{"id":3760,"date":"2015-02-20T10:00:54","date_gmt":"2015-02-20T15:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/?p=3760"},"modified":"2022-02-10T09:42:27","modified_gmt":"2022-02-10T14:42:27","slug":"pulp-comics-hellboy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/2015\/02\/20\/pulp-comics-hellboy\/","title":{"rendered":"Pulp comics: Hellboy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Hellboy\"<\/a>Hellboy<\/strong>, World’s Greatest Paranormal Investigator, is a comic-book series that in the last 20 years has spawned a whole universe of stories and series, along with animated stories and two movies.<\/p>\n

Created by artist\/writer Mike Mignola<\/strong>, the series has several pulp influences, including inspiration from H.P. Lovecraft<\/a><\/strong>, Clark Ashton Smith<\/a><\/strong>, and Manly Wade Wellman<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Hellboy is an actual demon from Hell, who was summoned to Earth as an infant by Nazi occultists lead by Rasputin<\/strong> in 1944. Thanks to being raised by humans and\u00a0having\u00a0free will, he is not evil. Instead he is a key member of the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense<\/strong>, which includes other “creatures” who fight the forces of occult evil. He has a right hand made of stone, something which plays a big part in many of the stories.<\/p>\n

It was how Hellboy and his stories breaks from what we expect that is a big attraction for me, as well as the other elements I saw in them. \u00a0We see Hellboy horrified and disgusted by the evil that he finds. \u00a0And when Rasputin tries to use him and order him around, to have him tell Rasputin to go to hell and refuse is great.<\/p>\n

At first, Hellboy stories were either standalone or short mini-series. Some stories dealt with learning more about the origin and destiny of Hellboy. These stories take inspiration from Lovecraft and Smith, laying down a history of the world that goes back to creation and runs through pre-human civilizations such as Hyperborea and Lemuria as well as certain beings who are trying to “break through” and take back the world (similar to themes in Lovecraft’s “Cthulhu mythos”). Other stories, usually the stand-alone ones, often take their inspiration from Wellman, and tell of Hellboy confronting occult threats, usually on his wanderings (in particular “The Crooked Man” and other stories done by artist Richard Corben<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

Eventually, many of the stories, especially the mini-series, started to reveal more about Hellboy and tie in to a larger storyline that is still being revealed.<\/p>\n

\"'Hellboy:Hellboy was more likely to confront occult horrors from various cultures around the world, along with the “beings from the outer void,” rather then more prosaic monsters. Werewolves were rare, vampires exist in the Hellboy Universe but most kept themselves hidden from the world as shown by some stories. Beings from the world of faerie are also shown to exist.<\/p>\n

The Bureau \u2014 an independent organization at first, but later a U.N. agency \u2014 has various agents who confront the occult. This also include, or have included, humans with powers like Liz Sherman<\/strong> (pyrokinetic) and ageless mummy Panya<\/strong>, along with others like Abe Sapien<\/strong>, an amphibious humanoid, and Roger<\/strong>, a homunculus. The Bureau has had its own series for some time, and Abe has his own spin-off series.<\/p>\n

Other spin-off series have been set in the past, and will be more fully covered in other postings. These include Victorian occult investigator Sir Edmund Gray- Witchfinder<\/strong>, pulp hero Lobster Johnson<\/strong>, and the Vril-powered suit Sledgehammer<\/strong> in WWII.<\/p>\n

Hellboy has had two movies done by Guillermo del Toro<\/strong>. Sadly, while the look of the movies was great, and Ron Perlman<\/strong> was probably the best choice for Hellboy, Del Toro made alterations to the character and universe that I didn’t care for, as they removed stuff that I thought made Hellboy interesting and unique. One thing I thought was interesting was that Hellboy was known by everyone and pretty much accepted, but Del Toro made the Bureau secret and Hellboy unknown to the public at large. Also added was a romance between Hellboy and Liz. I would have preferred Mike Mignola’s Hellboy rather than Del Toro’s.<\/p>\n

Hellboy has also gotten several novels and anthologies series, over a dozen.<\/p>\n

The Hellboy series has been collected in over a dozen trade paperback volumes. Most are numbered, but a few are standalone. Some of the recent Hellboy stories have not yet been collected. The other series have their own collections. While many stories stand alone, as there are underlying themes and secondary storylines, it’s probably best to start with the volumes in order.<\/p>\n

If you like a different take on occult investigators, Hellboy and his universe of characters is one to check out. I’ve enjoyed the series for many years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hellboy, World’s Greatest Paranormal Investigator, is a comic-book series that in the last 20 years has spawned a whole universe of stories and series, along with animated stories and two movies. Created by artist\/writer Mike Mignola, the series has several pulp influences, including inspiration from H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and Manly Wade Wellman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3809,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_has_post_settings":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Pulp Super-Fan looks at pulp comics: Hellboy. http:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-YE","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[18,14],"tags":[4,201,728,800,19],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-3760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comics","category-review","tag-cthulhu-mythos","tag-h-p-lovecraft","tag-hellboy","tag-mike-mignola","tag-occult-detectives"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2015\/03\/hellboy-teaser.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-YE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3760"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7090,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3760\/revisions\/7090"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3760"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=3760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}