I've had too many conversations where BPRD was glibly dismissed as an excuse for Mike Mignola and others to dabble in the world he created for Hellboy. As a late comer to the series I can tell from just a cursory read that this is important vital storytelling expanding that universe while maintaining the delicate balance of mythicism and whimsy.
Following the exploits of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense following Hellboy's departure these stories feature the likes of Abe Sapien, Liz Sherman and the plasmatic Johann Kraus as they battle occultic threats to mankind. This first of four hardcover volumes covers the first three trade paperbacks and features Sapien's origin story, the first appearance of Lobster Johnson and the beginning of the epic length Plague of Frogs.
The shorter stories in BPRD and Hellboy are often simple to a point that would be ridiculous if the artwork didn't do such a magnificent job of rendering the genre into the stuff of profound myth. In The Killer in My Skull and Drums of The Dead horror genre mainstay images of sharks, killer brains, mad scientists, and closeups of the crazed, the possessed and the terrified are rendered in heavily lined and starkly shadowed style but it's in the service of raw emotional narrative that trusts in the complexity of the human journey through sin, grace, redemption, and cosmic punishment making the shorter entries included here some of the volumes strongest stuff.
This volume kicks things off nicely although one could almost wish that dark Horse had made this series as an oversize Library Edition ala the 3 Hellboy volues that preceded it. Still it is a thick tightly bound, handsome book about the same height and breadth as a comic book. Great reading copy and soon to be a four volume set.
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