Hellboy rules.

love those tentacley space demons though.

so anyway: hellboy rules (maybe lost the thread a bit at the end, tho).

Going back to the very first post:

the stories are great and well put-together and make good use of myth/history/etc without resorting to twee Neil Gaimanisms

Well it's funny you should say that because...Neil and his younger daughter Maddy are on set of Hellboy 2 for a bit cause he and Del Toro are buds. And Maddy is filing the various reports, with some photos.

good blog, i should read it more often than once a year.

coincidently, yesterday i was moving stuff back into newly decorated bedroom and dug out all the hellboys from the various boxs of comics. there are 26 of them. turns out i am missing #5, the wolves of saint august (although i think i might have the DHP issues that they were originally in).

one day i will read them all again.

am also missing optic nerve #8. calamity.

Don't worry unless you're a completist -- "Wolves of St. August" isn't very good. It's the first story that Mignola scripted on his own (<i>Seeds of Destruction</i> was scipted by Jh0n Byyyyrne), and the art is a little heavy-handed (thick inks and ugly, busy coloring).

BPRD (with art by Guy Davis!) is where it's REALLY at these days.

Is it? I was kind of bored with the early volumes.

Well, I'd read almost anything with Guy Davis art, but I do think the writing is also very strong right now.

OILY IS RIGHT

(wolves of st august £4 from ebay, including p+p and two other issues which i already have. also picked up optic nerve #8 and #11 without leaving my desk. woot)

Hmm.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/hellboy-reboot-works-stranger-things-star-david-harbour-1001462

I liked him a lot, both in ST and at the SAG awards, but I'm sure anybody should be forced to play Hellboy after Perlman.

trailer is up - do we have a thread for this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt5g5_1cKVk

def has a lot more of that mike mignola feel

looks pretty cool

though i think it's hilarious and sad how trailers have trailers for themselves immediately before them now.

Not liking that at all, the CGI stands out as CGI more than in GDT's movies, the wise-cracking feels like they took too much of a cue from Deadpool, Hellboy just doesn't sound right without Perlman's voice, Ian McShane is no John Hurt.

Good points:

1) Neil Marshall is my favorite kind of insane (see Doomsday if you haven't)
2) MILLA
3) It's gotta at least be better than Golden Army, which SUUUUUCKED

this is a neil marshall flick? ok I'm interested

Not liking that at all, the CGI stands out as CGI more than in GDT's movies, the wise-cracking feels like they took too much of a cue from Deadpool, Hellboy just doesn't sound right without Perlman's voice, Ian McShane is no John Hurt.

― louise ck (milo z), Wednesday, December 19, 2018

love u milo but this is crazy talk

1. CGI - longstanding tradition of CGI improving between advance trailers and release
2. wisecracking - have you read Hellboy?
3. Perlman - no, leaning toward hell no. love Perlman but his Hellboy was terrible.
4. Bruttenholm - agree John Hurt was well cast. McShane a little more 1946-1952-style but he's A+ in everything other than American Gods so let's see how it plays

Speaking as an unabashed lover of the books, this trailer alone is already more enjoyable than any of GDT's work with the character or his world. No telling if it will translate into a satisfying feature, but the tone feels right and Harbour is killing it.

Eehhhhhhhhhhh. I like Marshall, but his genre riffing I think is more miss than hit. This one looks cheap - CGI doesn't get polished *that* much * and less than charming, especially after the GdT ones, which at least had character.

Has McShane played the Devil yet?

Hellboy would have been better off without GDT period full stop.

Has McShane played the Devil yet?

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Has he ever not?

lmao can't believe y'all gonna make me watch GDT's Hellboy again just to better catalog what it gets wrong

xpost I guess he is very devil-like in Sexy Beast!

Anyway, as someone who never read the comic, I liked the first one (esp. director's cut) a lot, and thought the second one looked great.

I have not seen this longstanding tradition of CGI improvements - when a movie seems like it's going to have the overall look of a video game cutscene in the trailer, it still does in the theater IME.
I've read Hellboy and there are jokes but it's more off-hand sardonic style than this. I'm not really into the Deadpool/MCU winking at the camera style.
if you don't like the Perlman/GdT films I can see this being better, I guess, but yr crazy

Barbour sounds like he's got Marlon Brando's cotton balls stuffed in his mouth

not being familiar with Hellboy before the films i thought the GdT ones were cool, but far from the types of films you can't improve on.

I think you could improve on the GdT films by stripping them down more (fewer fantasy elements)

Okay so (nerd hat on) what makes Hellboy interesting imho is the way Mignola uses cosmic horror as a framework for his interest in folklore, and what gives it oomph is Hellboy's struggle to find out if he can be who he wants to be instead of who he's fated to be.

GDT seemed to think what made it interesting was look there are SO MANY CREATURES! (which if you're GDT I mean, yeah, I get it) and what gave it oomph was Liz's struggle to not be Rogue from the X-Men.

tldr Hellboy is The Iron Giant and GDT made it Beat the End Boss and Kiss the Girl. He was always more interested in Abe.

if you don't like the Perlman/GdT films I can see this being better, I guess, but yr crazy

― louise ck (milo z), Wednesday, December 19, 2018

peace. xoxo.

btw I’m not blind - that is some sardo numspa-lookin CGI demon.

still better than GDT tho.

what makes Hellboy interesting imho is the way Mignola uses cosmic horror as a framework for his interest in folklore, and what gives it oomph is Hellboy's struggle to find out if he can be who he wants to be instead of who he's fated to be.

I thought this was literally what the first movie was about?

I liked the GdT movies, and thought Perlman was pretty good. I liked what I've read of the comics. I'll probably like this, too.

However, the feel of Mignola's art, which is about half the appeal of Hellboy for me, just can't be adequately translated to live action, IMO, unless you're going to go for some Sin City-esque hyperstylization. Has anyone seen any of the animated Hellboy stuff/is it good?

yes/not really? I mean, I literally forgot it existed and that I had seen it until this thread popped back up again yesterday

"Storm of Swords" is fine, haven't kept tabs on any other animated HB films.

I complained about this when the first movie came out that I didn't like GDT's decision to make HB and Abe hide their existences from the outside world. Having common folk talk to HB like NBD is a great little touch in the comics.

lol i literally contradicted myself in the other Hellboy thread. I rewatched both recently though and the very particular del Toro auteurism was more impressive on these viewings. the first trailer of this new one did look cool but the last one or two were troublesome. the funny lines didn't land and the direction looked very boilerplate. The Hellboy universe goes a long way with its inherent creativity, maybe there'd be some appeal there. but idk.

so much for my high hopes... by all accounts this one’s a fright pig. feel bad for Harbour and for Mignola, whose work deserves better