Okay. First things first. I'm a bit of a freak about Hellboy. I have the Sideshow life-size bust, life-size replicas of Big Baby and The Samaritan (exclusive version). I also have a wearable life-size Right Hand of Doom, a faux bronze baby Hellboy that I had autographed by Guillermo del Toro and a Spectral Motion maquette of Abe Sapien. I even have some fan made (in Italy) bullets containing white oak splinter, silver shavings, garlic and holy water.
When I heard that Dark Horse was finally going to give Hellboy the lavish hardcover treatment he deserved I was overjoyed. The disparity between the Hellboy films and the comics is vast. Both wonderfully bring a variety of incredible characters too life. But ultimately the comics themselves emerge the stronger for me. They come to life in a way that graphic art seldom does offering a minimum of dialogue and fuss in the creating of densely layered atmospheres and narratives that can be whimsical one moment and full of cosmic dread the next, sometimes simultaneously.
Three volumes into the series I couldn't be happier. Minus the presence of bookmark ribbon emblazoned with the BPRD logo or some ancient runes these are fabulously printed and as nice as a fan could ask for. The absence of a slipcase doesn't hurt them at all. Cloth bindings, gold lettering and a matte illustration centered on the front. Spines adorned at the top with a gold skull, title, volume number and the Dark Horse logo.
Volume three contains the following printed on tightly bound heavyweight paper. Conquerer Worm and Strange Places are supplemented with introductions by Guillermo del Toro, editor Scott Allie, and Gary Gianni with an afterward by Mignola. Miscellaney includes unused pages, and scads of sketches and design work.
yum! the edition looks gorgeous.
And just a comment, from one Hellboy fan to another. If you haven´t tried it already I recommend so so much Jon Arcudi and Guy Davis work at BPRD series. Terrific.