Hellboy: The Midnight Circus
I have a pretty good idea of how this new original graphic novel came about. Either Mike Mignola or someone at Dark Horse realized that with the current schedule of “Hellboy in Hell” there wasn’t going to be a new “Hellboy” collection coming out this year. So Mignola calls up Duncan Fegredo and now we’ve got a new 48-page hardcover featuring Kid Hellboy running off to join the circus. The circus FROM HELL of course.
It’s 1948 and Kid Hellboy has snuck out of the B.P.R.D. headquarters in the middle of the night to smoke a cigarette he stole from two guys who thought he wasn’t old enough to hear the story they were telling. Before he can light up, he sees a clown coming down the road to post an advertisement for a circus that will be opening at midnight. Kid Hellboy immediately sets off to find it and finds a wild display of demonic circus performers and hellfire under the big top. Two particular demons are also encountered, one who wants to awaken the kid to his true potential and another who sees him as a threat that will destroy them all.
This is hardly an essential chapter in the title character’s life as we’re not told anything we don’t already know about him. The standard plot of having the character fight against his destiny as the Beast of the Apocalypse while someone tries to steer him towards it is rehashed here yet again to predictable results. Some of this could come back in the series proper at some point, particularly the circus proprietor and his niece, but this isn’t a book you’re going to enjoy reading based on the story alone.
No, you’ll enjoy it for all of the imaginative sights that Mignola and Fegredo conjure up within its pages. Fegredo really gets a chance to cut loose with some visually stunning sequences in this slim graphic novella. The initial advent of the circus performers and the fire that emerges around them stands as one of the most compelling scenes I’ve seen all year. Everything that follows, from the encounter in the whale’s stomach, the attack by the circus animals, and the mysterious hobos isn’t quite as impressive, but still great fun to behold for the visual variety on display, and the fact that you’re not likely to see such sights in any other comic right now.
Special credit must be given to colorist Dave Stewart for the way he delineates the different realities in this story through color. The sequences set in the real world have the same strong “flat” coloring that he has always done for title. However, when we get to the circus, he adopts a more detailed, almost painterly, style to render the supernatural goings-on therein. Stewart also changes things up for a couple key sequences as the book goes on and really shows you why he’s considered one of the best colorists working in the industry today.
Though its story may be too familiar for its own good, it’s not a fatal flaw for this title. Mignola and Fegredo simply wind up using it as a launching pad to show us more of the unique, creepy supernatural sights that have been this title’s stock-in-trade from the very beginning. In that regard, the book is a resounding success and deserving of a place in any “Hellboy” fan’s library.