As I mentioned last week, Demand Media articles are on temporary slowdown so I don’t have the usual rush to earn them. And I’m too wiped from a couple of bad night’s sleep to try anything else. So I’m going to fill a spare moment reviewing a couple of BPRD trade paperback collections.
BPRD: The Soul of Venice is a collection of one-shots from 2003, as Abe, Roger, Liz and Joachim investigate a monster under the bed kidnapping children; a quasi-vampire trying to steal the soul of Venice; help the ghost of Lobster Johnson take down a Nazi spy; and stop a priest possessed by witch-hunting fervor (one of the few times witch hunters of history nailed someone innocent in the Hellboy-verse). Good tales, and weirdly nostalgic as by now this team is scattered to the four winds (Liz disappeared, now Abe gone AWOL and Roger dead). With multiple authors and artists; cover art by Mike Mignola, rights with current holder.
BPRD HELL ON EARTH: A Cold Day in Hell collects two BPRD arcs. In Wasteland, a follow-up to Pickens County Horror, Joachim leads a team of agents into monster-ravaged Chicago to find out what happened to the last team they sent. It does not go well. In Cold Day in Hell, one of the surviving agents from Return of the Master joins forces with Russia’s occult researchers to stop the child-demon Varvara from busting out after decades of imprisonment. Mike Mignola and John Arcudi provide both stories, with Laurence Campbell on the first arc’s art duties, Peter Snejbjerg on the second. The first is just an installment in the larger arc, the second much better (I’ve been wondering why Varvara’s in that jar).
The Soul of Venice stories have been added to the Hellboy Chronology. I’ll add the second volume once I finish rereading up to that point.
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