As writer Tad Stones says in his introduction, "The character's relationships and the major beats of Hellboy's life are the same here as those of the original, but the details have mutated." Ah, it wouldn't be a proper comic if something weren't mutating.

I will admit to being a beginner with the Hellboy universe. I have never read the comics, nor seen the movie, though having seen two of Hellboy director Guillermo Del Torro's Spanish-language art movies, Pan's Labyrinth and The Devil's Backbone, definitely has the movie on my radar. Luckily, it's not really necessary to know any of this background to enjoy this comic. Hellboy Animated #1 contains two stories. "The Black Wedding" and a secondary story "Pyramid of Death." The stories are quick, fantasy-adventure stories, with above average writing. While we don't receive a great deal of character motivation here, we are granted a useful amount of character interaction. In the lead story, the Team Hellboy is split into three squads: HB and psychic Josh Ecton on one, Liz Sherman and Kate Corrigan on another, Abe Sapien on his own. This breakdown allows newcomers to learn their interactions, and for longtime fans it is perhaps a novel arrangement as well.

"The Black Wedding" concerns a wedding between a demon and a bride, the unwitting Sherman. Hellboy and his crew must, of course, save the day but he has to connect to his spellbound friend Sherman in order to do so. While the pace is brisk and the main characters get a number of moments to deliver one-liners, such as Hellboy's "You demon-types can't stay down, can you?," it's not all fun and games. One of the team members doesn't actually make it through, so it's not as if the tone is entirely for kids. Rick Lacey's pencils looks like they are based on an animated design, rather than the original comic, which is clearly the intent. They are lighter and more colorful than normal, with the characters slightly more rounded than Mignola's more angular style.

The second story, "Pyramid of Death," features what appears to be a young Hellboy (Jim Henson's Hellboy Babies, if you will). We know this because HB doesn't have his receding ponytail or soul patch. This story, written by Tad Stones, is even more fun and light than "The Black Wedding," but there is also some storytelling ingenuity at work, as we begin in a frame story of The Lobster, a radio serial program about the titular hero that the young Hellboy is listening to with excitement and I suppose you could say (in a number of ways) animation. The fictional story of the Lobster (within the fictional story of "Pyramid of Death") is also clever because a Lobster has one long "hand," which mirrors Hellboy's one giant punching hand. Likewise, Hellboy is a lobster shade of red, though the Lobster in the story dresses in a blue costume. Eventually, an amped lil' Hellboy interrupts a scheme to have a mummy power a nefarious plan. Towards the end of the story, the Hellboy and Lobster panels start to mirror each other in a nifty trick of parallel writing.

Hellboy Animated is a nice introduction to the character for new comic readers, for fans of the animated features, and for longtime fans of the original series that now get to see how these characters are newly interpreted. As Stones writes, "These are new missions for Hellboy, stand-alone adventures of the world's greatest paranormal investigator and his colleagues. Above all else, they're meant to be fun." And these truly are fun. Whether they're exciting or engaging enough to sustain audiences over a number of these titles is debatable. However, on its own, Hellboy Animated #1 is a swift, clever read.