Book Review: Hellboy Vol. 10 by M. Mignola et al.

Hellboy Volume 10: The Crooked Man and Others written by Mike Mignola and Joshua Dysart, art by Richard Corben, Duncan Fegredo, Jason Shawn Alexander, and Mike Mignola

A volume of four Hellboy adventures, including the one featured in the new movie!

The Crooked Man--Hellboy is wandering through 1950s Appalachia and comes across a young woman cursed by a local witch. A local who has recently returned from his own wanderings, Tom Ferrell, helps Hellboy hunt down the witch. Tom has some significant backstory that leads into a lot of other discoveries on the mountain primeval. The story is very creepy and full of folklore from the region. Corben's art gives it a distinct, rural flavor that adds to the starkness of the situations and the horror. I liked this a lot. It's a favorite story of Mignola's, so it's natural to see it winding up in a movie version.

They That Go Down to the Sea in Ships--Hellboy investigates the rediscovery of Blackbeard's skull from one angle while Abe Sapien pursues the object from another angle. Blackbeard died of decapitation and his head was taken off to other places while his body (or at least the ghost of his body) searches the Outer Banks seashore for its missing top. The story packs in a bit of history and captures the vividness of Blackbeard's character. This was another enjoyable little chiller, using its two main protagonists well.

In the Chapel of Moloch--Hellboy travels to 1990s Portugal to investigate an artist who has stopped returning calls to his art dealer. The artist has been working in an old house with an attached chapel where he has worked at his paintings by candlelight. Unfortunately, he's switched over to sculpting and has crafted a gigantic statue of Moloch, an ancient monster-god, in the midst of his other works. Things go bump in the night and Hellboy is there to bump back. The tale is fairly simple and the art (by Mignola) very atmospheric.

The Mole--Hellboy is playing cards with some English ghosts when they notice a mole on Hellboy's normal hand. Of course the mole is not just a regular growth. It's an extremely odd growth that yields some weird stuff when it pops. The situation makes an interesting moment of horror for Hellboy himself rather than for someone he is helping. The narrative is very short but an enjoyable little scene.

This volume has a lot of good tales, with the title story being the best.

Highly recommended.