5 out of 5

Weee free stuff.

I’m not good at remembering which of these four bits appeared elsewhere first, but it doesn’t matter: you get all sides of the Hellboy world without the dreary dramaturgy of recent BPRD and Abe Sapien…  (once again underlining that Scott Allie ruins things.)  I guess I could complain that the sampler is sort of false advertising, since it’s actually fun, and of the core HB titles only Hellboy in Hell fits that bill right now, and it comes out once every fifty years, not making it the ideal jumping on point for new readers, but if they can make the leap to Lobster or Baltimore from here, that should be okay.

First up – ‘The Coffin Man,’ Mignola and Fabio Moon.  Moon is somewhere between the gross exaggerations of Fiumara and the loose style that Guy Davis used to employ.  His figures and panels thus look awesome, balancing the fluidity of Davis with the right element of oddity Fiumara brings to the table.  ‘Coffin’ is your pitch-perfect HB story: a little drinkin’, a little monster fightin’, and a pleasingly silent open ending.  Then we get ‘B.P.R.D. Color Comics Fun!’, by R. Sikoryak, which I could read for days and days: it’s a few pages of HB gags done as Sunday comics send-ups, such as a Popeye spoof, or a Dilbert spoof.  It’s relentlessly clever, stylistically accurate for each strip chosen, and detail-oriented enough to be more of a fan service gig.  ‘The Ghoul’ is latter day Mignola – blockier, shadow strewn art, tones of Shakespeare-esque quotes (this time from Thomas Warton and Robert Blair), and a slightly surrealistic feel to the pacing.  For the smiles the first two parts bring, this is the serious side of HB, showing the flexibility of the character.  Finally, ‘Another Day at the Office’ by Mignola and Cameron Stewart.  This is a fairly inconsequential zombie tale, and over-and-done, but it’s a fair way of reminding new readers that movie characters like Abe Sapien and Johann exist, as well as giving some presence to the extra B.P.R.D. personnel.

All on glossy paper with glorious rich colors from Dave Stewart and Michelle Madsen (‘Office’).  And free.  An excellent sampling of the different flavors of the Mignolaverse, as well as a satisfying addition to any seasoned reader’s library.