5 out of 5

I literally let out a mini squeal of joy when I opened the package and saw I had received my physical copies of Merrick #7 and 8.  There have been several Hellboy-inspired books in the wake of Mignola’s classic – and surely, Tom Ward’s / Luke Parker’s big right-handed, blocky-arted, demon-punchy hero is in that group – but many of them either feel forced or, alternately, too casual; they don’t feel like their own thing.  But from the start, whilst wearing the Mignola-club badge proudly, The Sensational Elephantman has managed to maintain its own voice and tone, very much more story-based than HB (which, in my mind, forever suffers from retro-fitting mythology onto standalone appearances) but not shooting for the moon of a million issue series with twisty turnies every arc.  Case in point: Monsters, in which Merrick tussles with a slug, and then a man-elephant (five stars, just for that), drops a giganto story reveal, offering up even more explanations regarding Treves’ role, and said reveal functions equally as a positive, involving aspect of the two-issue arc and then also a stage-setter for more action.  The more common version of these early days’ reveals is to kill your story’s momentum – whatever the reader was there for was resolved, and there’s nothing much left to care about – but here, we just want to hang with the punchy writing, the excellent art, the amazing colors (seriously, the book has a general black / spot-color m.o., but the range of tones that ends up getting used whilst maintaining mood consistency is awesome), and the perfectly-suited-to-the-book lettering (Micah Myers – a new fave).

It’s nice truly looking forward to reading something.  And rereading it.