Hellboy ~ Week 13

This week we were asked to read comics about superheroes. I didn't want to read one that was about a superhero in tights. So I ended up reading Hellboy. One reason why chose to read Hellboy was because I have watch both movies that they produce and I wanted to see how it correlates between the comic world and the movie world.

Summary:

A well-meaning demon whose true name is Anung Un Rama, Hellboy was summoned from Hell to Earth as an infant on December 23, 1944 by Nazi occultists. He was discovered by the Allied Forces; amongst them, Professor Trevor Bruttenholm, who formed the United States Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. In time Hellboy grew to be a large, red-skinned demon with a tail, horns (which he files off, leaving behind the signature circular stumps on his forehead), cloven hooves for feet, and an oversized right hand made of stone. He has been described as smelling of dry-roasted peanuts. Although a bit gruff, he shows none of the malevolence thought to be intrinsic to demons, has a strong sense of humor and works with other strange creatures in the BPRD. This is said to be because of his upbringing under

Professor Bruttenholm, who raised him as a normal boy. Hellboy works for the BPRD, an international non-governmental agency, and himself against dark forces including Nazis and Baba Yaga, in a series of tales that have their roots in folklore, pulp magazines, vintage adventure, Lovecraft Ian horror and horror fiction. In earlier stories, he is identified as the "World's Greatest Paranormal Investigator."

Hellboy’s art style is very gritty, unique, very playful. I really enjoy the use of facial expressions and the different use of black line that the artist used throughout the comic. The use of color with the black lines really helps make each character pop and it’s own very unique way. All of the different monsters and characters are vastly unique to one another and individualize. It is hard to be confused on what’s going on the story. It’s very cleanly made with the use of the format, color, different characters and graphics, which all together reads beautifully.

The personalities are really fun to see and how the artist used them. Each character has their own unique personality will help enforcers this comic storyline. This comic is really funny and it really pokes fun at the Nazis in different ways. For an example Hellboy fighting with Hitler and then Hellboy basically kills Hitler. A person in the Nazis party finds Hitler’s head and takes it and hooks up Hitler’s brain to a monkey.  I don’t know about anyone else I find that first it is extremely funny and secondly it was really off-the-wall crazy. The storyline is really random and sporadic. Even though story set up that way it’s still makes for a really fun interesting read.