Five Must-Read Comics This Fall

No. 3: Hellboy: The Crooked Man

Credit: Dark Horse Comics

What It's About

Mike Mignola's Hellboy is called into the heart of Appalachia to investigate a mysterious death, thought to be caused by a local witch. The world's greatest paranormal investigator teams up with a local man who has uncanny knowledge about local witches after making a deal with the Crooked Man himself for a lucky finger bone. Hellboy and his guide Tom Ferrell fight through witches, corpses and other monstrosities to try and get to the bottom of the case and free the area from the threat of witchcraft. Yet when the Crooked Man comes to collect Tom Ferrell's debt, our two heroes are in for more than just a fight with a few witches.

Credit: Dark Horse Comics

Why You Should Read It

While spooky goings on are par for the course in the Mignola-verse, The Crooked Man is hailed by many as the creepiest story that Hellboy has ever been a part of. That is due to a few key factors, probably the biggest of which is Richard Corben's contributions on art. Corben has never been a stranger to the grotesque and macabre, which makes him the perfect artist choice for this type of Hellboy book. Corben's knack of giving his creatures a melted-wax look adds an unsettling feel to every single witch, and comes to a head with the twisted form of the titular villain. This visual creepiness is something no other Hellboy artist could bring to the table, and gives Dave Stewart a lot of opportunities to do what he does best, which is packing in colors so hard that he keeps the ink companies afloat.

Yet Mike Mignola does not slack in his duties as writer on this book. In just three issues, he packs enough mystery and spookiness to last a lifetime. While the story itself is little more than Hellboy and Tom walking from one place to another, Mignola makes the suspense palpable. Mignola has always been a folklore and mythology buff, as any fan of Hellboy can tell you, and this comic continues to prove that. He digs deep to unearth some obscure Appalachian folktales, from witch balls to the Crooked Man himself. These ties to folklore, and the slow, meandering pace of some parts of the story, which are exactly like a folktale in and of themselves, are why this book is as unsettling as it is.  The Hellboy universe has been crafted by Mike Mignola with extreme care for over 20 years at this point, and during that time it has become one of the most expansive and interesting universes that comcis have to offer. The amount of control and love that Mignola has for his projects means that he gets the best people possible and can take as much time as needed to craft a great story, and he and Corben brought their A game with this story.