5 out of 5

Masterful.  I’m not quite sure how Mignola does it, as the Hellboy world expands and expands, but he undoubtedly does it, consistently impressive way more often than not.  I’m about to say that out of the side HB characters, Baltimore is my favorite, but Lobster Johnson, Witchfinder… they all have such great elements.  The key to this whole caboodle seems to be both the flexibility and the tightly knit nature of it.  There is an outline somewhere, a grand scheme, but there’s been so much room built in that you can keep stuffing the crevices with stories and stories, and they can be one shots or two parters, or eight books, or whatever.  All under the auspice of one man and his ring of co-conspirators, who, artistically, have learned to flex their own skills to outline the Mignola style, and for the writers, have learned to match the poetic pacing and blending of action and narrative the Mike has made MORE than an art over these however many years.

It’s masterful.

With Baltimore, Christopher Golden, who tends to get a fairly heavy handed when writing on his own, gets the grace of Mr. double M to turn his dauntless vampire killer into both a badass and tragic hero.  ‘The Inquisitor’ does its bit to fill in some more about our insane Judge Duvic, while also extending the narrative of the reporter.  Meanwhile, the characters are fully embodied in words and drawings such that its both fulfilling to those following all these books and entertaining and understandable to someone just handed this issue.  Stenbeck’s art is forever perfectly matched for the stoic world of Balty, and goddamn does Dave Stewart knock the colors out of the park.  Combined with Sten’s thick and steady inking, it makes for such dramatic compositions that this lil’ one shot reads like some year-in-the-making graphic novel, nevermind that these guys are working year ’round on several books.

But I’ve already used more words than are in the comic.  Sometimes Mignola will use a deux ex machina a little clumsily, but it pops up here at just the right moment to give us a punctuating exit that matches the short tale’s themes.  Wholly awesome.