Hellboy has been around for 25 years, and Dark Horse has just released Hellboy: 25 Years Of Covers!
It’s a beautiful book, really. Over one hundred and eighty pages of covers. A brief introduction by Mike Mignola too, where he bestows credit for inspiration on the Doc Savage paperback covers of the 1960s. Mike is being modest, of course; his vision of Hellboy, combined with what seems like an innate sense for visual balance and design, propel these cover images into very high real estate indeed.
Hellboy, positioned in the middle lower third of the cover. Sure, simple enough. But then the magic happens. Strongly graphic, in the sense of graphic elements of design. Light and dark, cool colours against warm colours. Variable palette. Strong shapes. Twisting, writhing poses. It’s all there in the monsters, demons, tombstones, reptiles and other ghastly things that bump each other off at night.
Mignola is joined here by Wrightson, Corben, Hughes, Cho, Rivera and many other guest artists.
This is a volume to be treasured, a really strong collection of amazingly unique and powerful images.
Dark Horse, Hellboy: 25 Years of Covers, Hardcover. 200 pages for $34.99. Assume Mature rating
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