Customer Reviews
Hellboy is great. - By: grr, 29 Apr 2008 
This volume has plentyin it! It's a fair bit larger than the first two, & packed with fantastic short stories that had previously been unavailable for ages. The title story, 'The Chained Coffin' gives a great look at more of Hellboys' origins and.....daddy??!!. Plus there's the fan favourite 'The Corpse' (nasty irish fairies) & 'Almost Colossus', which introduces Roger the homunculus before he joins the BPRD.
What I really love about this is how a lot of the stories are groundedin traditional folk & fairy tales from around the world, like the Russian witch Baba Yaga. There is something here most people will recognize. Plus its kinda nice to have a hero who's a bit of an anglophile! And to top it off there a neat art gallery section at the end! Marvelous! A great anthology for Hellboy fans!
Mostly superb - By: , 28 Apr 2003 
This is a collection of great Hellboy stories. Most of which are superb.
You can tell Mike does his homework for the stories to pick up many folk tales from around the world. He then sticks Hellboyin to the middle of them & this makes for such a great read. Several timesin the book I got a big idiot grin on my face reading this stuff because of the lines that Hellboy comes out with & the things he says to the monsters he is battling with. Most of the stories are set like an investigation which sets the scene & the story, bringingin the elements of the mythos behind the tale. This invariably leads to a show down with the beasts behind the mythos where Hellboy does his stylish ass kicking thing.
One of the funny things about Hellboy is he is supposed to be this big hero & sports a great big gun but he is useless with it, never hits anything & ends up losing it more than shooting it! Lucky for him he has a big stone fist that packs a punch.
The only reason I didn't give this 5 stars is because I am not a fan of short stories as much as the bigger ones plus I felt that some of the stories could have been explored further but were reduced to what they are to fitin the comics they were written for.
Buy This Book - By: Mr. G. D. Rudge, 17 Mar 2003 This is the third Hellboy Graphic Novel. The art by Mike Mignola is excellent. It is a collection of Hellboy stories. A blend of action, adventure, humour & gripping horror. Many tales are classic myths from celtic & eastern europe, & a passing nod to Frankenstein. It features the Origin of Roger the Homunculus, & explores hellboy's past. Hellboy takes on Baba Yaga & evil fairies. It contains the story of the Wolves of St August, an excellent tale later released as a graphic novel. The two issuse mini series Almost colossus, another excellent tale. Allin all an excellent graphic novel.
Nice stories. - By: cousineerie, 04 Jan 2002 I think Hellboy is lots of fun. Mike Mignola was already a well regarded artist before he turned his hand to writing as well for this series. His inexperience as a writer shows a bitin the long Hellboy stories, Seed of Destruction & Wake the Devil. In the collected WTD he admits he had to re-plot the end of the book on the hoof when he found he had written himself into a corner.
This collection, which contains assorted one-shots, is more polished writing wise than the longer stories. There are some really nice touches here especially the sly folkloric learning which Mignola has picked up over the years, & it's nice to see someone approaching a supernaturally themed comic without the tiresome pretentiousness which characterises a lot of Hellblazer & Sandman stories. For all his demonic origin Hellboy is a very human character.
Another bonusin this collection is that each story is preceded by a little intro by Mignola himself saying how the idea came about which is a cool little bonus; it's always interesting to get a glimpse into the creative processes of people who are producing work you like.
