Hellboy & The B.P.R.D.: 1953 (Hellboy and the B.p.r.d., 2)

A stirringly entertaining collection of BPRDs adventures in England. With action and wicked humour we should expect from a younger Hellboy. And in 50s America the white picket fences are great a setting for something diabolical.

Excellent addition to my collection.

These are new short stories supposedly set back in 1953 in the context of the B.P.R.D.. I'm a big fan of Mignola's Hellboy and of some of the longer arcs, but I have to admit that this mini-series collection only offered an occasional treat.There are a lot of contributors. Four shorts were written by Mignola and drawn by Ben Stenbeck. The fifth short was written by Mignola and Chris Roberson and was drawn by Michael Walsh. The final tale, in three parts, was also written by Mignola and Roberson, but the pencils are by Paolo Rivera and the inks by Joe Rivera. As a consequence you get a pretty wide selection of styles and approaches, and the book never feels very coherent or much more than a random collection. That's fine if you want a sampler, but like all samplers there are some bits you'll like and some you won't.For what it's worth I liked the look and feel of "The Phantom Hand", which featured an exasperated and impulsive Hellboy, which is how I like him. The rest had individual scenes and bits and scraps of dialogue that were fun and hit the spot. (For example, Hellboy signing autographs for kids in the final story, which otherwise feels like "Leave it to Beaver" meets "Cujo".) But sometimes it felt like Hellboy was just there for decoration or to get tossed around by some monster, instead of dominating each page as he should.Still, it's Hellboy. And Hellboy, even on a slow day, beats anybody else.(Please note that I received a free advance will-self-destruct-in-x-days Adobe Digital copy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)