Hellboy and the Right Hook of Doom

The first time I came across Hellboy was after a particularly nasty winter storm on a Saturday afternoon  in February of 1994. The New York Comic Book Spectacular was being held at at the Javitz Center despite the cruddy weather. Dark Horse Comics was showing off their Legend imprint. Legend was an umbrella for creator owned comics that featured Frank Miller’s Sin City, Miller and Dave Gibbon’s Martha Washington Goes to War, John Byrne’s Next Men, Paul Chadwick’s Concrete, and the debut of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy. See, I went to the show to get John Byrne to sign some X-Men

Panels and Frames: Turkey Time Machine

Thanksgiving is upon us, America. I used to think of Thanksgiving as the holiday sandwiched between Halloween and Christmas. Sure, there’s a great dinner in there, but it doesn’t have the taboo overtones of Halloween, nor does it have the gleeful anticipation that surrounds Christmas. Thanksgiving is centered on an enormous supper with family. Its practice is, ideally, wholesome (even if its storied origin may not be, but that’s a tale for another time). Over the past few years, I’ve come to appreciate Thanksgiving in its own right. It’s a time of reflection – a time to be thankful for

The Night Fear Came Home

I’ve been a fan of the Halloween movie franchise for a long time. The first flick in the series that I saw was Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. I was at a friend’s house for a birthday party sometime in the fall of 1989. We watched the last half of the movie before my parents picked me up. See, I wasn’t allowed to watch most R-Rated movies until I was 11 (unless they were on broadcast TV). So I got my fill of gory ’80s horror while visiting friends’ houses or sneaking peaks at Fangoria at 7-Eleven.