Hellboy Winter Special 2018 Review: Holiday Horror Fun

“Hellboy” and any December holiday are not two things that should go well together but they do. “Hellboy Winter Special 2018” is that one thing that makes anyone jolly with three stories with varying degrees of quality

The first story, “Happy New Year, Ava Galluci,” written by Mike Mignola and Ben Stenbeck, is about Hellboy attending a New Year’s party at Wakefield Manor where he meets one of his old “friends” Ava Galluci. She’s there to perform a séance that doesn’t go well. It’s a neat little story that’s over a bit too soon. It’s just one quick fight and that’s really it. The art is fine for a “Hellboy” comic, nothing much to say about it.

The second story, “Lost Ones,” written and drawn by Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba, is about Simon Anders getting sidetracked in Bulgaria to settle a dispute between two forest factions. If you’re following the story “Vampire” this is just a side story that gives a little information of where Hellboy and Simon are. The best thing about the artwork here is the design of the shapeshifting animals and the masked people. If you want weird, here you go.

Finally, there’s the “Lobster Johnson” story “The Empty Chair,” written and drawn by Tonci Zonjic, sees three mobsters who decide to take out a bunch of rival mobsters and make it look like The Lobster did it by using a forged lobster claw branding iron. Obviously, The Lobster would have none of that. This is the best story out the three. This feels like more of a fleshed-out story than the other two and it’s the shortest one. The artwork is on par with the other two with nothing that much standing out.

“Hellboy Winter Special 2018” may not have had the best stories, but it’s still worth reading if you want some holiday horror stories. The artwork is “Hellboy” with little to stand out and the “Lobster Johnson” story is the best of three.