HELLBOY WINTER SPECIAL 2019 Is Fun But Lacking in Hellboy

Hellboy is a character which requires little to no introduction for anyone clued into pop culture, but it may come as a surprise to those who don’t follow the series that Hellboy has been in print in some way, shape or form for over 25 years, spawning countless spinoff series and side stories within Mike Mignola’s universe. One of the newer additions to the ever-expanding Hellboy repertoire is the Hellboy Winter Special, now in its fourth annual release. The Hellboy Winter Special (2019) is a one-shot anthology comic that features a selection of short stories from within Mike Mignola’s action-horror wonderland– as the name suggests, these stories are meant to evoke the cold and snow if not the holidays which one naturally associates with the season.

In that way, this newest edition succeeds, but it does suffer a minor flaw in that it barely features the titular character at all. I know, I know, there’s a lot more to Mignola’s setting than the big man himself, but Hellboy is only in the book for ten or so pages and it just feels a bit disingenuous to call this a Hellboy title at all. I’m sure that if I were a more die-hard fan of the series the connections in the second and third stories would be more meaningful, but having read the main line of books about eight years ago, it was difficult to make connections.

That’s not to say that the stories themselves are bad, far from it. The first story, The Miser’s Gift, makes great use of abandoned impossible spaces and is a fun concept all on its own. Mark Laszlo’s art leans toward the Seussian, especially in the backgrounds, which make the first story incredibly appealing and gives a lot of visual depth and atmosphere to the setting. This is also helped along by fantastic colorwork alternating between drab and vibrant colors for effect. It’s a little strange that this story was printed in the front of the book, as it’s easily the standout.

The next piece, The Longest Night, felt cozy (for lack of a better term) because of its vague similarity to other campfire stories in a way that’s hard to actually put a finger on. The art is clean and serves the story well, but the highlight of this short is a particularly interesting creature design. Of the three stories, this one probably did the best job of playing with the winter themes, both visually and in its storytelling. From here we have one final story, The Beast Of Ingelheim, which admittedly didn’t land well for me because I am absolutely certain it was a reference to something else within the universe that I could not recall for the life of me. If you’re a major fan of the series this one might do a lot more for you, I’d even concede that based on the ending and the exposition this may be the most “important” of the three, but without that context it felt just a bit too abrupt. Overall, the Hellboy Winter Special (2019) is a lot of fun, but your mileage may vary depending on your dedication to the series. If you’re just looking for a way to get in that last winter chill you could do worse.