There aren’t any massive epics in The Secret of Chesbro House and Others; there are no character-arc defining moments, no trip to Hell, no discussion of the Right Hand of Doom. In the larger scheme of the major arcs of the Hellboy narrative, nothing here is strictly necessary.
Nonetheless, it is vital.
The Hellboy/B.P.R.D. universe isn’t exactly about Hellboy (or the Bureau), is it? At this point, 30 years into the series’ history, the Big Story has long since ceased to be the central going concern, as have the individual narratives of characters like Roger, Liz, and Abe Sapien – all of whom are essential, powerful, and compelling, but are no longer the starring roles they once were.
That’s because contemporary Hellboy stories best serve as quick, delightful one-offs, swift jaunts into one type of supernatural malarkey before a palate cleanse, reset, and dive into a different myth. The plots often follow the same structure: Hellboy arrives in a location, something weird happens, Hellboy says something hilarious before/while/after punching that something weird, and no resolution is expressly provided.
These are exciting thought experiments for creative mastermind Mike Mignola, excuses for him to work with any given brilliant artist on something tight, effective, and fun. The stories serve two purposes: to spotlight those artists and to illustrate the larger world of Hellboy, its larger supernatural flavor.
In stories like Night of the Cyclops, Hellboy stumbles into his adventure after an entirely different one: the book opens with the B.P.R.D. packing up an angry minotaur that Hellboy has seemingly just finished wrestling. This adds to the non-resolution aesthetic of these stories. Hellboy is always on the go, always in the middle of some supernatural mystery or dustup. The world is to wonderfully weird for him to do otherwise. There’s no hope at wrapping every case into a neat package, because he’s just going to fall down a hole and encounter some Goddess-cursed fawn women and their Cyclops curse.
The book proceeds apace at this, collecting three one-shots, one two-issue series, and a holiday-themed short. All of these are illustrated uniquely so that the book brings the spotlight to four brilliant artists. With Cyclops, it’s Olivier Vatine, who captures some delightful Greek myth. Elsewhere, Shawn McManus lends caricature and Dutch angles to a haunted house, while Phantom Road’s own Gabriel Hernádez Walta deepens the mythology of a one-off family with mummies and snakes. Finally, Márk Lázló gives us ghostly Budapest and horse-headed witches.
Each of these stories captures the manic fun of the universe, the delightful magic and spookiness inherent in Hellboy’s constant trudge through his chores. Hellboy and the BPRD: The Secret of Chesbro House and Others is a prime example of the quick versatility of the character, and of the lush artistic variety the universe has become known for.
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