Book Review: The Amazing Screw-On Head

Sometimes you buy a book and decide not to read it yet as you know it will be a special treat for you the day you finally crack it open and peek inside.

Originally published in 2002 and purchased by me as a hardcover book back in 2010, Mike Mignola's The Amazing Screw-On Head is a fun little story about an Abraham Lincoln-era robot who can screw his head (think of a lightbulb) on to a variety of robot bodies in order to best serve the U.S. Administration and save the world from a number of villains set on destroying the world.

The comic is strange, funny, and clearly related thematically to Mignola's much more famous Hellboy, but works to create a strange world in which the fate of existence is left up to a robot and fighting a villain called Emperor Zombie.

All I can say after reading this tasty little gem this morning is "Thanks 2010 Bookmonkey!"

What a delightful little book.

Genre Character of the Week: Batman circa 1889

Like everyone, I have a bunch of books that were given to me years ago that I still haven't got around to reading yet, but as I did all of my March reading on time, I got to check out a few magazines and the Christmas gift my BFF Mike and his lovely wife Trish gave me in 2009.

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight

Considered the first of what would become DC's Elseworld titles - wherein current DC superheroes (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc.) have their stories retold in different times, settings and in some cases worlds.

Gotham by Gaslight tells the story of Batman set in 1889 Gotham.  Also this version of Batman gets to fight Jack the Ripper.  Written by Brian Augustyn, Drawn by Mike Mignola (Hellboy) with inks by P. Craig Russell the story very creatively fits together the Batman mythos, American history and the crimes of Jack the Ripper.

An excellent read.

Genre Character of the Week: Abe Sapien

Here’s what I love about Abe: for a guy who can sometimes appear more fish than man, he is really relatable to the reader.  As I’ve just about finished up my load of books for April (Just the original zombie anthology, 1989s The Book of the Dead to go), I finally have some time to catch up on some magazines and comics before I start reading my next eight books for May (Most excited about The Keep by F. Paul Wilson, and To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis), which means I get to catch up with the Hellboy Universe.

Since I read my last few Hellboy trades there are actually four I haven’t touched: Hellboy vol. 12: The Storm and the Fury, BPRD: Hell On Earth vol. 2: Gods and Monsters, Edward Grey: Witchfinder vol. 2: Lost and Gone Forever and Abe Sapien vol. 2: The Devil Does not Jest which is the one I’m currently most excited about.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Hellboy Universe, Abe is a member of the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defence (BPRD), and is also a sort of bizarre amphibian or fish-man (scientifically classified as Icthyo Sapien) who lives naturally underwater but can survive in open air for a limited time (longer with a re-breather).  Found in a state of suspended animation in 1978 in a hidden laboratory beneath a hospital in Washington, D.C. his name comes from a date written on a slip of paper attached to his tube (April 14, 1865, which was the date of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln) hence, Abe and Sapien from the scientific classification.

Abe’s history before he was discovered is shrouded in mystery (actually it is explained but as that is a pretty major spoiler you’ll either have to get reading the series or cheat and look at Wikipedia), and in addition to his amphibious nature he is also telepathic and can perform psychometry (reading a psychic history from a physical object).  For me, it is Abe’s search to understand and better himself that appeals the most.

Book Review - Mouse Guard: Fall 1152

When it comes to trying out new comic books, I'm always a little nervous. In a perfect world I'll get a copy from a friend or the library before I make a purchase, but every once in a while you see a title that demands immediate purchase. Last month this happened to me with the book Mouse Guard: Fall 1152.

For starters the artwork is simply beautiful. I don't think I can remember being this affected by comic artwork since the first time I saw Mike Mignola's Hellboy. Like Hellboy, Mouse Guard has a visual style all of its own and is also written and drawn by the same person, David Petersen.

A lot like the fantasy series Redwall, Mouse Guard follows little medieval mice as they try to survive and protect their own lands. We follow a small group of mice, members of the Mouse Guard whose job it is to protect their lands and cities. The first volume follows the actions of three specific mice Saxon, Kenzie and Lieam who discover a possible treasonous plot that may lead to war.

I've got to say that some of the most amazing things about this series for me are the action sequences. In perhaps the most striking one in the first volume two mice battle giant (to the mice anyway) crabs (pictured right).

If you like medieval fantasy, or simply amazing artwork and story, I would definitely try out Mouse Guard, it is simply amazing.

Genre Character of the Week: Hellboy

When it comes to demon-fighting characters in genre fiction, film and television, you have your priests (Father Callahan in the novel Salem's Lot), your teens (Buffy Summers in the film and television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and your various Vampires hunting down their own kind and hoping, one day, to become human again (Nick Knight in the Canadian Television series Forever Knight), and then you have Hellboy.

Mixing together the best parts of pulp, horror, fantasy and action, you need one heck of main character for the reader to connect with, and creator Mike Mignola definitely delivered.

For the purposes of this post I'm going to stick with the character as portrayed in the comic series - I love the movies, but the comics are my personal favourite. Most of the stories in the Hellboy series involving him solving a problem created by some creepy creature from folklore either with a clever bit of thought, or failing that, by beating the everlasting crap out of the thing.

As a character, Hellboy is just about the perfect mix of horror (he is a demon), and a blue-collar mind-set, he might not love his job, but he is the best at it there is and the job needs to get done. Unlike the first film, the entire world in the comics already knows about him (the United Nations granted him honourary human status in 1952).

What I love the most about Hellboy is pretty simple, for a guy who is red, horned, mistaken for some kind of ape, and has a stone hand/key to the destruction of the world, he is one of the more human characters I've ever had the pleasure read, he just resonates with me, and as you read further and further into the comics, you start to understand just how decent a guy he is.