Hellboy: Weird Tales (Volume One)

Mike Mignola

I was really looking forward to this volume ever since I finished the Hellboy series.  I’ve been feeling a bit of withdrawal after not having any more volumes full of my big red guy.  I hoped this volume would have the same spark that the short stories in early volumes of Hellboy had.  However, this is not entirely the case.

The volume starts out awesome–there are a ton of characters I was happy to see again and the stories reminded me of why I adore this series so much.  Then about half-way through the volume, the stories went from being great additions to the main volumes to what seemed like very obnoxious and poorly drawn fan art.  In several pieces, Hellboy was completely out of character, the art was average (at best) and the story itself wasn’t interesting.  Had these stories not been included, I would have thought this volume was perfect.

Regardless of some disappointing pieces, this volume is something hardcore fans of the Hellboy series should read–if only for the great extras found between the lame ones.  Just make sure to skip the vending machine story.  Bleck.