Not what I expected from a volume in the Hellboy series, but enjoyable nonetheless. This is a series of assorted vignettes from various periods in Hellboy's life (and it's been a long life), as he encounters various spooky or silly supernatural creatures to clobber. Hellboy remains a fun character - very much a Ben Grimm-like mook whose primary approach to interacting with anything is to punch it - and this lends a light air to these shorts, many of which would be too slight to be of much intere...

Oh short little tales are awesome also!This is the second trade I've read in a row that were nothing but small little tales, and it's bloody awesome:World: Once again the art is all over the place, I do like the artist changes as I like seeing different artists portraying the Mignolaverse, it's interesting. This time around there is just as little world building as the last trade (Crooked Man and Other Stories), it merely serves the story and there are no deeper world building elements, it's fin...

I am reading my way through a bunch of classic modern books thanks to my library (transmetropolitan, preacher, the boys, scalped, fables, and of course, this one) and so I get sometimes inundated with too many good books at once. Or at least they should be good.Hellboy is something all of itself...it really is like a modern day Grimm or Aesop fables, set up by Mike Mignola. Every time I think ok, I know what the series is, so there's no need to keep reading, the obsessive completist in me forces...

Hellboy tromping through a variety of different myths and legends.

The artwork was good, and I liked the way the other artists interpreted Mignola’s stories, and Hellboy’s features.Most of the stories were ok, rather than really good, though I did like seeing more of Hellboy’s solo missions for the B.P.R.D. over the years.

The seventh volume of Hellboy series contains mostly filler stories, but The Troll Witch and Makoma stand out among all others. There are some really odd stories as well, mostly experiments, but incidentally they also make Mike Mignola grow and mature as a storyteller.

This volume is again based on several myths and folktales. The first story has Hellboy confronting a Penanggalan, a Malaysian folklore version of the vampire. The Hydra and the Lion was created with his daughter whose favorite creature at the time from Disney’s Hercules was the serpent water beast, Hydra. An interesting modern day twist on the legend of Hercules that even leaves Hellboy scratching his head. The Troll Witch is based off a Norwegian folktale about two sisters but with a slightly d...

3.5 starsThis was a bit hit or miss. There were a few great stories interspersed with mediocre ones.The Troll Witch--4/5 starsI liked her story and her query posed to Hellboy in regards to how he felt about a non-violent end to the troll killings.Dr. Carp's Experiment--4/5 starsI thought at the beginning this would be another straight-forward short, but it wasn't; it was great. I was left with a very eery, unsettled feeling. Also, the power of Hellboy's blood is interesting as seen here, in The

A collection of short stories from various sources, such as the Dark Horse Book of Hauntings and its siblings. All the stories are written by Mike Mignola, and he draws most of them, but P. Craig Russell and Richard Corben provide the artwork for "The Vampire of Prague" and "Makoma" respectively.The storytelling is more minimal than in the first Hellboy collection, Seed of Destruction, (which I started reading a day or two before writing this review) which makes it all the more evocative, and ma...

Re-read 8/5/15: This is one of the stronger collections, primarily because of the phenomenal miniseries "Makoma," which I adore--an African legend of a giant-killer adapted to star Hellboy and the Ogdru Jahad. It's beautifully illustrated by Richard Corben and masterfully told by Mike Mignola, and I need to buy this volume (I don't own all of the Hellboy books because I'm lazy and poor) so I can re-read it frequently. I didn't realize the first time through that it's based on a story out of Andr...

review - https://youtu.be/v5JTBsTwmFg

This seventh volume of Mignola's wonderful comic Hellboy collects seven tales about the red, hellspawned protagonist set in various time periods of his existence. The stories are "The Penanggalan", "The Hydra and the Lion", the title story "The Troll Witch", "The Vampire of Prague" (illustrated by P. Craig Russell), "Dr. Carp's Experiment" (a little gem concerning mysterious time travelling and a haunted house), "The Ghoul" and finally the longer story "Makoma or, A Tale Told by a Mummy in the N...

Honestly, I was so-so about the first stories in this volume. The tale of the trolls and the sisters was fairly decent but didn't grab me nearly as much as the tale of Makoma.That one was all kinds of awesome.Mignola is doing some rather fantastic things with his research and retellings of old legends and myths. It's subtle and not subtle at all. It's giving credit even in the pages even as it co-opts the legends and turns Hellboy into something rather larger than life.It's not something I could...

I love how Hellboy interacts with the folklore of different cultures. Stories pull from African, Norwegian and Indonesian cultures to name a few. The Troll Witch is an instant favorite while The Vampire in Prague comes into play in Hellboy in Hell. What's great is that if you aren't feeling it for a certain story give it a few pages and you'll have moved onto something else.

In this volume, we're treated to several stories from back in Hellboy's days at the BPRD. Most of these are Mignola's attempt to adapt a fable or myth into the Hellboy universe. The results vary."The Penanggalan" starts off this volume with Hellboy in Malaysia in 1958. It's a typical short Hellboy tale, but Mignola spoils it by giving away the ending before the confrontation with the monster begins."The Hydra and the Lion" is better. Mignola grabs a hold of the Greek legend of Hercules and place...

A return to form, and also a great collection of stories which play with the expectation of what a Hellboy story is.

The Troll Witch and Others is probably my least favourite Hellboy short story collection, which isn't to say it's bad, it's just that most stories in it are merely OK. I really like the titular The Troll Witch, and The Vampire of Prague is a great classic Hellboy tale illustrated by the immensely talented P. Craig Russell. Makoma with Richard Corben's art is a neat one, as well. But the rest of them are pretty much filler episodes — enjoyable, but nothing special.First read: October 27, 2015Rati...

The long stories like "Makoma" and "The Vampire of Prague" aren't my favorites, but several of the other stories are ones I would cite as the best of the Hellboy short stories, especially "The Troll Witch," which may be my favorite Hellboy short.

Dark and dreamy imagery. Mignola shows a love and appreciation for myth and folklore that I find endearing as a fellow aficionado. With the inking and drawings, much is left up to the interpretation of the readers, and the writing itself is cerebral enough to appeal to a reader who likes to ponder what the point of a story is, and not feel spoon-fed. Whenever I read some of Mignola's work, it makes me want to go out and find more of it. That's a good thing, I think.

I tend to appreciate the Hellboy short story collections more than the longer plot arcs. These shorter works tend to concentrate on tone and character, and ironically, are much more effective at building the world than the explanations and exposition of the longer pieces. It is easy for an author who is concentrating on the endpoint of a long plot to forget about the moment, writing in expectation that the conclusion will justify all that came before.Even when an author does endeavor to set an i...