This week on View from the Gutters our topic work is Hellboy: Seed of Destruction and Wake the Devil—collected as trade paperback Vol. 1 & 2, or Library Edition Vol. 1—by Mike Mignola. First published in 1993, Hellboy is the story of its eponymous hero, a demon summoned from hell by the mad monk Rasputin in the dying days of World War II, who is found and raised by an American professor. Hellboy works for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, fighting monsters, ghosts, demons, and nazis… so many nazis.
Hellboy is a mix of humor, superheroics, pulp action, Lovecraftian horror, and general mystic weirdness. It’s a fun stomp through the end of the world, with amazing (and very stylized) art. Hellboy is one of the great indie comics of the past 20 years, and is well worth the time to explore across both its main title and side books such as B.P.R.D. and Lobster Johnson.
In our recommendation section our hosts nominated Street Angel, JLA: The Obsidian Age, Sex, and Rocketgirl for discussion on the next episode, and our selected title is Rocketgirl, Vol. 1.
We invite you to discuss both this episode and its topic on our subreddit.
Our hosts for this episode are Andrew Chard, Tobiah Panshin, Brant Gillihan-Eddy, and Cade Reynolds.
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Some of Howard’s pre-Conan stories have explicit Lovecraft references — like The Children of the Night or The Black Stone or The Thing on the Roof. I don’t believe any of the Conan stories do, and though some of the earliest ones have a Lovecraftian feel, they increasingly took on an air of heroic fantasy rather than Lovecraftian horror.
Also this:
The governor turned toward Conan and stared at him thoughtfully.
“The soldiers, who do not believe in ghosts or devils,” he said, “are almost in a panic of fear. You, who believe in ghosts, ghouls, goblins, and all manner of uncanny things, do not seem to fear any of the things in which you believe.”
“There’s nothing in the universe cold steel won’t cut,” answered Conan.