Before we get started here, I'm going to say that I'll try to do my best to talk about this comic without spoiling anything. But frankly, the story is a little confusing at places, so there's a decent chance that I'll spoil something without even meaning to.
And by the way, fuck all of you with your spoiler alerts. People who should be using them don't, and the people who do use them a little TOO much. If you write a blog about Inception today, I'm going to assume that you are going to include spoilers as that's the only way to really discuss something beyond a review.
BPRD (and I'm not putting in the periods because between pushing SHIFT+B, the letting go of shift for the period, then shift and then a letter, I'm going to drive myself fucking insane. I guess it would have been easier and more professional to do it once and then copy and paste, and it would have been a hell of a lot less work than writing all this, but fuck it) is a Hellboy spin-off. Much like the way we got Joanie Loves Chachi from Happy Days, or PB Twix from Twix, Hellboy has spun off. What makes this spinoff a little different is that the only character from the Hellboy canon who doesn't appear in the spinoff is Hellboy. He does make brief appearances in flashbacks, but that's it. It's like he was having contractual issues, so they wrote him out of the book in order to acknowledge that he's gone.
Hellboy is kind of an enigma as characters go. In looking at the bibliography, he's clearly popular. But he hasn't starred in a hell of a lot of books. I'll take quality over quantity any day, don't get me wrong, but most of the really big comic characters are also the ones who've been around for a while, or else they pop up in damn near every book. Is there such a thing as a Marvel book in which Wolverine or Spider-Man doesn't stop by?
What it tells me is that Hellboy did some things right. Hellboy did some cool things, but I think that for as good as they were, BPRD does the good things better.
For example, BPRD delivers big time on great monsters that look like something Dali would have come up with had he stopped spending so much time on bizarre mustaches. Same thing with cool steampunk robots and shit.
It also forces the mixture of science and the occult. Because the BPRD is an entire organization, we see a lot more of the regular dudes who are trying to fight vampires with guns. It turns out that, though they are the central characters, the freak-o's in the BPRD only make up about 1% of the entire thing. The result is that you get a lot more everyman perspective on shit, which is a big plus and something that was missing from most but the first couple Hellboy issues.
While we're on the topic of characters, it's kind of nice to see main characters that all have clear flaws. Abe Sapien, fishman, is a little strong-headed and takes his work too seriously, sometimes at the expense of the emotional stability of the team. He's like a really successful businessman who gets shit done, but isn't so great with the interpersonal relationships. Johann, ghostman, has experiences so far outside the realm of normal understanding that things don't always make sense to him. And Liz, firelady, is all over the goddamn place.
A writer once said something like, "It's not important that you identify with characters so long as you sympathize with them." That's a lesson taken to heart in BPRD, and one that is sorely lacking in the world of comics where you see so many contrived plots and arcs that try so hard to remove characters from looking like the bad guy or having any real responsibility when shit goes bad.
There are a couple words of caution if you're thinking about reading this title.
One, I don't know how you could read this in small pieces. It begs to be read in large chunks, four or five trades at a time, because there are so many threads and characters that pop up form time to time. You won't be totally lost if you put it down for a while, but you'll be some lost, for sure.
Two, these trades run at eighteen bucks a pop, and they're skimpier than the average woman's bikini sold at your local Target. I could get fucking sponsors and just lay them in there if someone would just pay attention.
But seriously, I don't know how someone could afford to buy this whole series ongoing. It would be worth it in that you could do rereading, and I think they have pretty decent reread value. But just be warned that you're in for a big initial investment.
If you like Hellboy, read BPRD. If you don't like Hellboy because you find it a little confusing or spare, give this one a try. I'm telling you, this one is a different creature.
And by the way, fuck all of you with your spoiler alerts. People who should be using them don't, and the people who do use them a little TOO much. If you write a blog about Inception today, I'm going to assume that you are going to include spoilers as that's the only way to really discuss something beyond a review.
BPRD (and I'm not putting in the periods because between pushing SHIFT+B, the letting go of shift for the period, then shift and then a letter, I'm going to drive myself fucking insane. I guess it would have been easier and more professional to do it once and then copy and paste, and it would have been a hell of a lot less work than writing all this, but fuck it) is a Hellboy spin-off. Much like the way we got Joanie Loves Chachi from Happy Days, or PB Twix from Twix, Hellboy has spun off. What makes this spinoff a little different is that the only character from the Hellboy canon who doesn't appear in the spinoff is Hellboy. He does make brief appearances in flashbacks, but that's it. It's like he was having contractual issues, so they wrote him out of the book in order to acknowledge that he's gone.
Hellboy is kind of an enigma as characters go. In looking at the bibliography, he's clearly popular. But he hasn't starred in a hell of a lot of books. I'll take quality over quantity any day, don't get me wrong, but most of the really big comic characters are also the ones who've been around for a while, or else they pop up in damn near every book. Is there such a thing as a Marvel book in which Wolverine or Spider-Man doesn't stop by?
What it tells me is that Hellboy did some things right. Hellboy did some cool things, but I think that for as good as they were, BPRD does the good things better.
For example, BPRD delivers big time on great monsters that look like something Dali would have come up with had he stopped spending so much time on bizarre mustaches. Same thing with cool steampunk robots and shit.
It also forces the mixture of science and the occult. Because the BPRD is an entire organization, we see a lot more of the regular dudes who are trying to fight vampires with guns. It turns out that, though they are the central characters, the freak-o's in the BPRD only make up about 1% of the entire thing. The result is that you get a lot more everyman perspective on shit, which is a big plus and something that was missing from most but the first couple Hellboy issues.
While we're on the topic of characters, it's kind of nice to see main characters that all have clear flaws. Abe Sapien, fishman, is a little strong-headed and takes his work too seriously, sometimes at the expense of the emotional stability of the team. He's like a really successful businessman who gets shit done, but isn't so great with the interpersonal relationships. Johann, ghostman, has experiences so far outside the realm of normal understanding that things don't always make sense to him. And Liz, firelady, is all over the goddamn place.
A writer once said something like, "It's not important that you identify with characters so long as you sympathize with them." That's a lesson taken to heart in BPRD, and one that is sorely lacking in the world of comics where you see so many contrived plots and arcs that try so hard to remove characters from looking like the bad guy or having any real responsibility when shit goes bad.
There are a couple words of caution if you're thinking about reading this title.
One, I don't know how you could read this in small pieces. It begs to be read in large chunks, four or five trades at a time, because there are so many threads and characters that pop up form time to time. You won't be totally lost if you put it down for a while, but you'll be some lost, for sure.
Two, these trades run at eighteen bucks a pop, and they're skimpier than the average woman's bikini sold at your local Target. I could get fucking sponsors and just lay them in there if someone would just pay attention.
But seriously, I don't know how someone could afford to buy this whole series ongoing. It would be worth it in that you could do rereading, and I think they have pretty decent reread value. But just be warned that you're in for a big initial investment.
If you like Hellboy, read BPRD. If you don't like Hellboy because you find it a little confusing or spare, give this one a try. I'm telling you, this one is a different creature.
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