4 out of 5

A bit slow to the punch – pun intended? – a some odd lettering, but still very much of the classic Hellboy Mignola format: a strange event, a dash of lore, some wry humor, and some good BOOMs.

Hellboy, Portugal, early 90s.  An artist has become notably unresponsive at night whilst inside the chapel he’d reserved for working; the artist’s agent has called in the B.P.R.D. and score Hellboy for investigating.  The agent is an unusually chipper, modern character for this role, and the casual back-and-forth between him and HB is entertaining.  We see disturbing paintings, a disturbing statue, and then the artist arrives and some things are unleashed for a good ole Mignola fight, done up in a notably sickly green and pale yellow palette by ace colorist Dave Stewart.

Mignola spends some time exploring the artist’s work, filling in some backstory, and something about the pacing feels off.  It’s like there’s intended to be some subtext here, but then Mike wasn’t really all that committed to it, so the narrative just paddles along until the fight.  Since it’s a single issue, it’s not like it’s a long wait, but I didn’t really feel connected to the material until a few pages in, when HB recognizes a particular sculpture.  As to the lettering, while I’m sure he’s done this plenty of times, Clem Robbins lets several of his bubbles drift across panels, and it just seemed really weird here.  Maybe because the pacing wasn’t as immersive, it stuck out more, but I feel like Mike’s normally pretty rigid with keeping his lines in-panel, so having that broken by the lettering looked odd.

Once things get going, though, the enjoyment reaped from the one-shot outshines any such hitches.