Comments

1. Tad says:

   February 18, 2008 at 12:14 pm

   It’s a shame there’s no cover illustrated here because the 1946 covers are some of the nicest Mignola work being done recently.  Grab one from Dark Horse.

   I enjoy this series that focuses on Prof. Broom who raised Hellboy and the beginnings of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.  The series parallels the munitions race of the Cold War with Russia but in this case it’s in the area of the occult.  In the first two issues the US is just humoring the Professor, not realizing that the Russians have swept up all the strange artifacts of power that Hitler collected.  Josh Dysart does the script from a story by him and Mignola.  He does a nice job of giving everyone an individual voice.  My only quibble was having Broom say "C’mon" and the only reason I pick that nit is that I can’t get the stellar performance of John Hurt out of my head.

   The art is by Paul Azaceta which feels like a rougher Alex Toth.  It gives a realistic feel to the bizzare goings on which really works.  The flashback scenes recounting the wartime use of three demons feels very cinematic.  Although I like his art, given the post WW2 setting and the fact that I recently zipped through the Sgt. Rock Showcase edition, I would love to see Joe Kubert on this story as Broom realizes that there may be a practical reason for making the BPRD a quazi-military force.  Already one of the poor dogfaces assigned to him has been lost.

   A very good read, no previous knowledge of Hellboy is needed.

    

   –Tad 

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