When writer Mike Mignola, artist Duncan Fegredo, colorist Dave Stewart, and letterer Clem Robins get together, you can bet your ass that magic is about to happen. Giant Robot Hellboy #1 is just more proof of that. It’s exactly what you would want from a robotic Hellboy story — the perfect amount of goofiness, action, and mystery.
Writing
There’s a wonderful simplicity to Mignola’s writing. This isn’t a story that treats its readers like children. Mignola doesn’t lead us by the hand, explaining the whole set up. No, the joy of Giant Robot Hellboy is that it drops you directly into the action. You have no time to pack your bags or gather your thoughts before the shit hits the fan. In the first couple of pages, Hellboy is hit with a tranq dart and thrown into the back of a van. When he wakes up, he doesn’t know where he is or what’s happening to him. And that goes for us too. But there’s so much joy to the mysteries these pages hold. You almost don’t want the answers, because the unabashed stumble into adventure is so thrilling.
In terms of dialogue, Mignola pulls things way back. He only hints at things he’ll most likely come back to in the next two issues, giving us small clues to why Hellboy has gotten wrapped up in all of this. But Mignola keeps the dialogue out of the way of the action of the issue. Some pages have no dialogue at all, and others only have a couple of word balloons. Mignola knows there’s no need to complicate fun, and that is exactly what this issue is.
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Art
There is so much detail to Fegredo’s art. The first page has a poster of the 1967 James Bond spoof movie, Casino Royale. (Not to be confused with two other movies of the same name.) The poster itself is covered in stickers and notes that litter the wall. When Hellboy enters a phonebooth, you can see the dirt splattered against its windows. Every scene is full of walls that have chipping paint, spreading mold, or scratched surfaces. Every character has wrinkles, scars, and zits. Fegredo’s world is one that is imperfect and grimy. You can smell the wet, smoky streets of London, and the thick, dusty air of abandoned office buildings.
But Fegredo also works brilliantly in the big picture, too. His panels have depth and drama. You feel like you’re right in the middle of the action. When Hellboy is led into a trap in the first couple of pages, Fegredo frames the panel with the menacing figure of Hellboy’s mysterious attacker in the foreground. The mystery man’s hip and the gun held by his side leaves just enough room for us to see Hellboy in the background, looking on with panicked eyes. Fegredo continually places powerful and relatable characters in the foreground, giving us a sense of the dynamics at play. We feel like we get to know something about these characters just by Fegredo’s placement of them on the page, before we have any answers about who they really are. It’s visual storytelling at its best.
Coloring
A lot of the colors in this issue feel really cold. We open on a late night in London. The skies are a dark blue. The streets are obscured by light grey clouds of smoke. Even the red phone booth that Hellboy climbs into looks subdued in its colors. It’s only when Hellboy gets hit with a tranq dart that we get a sudden burst of warmth. The panel practically glows with orange energy. Soon after, the night swallows back up the noisy life that broke through for a second. The faded white truck that they pull Hellboy into careens down the road past the pale yellow lights that stream out of the windows of nearby buildings. This comic is as moody as it gets. Stewart pulls back in nearly every area, except when it comes to Hellboy. His brilliant red skin stands out, not only reminding us that he’s not fully of this world, but also helping us to immediately focus in on the man we’re rooting for in every scene.
Lettering
Robins has been lettering Hellboy books for almost as long as they’ve been around. As such, his letters have become synonymous with the series. There’s a wonderful familiarity to his fonts and sound effects. Normally, because Robins’ work is so familiar, you don’t notice a ton of the little choices he makes to enrich each issue. Giant Robot Hellboy is an exception. There’s a no-holds-barred feeling to this issue that you don’t see in other Hellboy comics. Whether it’s the thick outline to Hellboy screaming as he’s electrocuted, the bubble-like “BLAM” of a sci-fi gun going off, or the tumbling “SPLOOSH” of someone falling into water, there are plenty of bold uses of sound effects that bring a ton of vibrancy to this story. Robins and Stewart work perfectly in tandem to create a moody yet action-packed atmosphere.
Verdict
If you’re looking for intrigue, fun, and plenty of robot-powered excitement, look no further than Giant Robot Hellboy. Mignola, Fegredo, Stewart, and Robins’ new series is a delight. Giant Robot Hellboy #1 is coming out from Dark Horse Comics on October 25th at a comic shop near you!
