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In 1994, Mike Mignola created one of the most unique and visually
arresting comics series to ever see print: Hellboy.
Tens of thousands have followed the exploits of "the
world's greatest paranormal investigator" in comics form
and novels. In 2004 writer/director Guillermo del Toro made
Hellboy the number one film in the country, reaching
millions more fans. Now see Mignola's creation as seen through
the eyes of some of today's best writers in film and literature...
Odder
Jobs is
the follow up to 2003's Odd
Jobs. So are these the rejects that were not
deemed worthy enough to contribute to the first collection?
Possibly.
My
main problem with collections like this are that the whole
idea just seems lazy. Can you imagine other franchises doing
a similar thing? Maybe get a group of writers to come up with
short stories based around the Star Wars or Star
Trek franchises... actually that's not a bad idea because
their universes are so vast and most people know enough about
both franchises to add their own tale. But Hellboy?
I'd be interested to learn how many of the contributors were
actually Hellboy fans in the first place, and how many
had to take a crash course in order to fit their writing to
this universe.
Thank
goodness there is a rundown of all the contributors at the
back of the book - because quite frankly I had no idea who
most of them were. In fact, after reading their mini-biographies
I am still a little unsure who some of them are.
The
collection opens with a rather poor offering from Frank Darabont
- well written but so dull you'll fall asleep. David
J. Schow's Water Music will appease fans of Abe Sapien.
Other
entertaining additions include James L. Cambias's The Vampire
Brief, Sharyn McCrumb's The Wish Hounds and James
A. Moore's Of Blood, Of Clay.
Any
die-hard Hellboy fan will probably feel the need to
add this to their collection. But, to anyone else this will
be very average.
Nick
Smithson
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