About Heroes

Hellboy: The Troll Witch and Others

Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Writer/Artist/Creator: Mike Mignola
Artist: Richard Corben
Artist: P. Craig Russell

The first thing you need to know before I start this review is the beauty behind Hellboy is that that it doesn't matter if you've read Hellboy TPBs Volume 1-6 or not and that goes for any of the trades. Hellboy, in his own contained universe, can be read in whatever order you want. In many cases the stories in the volumes aren't even in order.

The first story in this collection, The Troll Witch and Others, is called Penanggalan and takes place in 1958, Malaysia, well before Hellboy's antics in the very first Hellboy series. My favorite part about the collected works of Hellboy is that they always come with three things, an introduction, a few sketches in the back, and Mignola's own explanation for how he came up with the story. His explanations are my favorite part about getting these in TPB, even if I had all the issues, which in this particular trade were hard to come by, I would have still picked this trade up. The explanations add a level of intimacy as we, the readers, get to look in on Mignola's writing and creative process, a notion still hard to come by in mainstream comics, and particularly nice in far out stories like these where on many occasions I have said to myself "where does he come up with this stuff."

In this trade we get a collection of stories that were printed in various formats, not just in single print issues, but also in collections with other works like Wizard magazine promotions and the Dark Horse Book of Witchcraft. These collections are essential because I didn't even know about the Penanggalan until I read it here. My favorite part of the Penanggalan is when Hellboy makes a comment that is quite possibly the same reaction Mignola himself would have had when he stumbled onto this story, in which a woman becomes startled and kicks her own head off, weird!

I personally love The Troll Witch for its ability to blend classic folklore with Hellboy. This particular story could almost be done without Hellboy but when added the supernatural element really kicks up. I also loved The Ghoul because Mignola juxtaposes a story about Hellboy beating up a monster and Shakespeare's Hamlet, which fits perfectly. Mignola drew most of the stories in this collection, which is something I doubt we will see much of in the future. His other artist's were Richard Corben who drew "Makoma" (though Mignola does draw a few panels at the beginning and the end) the story of Hellboy in Africa, which is probably one of my favorite Hellboy two part stories because of its involvement with Africa, and Corben's earth tones really fit the book. And the other artist is P. Craig Russell, who drew "The Vampire of Prague" a slightly cartoony style that works perfectly with a lighthearted gothic tale (yes, such a thing is possible). Mignola of course still writes all of the stories, which is awesome to see and again isn't as easy to come by, but Dark Horse is usually pretty good to its creators, and I am thankful of it. A+ Oh and you should look into all the rest of the trades if you like this one!