What is the required reading for Hellboy...

What is the required reading for Hellboy? I see its fans praise it all the time on Sup Forums but I've also seen people say some of the recent side stuff isn't as good. Should I only stick to the main series?

You can literally start from the very first issue. You won't regret it, and you'll get to see Mignola's artwork improve drastically over the first few volumes.
Hellboy's part of a comics universe, with various spin-off stories and books.After reading volume 5, you can read BPRD if you want. Or keep going with Hellboy, and come back to BPRD once you finish. They're both worth your while.

Seed of Destruction has poor dialogue and narration, as it's John Byrne and not Mike Mignola. It really only finds it's voice after Mike gets confident enough to do his own thing.

I know that I can start from the first issue (I've tried in the past but wasn't in love with Byrne's writing but am willing to give it another shot) My question is which stories are the best? It's not super helpful when you ask for recommendations and the super fans of the series tell you "all of it. All 25 years."

> closeup on random animal, statue or interesting piece of decoration
> "Hellboy"

It's not like 25 years of X-Men, it's never had a fast release schedule. And we can't tell you what might or might not be your favorite.

So is Hellboy really over? I thought Mignola was just taking a break after In Hell but it's been two years now

If you on't enjoy the first five Hellboy trades try starting from BPRD, if you don't like that you probably won't Abe Sapien, Lobster Johnson, etc, but you can always give them a try. If you want something similar but more self-contained try Baltimore.

Someone posted the other day that he has plans for "the last few things Hellboy has left to do" or something like that. Seeing as how he's in his late 50's and probably will want to draw most if not all of it himself I think it's gonna be a while. Spoiler is the last page from the last BPRD book that's only a week or two old.

I recommend reading the trade paperbacks, as the stories are designed to be collected. I'd say start with either Wake The Devil, which is the 2nd volume, youll miss out on some basic origin story but also wont have to deal with the poor writing of the first volume. Or start with Conqurer Worm, which is arguably the best early Hellboy story. Its the first story Hellboy book I've ever read and I now have basically everything they've printed in the setting on my shelf, so I'd say its a good intro.

Alternatively they're collecting all the hellboy stories into 5 omnibuses, 2 that contain the main plot, 2 that contain all the short stories and 1 that finishes the main plot called Hellboy in Hell. I do NOT recommend these omnibuses, part of the appeal of the trade paperbacks is how well they shift from main plot to short story and how those shifts make the world feel large and lived in, as well as how they add an epic, in the classical sense, feel to Hellboy's journey. But its up to you, some people might like that compartmentalization.

After that, its really up to you, you can stick with the main Hellboy series all the way to Hellboy in Hell, or you could pick up BPRD, which is really good. A few of the characters along the way, Lobster Johnson and Edward Grey, have spin off series that don't really spoil anything so if you ever think "I need me more of those dudes" then check out their spinoffs.

My only recomendation for continuity is don't start BPRD Hell on Earth until you've read all the Hellboy stuff and BPRD Plague of Frogs. Hell on Earth is set after everything else in that setting, and is basically a culmination of 20+ years of lore and world building, its fantastic if youre familiar with the setting but will make no sense otherwise and potentially ruin earlier stories if you haven't read them.

Oh also, Sledgehammer '44 is fucking fantastic, even if you don't care about the Hellboy setting. It's a sort of prequel story to BPRD and a sequel to Lobster Johnson but even on its own merrits its excellent and worth a read

>What is the required reading for Hellboy?
Virtually everything.

Nah, Conqueror Worm is fine, but Mig was already starting to repeat himself by then; the Mermaids story is good and the artwork in The Island is beautiful, but CW was probably the last long storyline I actually enjoyed. Got a little up its own ass from then on

I'd go for Box Full of Evil as the ultimate HB story; it's got just enough of background lore and character stuff, there's the perfect ratio of creepy and funny, and the artwork is in the optimal point of balance between elaborate and doodly. It's even fairly self-contained

Whoa what the fuck, i haven't read any BPRD but didn't earth get destroyed and hellboy go down to hell and become king and fuck shit up? whats going on?

Yeah, the whole Right Hand of Doom volume is pretty excelent. I just have a soft spot for Conqueror Worm because it was the first I read and because its first few pages, between the Alan Poe poem and the introduction of Lobster Johnson, are some of the best he's ever done imo.

Another good start would be Chained Coffin and Others, just to get to The Corpse right away, its a good short story collection that sets the reader up for what Hellboy is going to be all about for the next 10 volumes or so

>but I've also seen people say some of the recent side stuff isn't as good

Fuck those people

Conqueror Worm and Strange Places is peak Hellboy but really nothing in the Mignolaverse is blatantly weak or bad.

Should I really buy the library editions over the new Omnibus'? I mean, they all seem more expensive than the new Omnis yet to be released while having less pages

hard to say since we have not actually seen how well put together the omnibuses are.
but in a vacuum, library editions are very easy to recommend because they are *very* nice, considering the asking price. most importantly of all, the art is just fucking wonderful in a larger format.

also worth considering is that the handful of stories that are not collected in library editions (and only scattered around tpb's) will be collected in the omnibuses. so if you plan on collecting everything and the thought of having smaller books next to larger books from the same series bothers you, you may want to stick to omnibuses.

Yeah, what the fuck? Hellboy didn't leave a corpse when he died, his body turned to ash when Nimue stole his heart

Gotta be talking about Roberson's Hellboy and the BPRD stuff. His writing is too stiff.

Dude, too bad. Seed is a bit weak for some people, but it's smooth sailing after that. It's basically one long story. Most of Hellboy or the BPRD would be dumb to skip. The stories intertwine and bounce off of each other sin subtle ways. BPRD just started its final cycle, which is already drawing from titles from multiple eras and

The cover to Devil You Know 6 is huge too. They even didn't name the first Devil You Know arc on the issues to prevent a spoiler there. In trade it will be Devil You Know: Messiah. They did something like that with the Return of the Master arc, where the adds hinted at Rasputin, but it was the Black Flame.

Roberson seriously needs to be fired

I don't think he's that bad. His Witchfinder stuff was good. He needs an editor who'll tell him to stop overexplaining stuff. That's his chief problem. Like the agent screaming "Enkelidite!" as he looks at Enkelidite a page after explaining what it was. This isn't a kids comic. Hellboy stuff should be moody, and too much talking doesn't help with that.

Also I get it racism is bad and it existed in the 50s. He needs to stop with the after school special moments about it. He's had like three.

And monkeys don't forget the monkeys

Make sure to check out Lobster Johnson! It's one of my favorite parts of the mignolaverse