Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsDoes exactly what it says on the tin!
Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2021
As a longtime Hellboy fan, the attraction here was to get all the short stories that I'd not been able to get in the one-off comic book form, or that were included in other compilations, and this first volume does not disappoint, as while I recognized a number of the stories, quite a few were also completely new to me.
The second attraction of this collection is that it allows you to re-read the stories in the chronological order of Hellboy's life - not the backwards and forwards, flashback order that the stories were actually published in. That gives them a greater coherence, even when drawn by different artists. It may be sacrilege to say it, but while I'll always have a soft spot for Mignola's original version of Hellboy (which I didn't really care for when the series first emerged), I think I like Richard Corben's version almost as much.
There is the obligatory sketchbook section at the end of the volume, but that's the only 'added extra' you get. It's still a worthwhile purchase though. One thing that strikes me as a bit odd is that even though the book is the same size as the regular trade paperback collections, it somehow feels smaller - perhaps the fact it's twice as many pages plays a perception trick on you, but it's the exact same size. Regardless, an excellent warm up for the full omnibus version of all the major Hellboy stories due later in 20201.
