Book of Doom:
Hellboy: In the Chapel of Moloch
Hellboy: In the Chapel of Moloch was the first Hellboy story I’d read in years. It reminded me of two important points:
1. How almost effortlessly cool this book seems and
2. How exponentially better it is when Mignola does the art
As a kid, I remember hating Mignola’s art. I just knew him as the guy who did covers for X-Men Classics, and I thought he sucked. This was in the age of Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld, and I simply could not or would not appreciate such abstracted art. I’m guessing I thought something like “This guy doesn’t draw enough lines.”
Well anyway, now almost 20 years later, I can’t really enjoy anything Hellboy without Mignola’s art. It just adds so much to the dark, mysterious and quirky world he’s created. The settings are always so beautiful. The scenery in Hellboy comics is like an uncredited character. Mignola takes advantage of that, often spending panel time devoted to quiet reflections on the setting. I counted more than 30 panels of silent scenery and set details, before any of the big-fight action begins (which involved plenty of “silent” panels, but of a different sort).
I hadn’t read any Hellboy since seeing the first movie several years ago, and I’d forgotten how the character’s personality wasn’t as hammy as Ron Perlman plays him. So I enjoyed reading the character as a little more subdued, almost matter-of-fact about his work. There’s still humor, but it’s not as wide-screen in its delivery.
This issue made me want to buy more Hellboy comics and go exploring in Portugal. Let’s see what Doom DeLuise thought of it.
Doom DeLuise:
This is the first Hellboy comic I’ve ever read. My knowledge of the character is based solely off the two movies, so I didn’t quite know what to expect.
The first thing that caught my attention was how much smarter Hellboy seems in this issue than he ever has in the films. He’s still the tough guy with a big-ass gun, but he also knows his history, and I think it makes for a much more interesting character. In the movies, they touched on that a little, but he still mostly struck me as the brawn with the rest of his team serving as the brains.
What I liked about this issue, mostly, was the value of it. It’s only three bucks, there aren’t any advertisements, and it’s a self-contained story that manages to be interesting, spooky, and capped off with a cool little brawl.
Nothing too flashy here. Just an entertaining little one-shot that I’m happy to have picked up.
Fin Fang Doom:
I’ve never been what you’d call a fan of Hellboy. I watched and enjoyed both movies and I own the first couple of trades, but I’ve never been compelled to pick up a current Hellboy series. Until this week, when Jim Doom compelled me to do so.
The nicest thing I can say about Helboy: In the Chapel of Moloch is that it’s very pretty. Mike Mignola has a great art style and his character designs are always cool, and this one-shot was no exception. But that’s the extent of my enjoyment of the book.
I think I most enjoy the movies out of everything I’ve seen/read involving Hellboy. Coincidentally, that’s the only stuff I’ve seen/read that wasn’t written by Mike Mignola. I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but there must just be something about Mignola’s writing that disagrees with me. Maybe it’s the pacing, maybe it’s the dialogue; there’s just something about it that doesn’t make me interested at all.