5 out of 5

Some time ago I read a short story in the collection Happy Endings – penned by Mignola’s daughter, drawn by him – that I enjoyed, pleasant nonsense, but couldn’t justify keeping the collection for just that story.  I was happy to discover that it was collected in Screw-On Head, and made me curious what kind of story to expect; what would it pair with?

Fittingly, it’s paired with utter nonsense.  Also: that utter nonsense is one of the most enjoyable comics I’ve read in Ever.

As I was flitting through the pages of Screw-On Head – and very literally flitting through, because it’s a light read – I was trying to figure out how I felt about characters like Emperor Zombie and Mister Dog; the Jack and the Beanstalk riff “Abu Gung and the Beanstalk,” the puppet twins in “The Witch and Her Soul.”  I felt a little miffed, like the read was totally empty, but then I arrived at Doctor Snap’s examining a turnip from Screw-On Head in “The Prisoner of Mars,” and further nods to other stories in the book in closer “In the Chapel of Curious Objects,” and I started to get a sense of the zealous enthusiasm which might’ve caused the book to be conjured from Mignola’s brain and hands.  Reading his afterword on each story somewhat confirmed it; instead of looking at this as some forced cleverness, I remembered how much fun those first Hellboy books were and recognized that I wasn’t looking at years worth of BPRD history and how it figures into the Screw-On Head mythos; I was looking at a genius creative who’s spawned years worth of material and worlds of characters and stories just having a good time in his head, and putting it on paper.

I reread it from the start, and instantly all of the dialogue and timing became comic genius.  If you’ve read Mignola, you know his penchant for lacing any given page with flashes of mood-setting imagery; it’s amazing to see that used here to totally set the Victorian / vril stuff tone, while also maintaining a gleeful smile the whole time as demons emerge from vegetable prisons and devils feel productive for making evil puppets.

Who knows which story came first, but it says something that that Happy Endings tale fits in perfectly with Screw-On and the other original stories contained within this volume.  It’s simply a joy to read – just set aside all of your Mignolaverse thoughts or wonderings if this is the beginning of some new ongoing and recognize a creator enjoying creating.