Written by Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden
Art by Shawn McManus
Published by Dark Horse Comics
Silly me. How dare I think that because Mike Mignola ended Hellboy’s story, that we’d ever stop making Hellboy comics?
After all, you’ve got 50 years of adventures from Hellboy’s life on Earth since the son of Azzael arrived on December 23, 1944, before we get to when we first met him.
After Young Hellboy: The Hidden Land, we now get Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: The Secret of Chesbro House. Set in 1983, Hellboy finds himself in a haunted house story, and he’s already over it.
Old house, wealthy family, occult dabblings with crazy sex and drugs, a curse and missing daughter – yadda, yadda, yadda. There’s a creepy psychic, the jaded great-grandson and sole heir, the eager-turned-frightened fiancée, an even creepier caretaker.
Is it funny/weird to see Hellboy so startled as new characters in this drama keep emerging to thicken the plot?
Or is it even stranger that the sole heir to the Chesbro house is so disbelieving of the stories that the house is haunted and reports of ghosts and spirits there? He’s talking to an actual demon-man, for cryin’ out loud! He also looks like Bruce Campbell, but that’s beside the point.
(Of course, that’s a running gag in Hellboy comics, that people just see him and treat him as if it’s not a giant red devil with shaved-down horns, cloven feet, a tail, and a giant, stone right hand. I remember the 1999 Batman/Hellboy/Starman crossover comic book, for example.)
Mignola and Christopher Golden wink just enough at the haunted house genre trappings without turning it all into farce, and the thrills remain genuine. Shawn McManus’ art also carries strong EC Comics vibes, realized all the better thanks to Dave Stewart’s colors.
This is a fun read, though probably truly appealing only to Hellboy completists rather than casual readers or Hellboy fans.
