Hellboy Library Edition, Volume 2: The Chained Coffin, The Right Hand of Doom, and Others
The second oversize collection of Mignola’s infernal superhero consists entirely of the shorter stories that fill the gap in the unfolding big story started in the early Hellboys gathered in Hellboy, v.1 (2008) and resumed, a bit, in Strange Places (2006). It’s pure Mignola, written and drawn, and it verifies his and editor Scott Allie’s shared contention that horror is best suited to the short story, even when it is adulterated by Hellboy’s wisecracks and exclamations of minor frustration while pummeling and being pummeled by supersize supernatural monsters. Try “The Corpse” and “The Wolves of St. August” for starters, then devour the rest of these terribly tasty concoctions. --Ray Olson