3 out of 5

A 1948-era HB sneaks out at night and finds a mysterious circus.

While Mignola wraps in elements of his appreciation of myths and folklore, it’s a pretty light touch; Midnight Circus is more of an excuse to pair HB with some circus oddities, drawn with great grace by Duncan Fegredo, he and colorist Dave Stewart switching to a dreamy painterly style for other-worldly sequences.

This is mostly on par with any other young Hellboy exploration – slightly sweet, slightly sad, a little funny – but it’s also just as slight as those shorts.  The decision to expand to a $14.99 priced OGN is absolutely down to the artwork, which is certainly gorgeous, but can’t add enough to the story to necessarily make its isolation feel justified.