Hellboy Volume 1: Seed of Destruction

Liked it all the same! Maybe not so much as the first time around but yeah! Hellboy was is and I think will be fun to read no matter what!

My 3rd time around and was skeptical about it, thought it'd change my view and be bored or something, but dammit.. it's still so fucking good! Highly recommended!

Yeah still awesome and fun to read! Glad I decided to re-read everything, just to read Hellboy in Hell at the end!

I liked it! Great story, fun and dark and mysterious and overall solid! AMAZING artwork and coloring!

Finished "re-reading" this updated version, which still makes me like Hellboy more and more every time I read a story with him. You like Hellboy? Keep reading! You don't? No? Why? You suck! Read it.

One mildly interesting measure for comics, in a Scott McCloud way, would be “average percentage of panel covered in black”. I can’t imagine anyone beating Mignola on it - at a glance it’s more than a third. The writing isn’t even that strong - Hellboy’s quipping is monotonous - but the visual power is enough to compensate.

Much more beautiful than it had to be Writing kinda sucks in this volume but it quickly improves in others

Seeped in Lovecraftian tradition, and brimming with amazing and utterly original illustrations, Mignola's Hellboy is one wonderful, witty and highly entertaining comic series. (I loved the Supernatural Nazis. Just plain awesome.)

This was my second attempt at reading this comic. I first tried to read it a few weeks ago however I couldn't get past the first few pages because of all the writing. Now I don't mind a lot of writing in comics however the nature of comics means that it can convey certain things which books can't easily. Comics have visual aid which help in eliminating the need to explain tedious details such as the background or certain actions. What annoyed me with this comic is that it used Hellboy's thoughts to explain stuff that could easily be seen by the art itself. Why should we read what we can actually see? There is no need to explain how the fight is going if we can already see that by the art in that panel. The reason I love comics is that they have this advantage that books don't have. Comics lie in an area between movies and books, so it should be able to fully utilize that advantage. Anyway that got out of hand and I started talking about the actual nature of comics. Back to this comic, I liked it. I will be continuing the series hopefully and see if it gets better because I get a very "Batman" feel from this series, and I love batman so that has to mean something. All in all I will be looking forward to going on with this series and seeing what it has to offer.

Is it somewhat ridiculous and hammy and tropey, absolutely. But it’s also a lot of fun and I’m just really into some of the setting stuff, like Baba Yaga and other occult stuff. Evil Nazis. It’s beautifully drawn. I’m about it.

I should love this, it’s Lovecraftian, a little pulpy, and inspired by turn-of-the-century art and stories. But it’s also static and awkward and stilted, often. And it feels so detached, but not in a cool way, in a way that leaves me struggling to feel, rather than pulled in. I want to care about this, but I’m having a hard time attaching to it. I want to be pulled more into the mystery, but I’m not yet. I just find myself.. not caring. I’m willing to give this series more of a shot, especially since I’ve had my eye on it for a while now, but I almost wonder if I’ve outgrown it. I’m sure this was pretty unique around 1995 or 1997 when it came out, but I think it has been outdone since then, especially by more independent artists. The art or writing isn’t bad, it’s fine, and it does have a look it’s going for, I just wonder if it’s ever going to get more alive. I’m sure that in the 20+ years it’s been around it has, or at least I hope it has, but I’m not sure if I’m willing to stick around to find out. Read on a tablet, that might be part of it. Not a real fan of Hellboy’s monologues. Getting a little better toward the middle, with the evil plan. Atlantis vibes, or Vice versa. Some Death Metal vibes. I liked the short stories at the end more.

Again, I really wanted to like this one. I think it was a good choice to have Mike Mignola write this one himself, which results in a more solid vision, but it still feels like it’s not quite there, yet. In some ways better, in some ways I liked it less, this one felt stylistically very cold, but I think that was intended. I appreciated the BPRD stuff here a bit more, getting a little more fleshed out, but not quite there yet. Little more emotion in this volume, too, and Hellboy was a lot less annoying, but I don’t really like him. It comes really close to being good for me, but just shy of it, and some panels left things kind of unclear. It feels disjointed, and off, at times. I can see the influence of some Frank Miller in the art a bit, but I keep thinking that it reminds me of those Indiana Jones comics, but there they did it better, we’ll see when I read them again, and we’ll see what another volume of Hellboy looks like at least, and League or Extraordinary Gentlemen in the art as well, in addition to an influence from Alan Moore, who did the foreword here, as well, but again, I’m not seeing or feeling what everybody’s so hyped about and into here. It just feels disappointing and frustrating, to have it be so close to something that I would really dig, and have it push away. Not quite there, yet.

I’ll start by saying I did like this one better, But I think I’ve seen enough of the series after three volumes (and year and a half’s worth of comics, if run concurrently) that I don’t think I’ll be continuing. I haven’t seen much in pages that I particularly enjoyed, or that made me want to stay. It’s not that he’s a bad artist, but the art isn’t good enough to make me want to see more. It’s not that the stories are bad, per say, but they’re not remarkable enough or interesting enough to pull me to read more of the series. I just don’t -care-. I was interested in the fact that Mignola combines Gothic Folktales and Cosmic Horror with Pulp, but he seems to have grabbed the least good elements to me. This leaves the comics feeling cold, detached, aimless, flat, disjointed, and grimace-inducing all too often. This volume was better, and I found myself not having too bad of a time reading about The Wolves of Saint Augustus or the Faeries, but I keep wondering, “Is this all there is..?” Even things like fire, and explosions come off flat, as well as punches, stab wounds and gunshots. Have experienced those things in reality, they stand out to me, but here, they’re unremarkable. I also felt like he makes intuitive leaps and assumptions that I didn’t appreciate or enjoy. There’s a lot of moments in these past three volumes where things felt really unclear. I think that making this one a collection of short stories was the move, because it fits his storytelling style more, at least in these early volumes. I also like the wordiness of some of the comics, and the inherent “literary-ness” to it all is both a plus and a minus, for me. It has the language down often enough, but the structure feels lacking. There’s no real plot, often, and I’m not even huge on plot, so I feel like if -I- notice that it’s missing, there’s something wrong. What makes those classic stories stand out weren’t just their abominations, but what they were actually about, underneath. Something that was human to all of us. I dig how it’s inspired by folklore and horror, but it doesn’t seem to capitalize enough on either, or really go with their strengths, in contrast to Hellblazer, where there are lessons to be told often, which I feel is the purpose of a traditional folklore story, and the horror to back it up, and I feel like Hellboy does neither. Additionally, I would contrast it with FABLES, something that takes established ideas and concepts and expands upon them in a really enjoyable way. Even the pulp influences here don’t have the punch that they should, and just come off as lame, or weak, and dumb. This is why the series has failed for me, so far. I also don’t really like Hellboy as a character that much. Or really at all. Nothing against the creators or people who like this series, I think I’ve just realized that maybe it’s not for me. I think I will give B.P.R.D. and possibly a later volume a shot at some point, but.. so far, this just wasn’t it.

I’m glad I gave this series another shot after letting my thoughts stew on the other ones. This was a much better book to me, than the the last three, especially the first two, and they fixed and adjusted a lot of the issues I had, and this book was pretty darn enjoyable because of it. First off, they kept the format of the shorter stories, I think this really works, and although I think I’d be okay with another full-length adventure in the future, these stories didn’t overstay their welcome, and they added some good fleshing-out to the world and character of Hellboy, and I also liked how they took place in a bunch of different locations and time periods, (even though you might not be able to tell the time too much, they add context to Hellboy’s life and career in the B.P.R.D.), and these solo stories made me appreciate his team that much more, and look forward to seeing them in the future, while still getting some good time with the title character on his little journeys, and he was way more likable here for it, something I appreciate. The location thing in specific was nice, because I felt like we spent a lot of time in really dusty Eastern European areas in almost all of the past books, and it was a good breath of fresh air. The stories still follow a certain formula here, with some lore being set up, bad guys doing their bad guy stuff, Hellboy fighting them by punching, they fall through some floors into a below area, the bad guys reveal a bigger plan for Hellboy, he defeats them, they stare off at how weird things were, have a little emotional moment and it’s over, But, here the formula was messed around with a little bit, varied some details and ways things came about, and I enjoyed it a fair amount. Glad the series is finally starting to click with me, realizing it’s potential, including on the horror. Would I still prefer if it was more explosive, creepy and violent? yeah. More wild, and Metal? Sure. But this thing is it’s own thing, and that’s okay, I can do my own thing if that’s what I want to do, But I think I’m still gonna keep reading Hellboy when I get the chance.

This one felt like a bit of step back, to me. Not awful, but kind of proves my point that I don’t find the singular story volumes all that enjoyable. Had some okay parts, but overall this was kind of meh. Not a fan of the titular worm very much, and the ending with Rasputin was kind of disappointing, but maybe my opinion will change. I do think these books are actually better after discussion with your friends, like “Oh yeah, maybe that -was- a really cool idea..” even if it doesn’t really hit you in the moment. Still gonna check out the rest, but this really wasn’t a highlight for me, and I think the important story bits could’ve been put into a volume of shorter, more varied stories, and the volume and arching story as a whole would’ve benefited from it.

they kinda lost me at times, i liked the previous storylines better, brought in too many mythological figures