Product Description

Mike Mignola's award-winning series Hellboy has been lauded as much by other artists as it has by award ceremonies and fans. Over the years, many of the best artists in the industry have asked if they could do a backup story, just to get a chance to play with the characters and worlds Mignola has created. As Dark Horse gears up for the release of the 2004 Hellboy motion picture, we present this lavish collection of these stories. One of the most popular features in recent Hellboy books has been the sketchbook section, so we've asked these stellar artists to let us present some of their behind-the-scenes work in this collection. Collecting issues #1 through #4 of the bimontly series. Some of the best writers and artists in comics team up to present stories of giant bats, demon children, jet packs, haunted circuses, and rusted-out spaceships. Old-fashioned pulp fun featuring one of the greatest heroes of modern comics.

* Mike Mignola's ascent into the upper-echelon of comics creators continues as fans eagerly anticipate the release of the major motion picture Hellboy!

* Some of the top writers and artists in today's world of comics provide their take on Hellboy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #218709 in Books
• Published on: 2003-12-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781569716229
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Mike Mignola's popular character Hellboy is headed toward the big screen, and Mignola's turned him over to an array of creators to produce short stories, collected in this volume. Hellboy is a devilish looking paranormal investigator with a sense of humor, and his adventures are infused with a spooky gothic horror, sarcastic wit and a sense of movie serial fun held over from the 1940s. Hellboy's basic concept is broad, allowing creators room to play with ghosts, demons, foreign landscapes and a well-designed character who lends himself to a multitude of interpretations from dead serious to wacky. The collection of 13 stories has no duds, and quite a few excellent pieces. Of the more successful ones, a few stand out. Bob Fingerman's hilarious slapstick version of Hellboy has him investigating a soda machine that ate his dollar. John Cassaday contributes a solemn and cinematic story about a ghostly circus that pays off with a dramatic ending. And Andi Watson tells a seemingly serious birthday story with a touching finale. Roger Langridge and Eric Powell keep things light, both contributing funny, lovingly rendered stories that treat Hellboy and the paranormal as fertile ground for jokes. This entertaining collection is accessible to even the Hellboy neophyte, and highly recommended for adventure comics lovers.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Grade 10 Up-Weird Tales was a horror/fantasy/pulp anthology published in prewar America. Hellboy is a paranormal detective from Hell (where else?). This collection of stories is in the spirit of the original, featuring Hellboy depicted by a wide variety of comic creators; some stay true to the appearance of the original character. The plots are as varied as the creators. In a softly drawn story by Haden Blackman and J. H. Williams III, Hellboy gets hit on by a sexy female fellow investigator; courtesy of Kia Asamiya and Akira Yoshida, he has a manga-style adventure; and in Evan Dorkin's entry, he experiences a sickly hilarious run-in with a Norwegian black metal band. Mignola gave these artists free reign, and they do indeed take it-though each story is 10 pages or less, the plots are elaborate yet self-contained. Dorkin's contribution, for example, also features a giant regurgitating baby and a fake psychologist, which make perfect sense by tale's end. It's not necessary to be a Hellboy fan to enjoy the selections.-Jamie Watson, Harford County Public Library, MD
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Hellboy is a big, red, basically humanoid demon with a lantern jaw, a Schwarzenegger build, a brick (maybe brimstone) right fist, two sawed-off horns on his forehead, a reptilian tail, and cloven-hoofed feet. The brainchild of artist-writer Mike Mignola, Hellboy is an agent of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense entrusted with tracking down and squelching ghosts, poltergeists, and other bumpers-in-the-night. Thanks to Mignola's visual flair, Hellboy has been so appealing that lots of other comics creators want to horn in on the act. Hence, the new comic Weird Tales, consisting of Hellboy capers writ and drawn by anyone but Mignola, the first four numbers of which make up this book. The word entertaining is an understatement for this stuff, which varies visually from UPI-cartoonish (i.e., like Mr. Magoo, Casper the Friendly Ghost, etc.) to delicately textured and toned black-and-white realism to alt-comics-looking minimalism to cursive, manga -ish abstraction. Humor and whimsy are constants in the writing, even, darkly, in the one story in which Hellboy is replaced by a human demon--Stalin. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Hellboy Seen Through The Eyes of Others
Hellboy has become a huge success and creator Mike Mignola is busier than ever. So what do you do when the public wants more of your character than you can safely create? You invite other artists to put their own spin on things. This volume is a collection of such stories.

Midnight Cowboy - A young Hellboy gets into trouble at Area 51.
Haunted - Hellboy investigates a supposedly haunted house but finds no trace of ghosts but they find him.
Family Story - Hellboy is doing research and discovers some strange goings on in the family that owns the library.
Hot - Hellboy investigates something that is scaring people out of some Chinese hot springs. The Water Sprite he finds awakens the horn in him.
The Children of the Black Mound - Cold hard reason squares off against ghosts, legends and religion. A tale of a young historical figure.
Big-Top-hell-Boy - Hellboy investigates a cunning array of circus ghosts and find a curious property of his right hand.
Flight Risk - Aces of the jetpack vie for altitude records but some rather large bats may have other ideas.
Hellboy & Co in Downtime - Hellboy has tackled some evil entities in his time. Now he must face his ultimate challenges as he goes up against the office copier and the soda machine
Abe Sapien Star of the BPRD - Hellboy is just a musclebound bulk while Abe Sapien is the one who really brings home the sushi (I mean bacon).
Hey, Hey, Suckers! - Hellboy returns from a gala and can't help boasting and rubbing it in.
Curse of the Haunted Doily - Kate faces her mom's ghost
The Dread Within - Liz vs Possession
Still Born - Hellboy attends a dangerous birth in reality and in his dreams.
Party Pooper - Hellboy's birthday party

This is a fun collection. The stories vary between the silly to the dark and eerie. Art styles also cover most of the spectrum from the beautiful pencils of Hot to the cartoonish Hellboy and Co in Downtime. A must read for any Hellboy fan.

Graphic SF Reader
Weird Tales was a famous old magazine that turned up a lot of legends, so the title is a homage to that particular publication.

Mike Mignola lets some other people play with his character, and there are some pretty amusing things happen to him, as a girl chases him, a band harrasses him and other fun.

There are also stories featuring other BPRD luminaries.

ahhh... the artwork..
as some of the other reviews stated already, mike mignola didn't do any of the art or stories in this collection. that being said, this is a great collection of stories that have different takes on the characters, and the art especially but all still have the hellboy feel. the artwork is awesome. there is a variety of styles and mediums. i especially liked the colored pencil. there are some old lobster johnson comics in the back, along with pencil sketches from two artists, an afterword by mike mignola and some extra hellboys pics from the other artists. the stories are really entertaining and some parts made me laugh out loud. all in all if you are a hellboy fan you will enjoy this collection.