BPRD: 1946 #1. I’m a relative latecomer to the BPRD (Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense) comics of Mike Mignola and collaborators. After being a bit underwhelmed by Plague of Frogs, I snapped up The Dead and The Black Flame at a recent School of Comics back-issue sale and found my faith rewarded: the latter series especially, co-written by John Arcudi and with art by Guy Davis, brought just the sort of high-concept crazy I’d been looking for. Heed this advice well, comic book writers: the only villain better than a Nazi is a robo-Nazi wizard with his skull on fire leading an army of cybernetically enhanced frog demons. I may not quite have understood the actual plot mechanics of the resolution, but OK. And then I read Garden of Souls—the trade just released last week—and I must amend that statement: there is still one superior level of villainy, and that is a team of steampunk Victorian amphibian cyborgs living out a Dr. Moreau-style island fantasy with their immortal hostage mummy.
(There’s an easy postcolonial essay to be written on Garden of Souls, given that the elderly Brits whose lives have been artificially prolonged by their 19th century technology want to remake themselves into white, bald, male, naked, omnipotent giants by absorbing the life force of millions of non-white folks in their former colonies. And their scheme is undone through the combined efforts of Abe Sapien, clearly a “hybrid” figure, and the psychic alliance of the captive female mummy and a mentally handicapped Indonesian girl. Said reading won’t tell you anything new about Garden of Souls or about postcolonialism, so I’m not going to do it here in any detail, but if I were a first-year master’s student who wanted to get funding from his department to go to a popular culture conference so I could see friends or visit a new city, that’s totally what I’d write on.)
It may not mean much to say that Garden is the most fun I’ve had at the comics this year, given that this year is only a few weeks old, but it’s hard to imagine anything topping it in the very near future: we get a nearly complete answer to the mystery of Abe Sapien’s origin woven into a ripping yarn, with a nice blend of action, humor, intrigue, and character development. All that, and Guy Davis’s art has never looked better.
So, though I haven’t yet read the just completed BPRD series, Killing Ground, or the latest Hellboy mini, Darkness Calls, I thought it safe to try out new BPRD prequel series 1946, a tale of the organization’s earliest days sifting through the remnants of Nazi mystical and occult projects in ruined post-war Germany. Penned by Mike Mignola and Joshua Dysart, with art by Paul Azaceta, this first issue follows Hellboy’s adoptive father, Trevor Bruttenholm, his partner Howard Eaton, and their new ally, a GI named Tim Clark who was present when li’l Hellboy “came through” from Hell to Earth, as they enter an uneasy alliance with their Russian counterparts—led by the childlike and chalk-skinned dwarf Varvara. (Or maybe she’s not a childlike dwarf—maybe she’s a child who hasn’t aged. Or a super-intelligent child. I assume answers will emerge as the story develops.) Anyway, this issue is all set-up, as one might expect, but it’s promising set-up at least. Paul Azateca’s art fits comfortably into the BPRD house style. Though it lacks the gothic design sense of Mignola’s own work or the evocative blend of detail and dynamism that Guy Davis has developed, it’s suitably moody and claustrophobic. He’s not given a lot to do in this ish, so it’s probably too early to make an informed judgment. Credit is due colorist Nick Filardi: though he too often relies on full-panel washes (is that the right term?) of red or green to telegraph “this is bad” or “this is a flashback,” he uses reds to excellent effect in what might otherwise be a fairly routine establishing shot of a Soviet storehouse of pilfered Nazi treasures, lending it a sense of both wonder and dread.
I dropped a few more comics last week, or at least moved them to month-to-month status—She-Hulk and Birds of Prey—but it looks like I might not be saving much money. Thanks a lot, various members of the Hellboy/BPRD creative teams.
I’m guessing you know about this site, but just in case.
This is funny, too? Well at least accroding to D. Wolk and he did write the book.
Oh—yes, Savage Critic is listed under “Tom Cruise Hates You” over there. That parody only confirms everything I’ve heard about “Brand New Day” and does me the service of smothering any tiny embers of interest still aglow in the reaches of my heart.
I’m the co-writer. Not the artist.
Whoops! My bad, Joshua—I’ll correct it in the text above. Thanks for checking in!
I love me some Hellboys. I started to look to BPRD when Hellboy central became a little too Ctululuy for me, since I tend to prefer evil Nazi gorilla cyborgs to Unpronounceable Damned Creatures. I’m gonna swing by and pick this up.