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Hellboy: The Crooked Man #1
By Geoff Hoppe
Jul 6, 2008 - 20:49:50 PM

Publisher(s): Dark Horse Comics
Writer(s): Mike Mignola
Penciller(s): Richard Corben
Inker(s): Richard Corben
Colourist(s): Dave Stewart
Letterer(s): Clem Robins
Cover Artist(s): Richard Corben and Dave Stewart
$2.99 US, $3.05 Canada

Hellboy, clinging to both his guns and his religion...

It would be easy for Mike Mignola to lose his edge amid the shuffle of one-shots, side series, movies and cartoons that have spun out of his lucrative Hellboy franchise. All the more reason to be pleased with Hellboy: The Crooked Man #1, which shows off Mignola’s trademark imagination and talent.

Crooked Man teams Mignola with artist Richard Corben, who last collaborated with him on Hellboy: Makoma. Crooked Man takes place somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia and concerns a series of hill country hexings, bewitchings, and possessions. It’s basically the Beverly Hillbillies meets the Blair Witch Project, only with the bubbling crude replaced by the lugubrious minions of Pandemonium (Hell, that is.).

A reluctant warlock named Tom Ferrell returns home to Appalachia after a decade hiatus, and agrees to help Hellboy look into a case of small-time witchery. The sadder but wiser Tom reveals the naïve pact he made, as a fifteen year old boy, with the devil, or Crooked Man, as he’s known in southern Virginia. A brief investigation reunites Tom with Cora Fisher, an old friend, and Effie Kolb, the seductress who first recruited him into Satan’s employ.

Crooked Man is, so far, up to the normally high levels of Hellboy quality. The characteristic Hellboy mixture of inevitable evil and quiet hope gives the tale a humming energy and an undertow’s momentum.  

Richard Corben’s heavy inking and equine humans are initially off-putting, but an attentive rereading reveals how apt he is to draw this story. His heavy, gothic inking makes his shadows behave more like characters than backgrounds, and he draws malice, determination and bewilderment with an expert’s ease. His image of the Crooked Man—Appalachian Virginia’s particular manifestation of the devil—is horrifically captivating, and looks like a character who might result if the makeup guys from Elias Merhige’s Begotten redesigned the Haunted Mansion ride at Disney World.

Worth the money? Horror comic fans can’t miss this one, and it’s worth a glance for the casual reader, also.   

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