Oh, The Horror! #9: Hellboy Vol. 3: The Chained Coffin and Others

I love Hellboy. Yes, I do! I think he's a great character and I just love his world and the other folks he surrounds himself with. I love both the fantastic movies directed by the great Guillermo Del Toro and I love the animated movies. One problem, though... I've never really read Hellboy. Some kinda fan I am, ay? Years ago I've read the famous The Corpse story, and I've read the crossover with Savage Dragon. One thing I've ALWAYS loved was the wonderful art done by the creator Mike Mignola. But yes, a few days ago I went to one of my friends' house to discuss our film assignment for film class. I saw he had a few comics and I asked if I could borrow Hellboy. I would have loved it to be Vol. 1, but it was Vol. 3: The Chained Coffin and Others, but who was I to pass up a chance to FINALLY read the damn book?! So I borrowed it and finally read it earlier today, and holy moley was this a blast to read! Each chapter was a short issue or a few pages all introduced by Mignola himself on the background of the story.

You can totally see Mignola having tons of fun writing and drawing this comic and coming up with the stories. It's seriously like watching a boy play with his toys. Mignola is highly imaginative with each panel-to-page of the stories, but at the same time produces the complexity of everything to a very simple story that's enough to have you cheering for the hero. Mignola is a HUGE folklore junky and his stories are deeply inspired by old folklore that range from all types of cultures. That's one thing that's always fascinated me about the character even in the movies, live action and animated. In this specific volume, there's inspiration from English, Irish, Russian culture, even a bit of Frankenstein! I would love to see what Mignola could do with Haitian folklore. That'd definitely get my fascination to the upteen level!

I would highly recommend this for anyone who's a fan of the Hellboy movies, horror, or monsters. I actually got such an aura of inspiration reading this and makes me really excited to produce something of this caliber someday. It's definitely pumped me up for the upcoming 24 Hour Comic Challenge I posted earlier about. Also, once again, the art is just... magnificent. I really wish Marvel and DC books would put more art like this into their books. Artists like Mignola, Riley Rossmo, Irving, etc. These types of artists are what I find to be more appealing than the art we're seeing in the Big 2 books today. Now, I do enjoy a lot of the art there and the artists are extremely skillful and talented, but it's time we've had some change with the style of art, you know?

But anywho, Hellboy! I'm so gonna need to start buying the other trades of this book! So do you all!