Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club #1 Review: Beautiful Art

The “Hellboy” universe is so vast that there should be an encyclopedia for it. One of the organizations that appear in this universe is the “Silver Lantern Club,” which is the topic of one of Dark Horse’s newest “Hellboy” comics “Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club” by Mike Mignola and Chris Roberson with artists Ben Stenbeck and Christopher Mitten. 

In 1953 London, Hellboy and Professor Bruttenholm meet up with Bruttenholm’s uncle Simon in a pub to talk about the infamous “Silver Lantern Club.” Here, Simon recounts an encounter where after witnessing a demonstration of a new “transmitter,” he tells the “Silver Lantern Club” about it and they think it may be possessed. The story Simon tells in the first issue is interesting. Items being possessed is something that has been around for as long as possessions have been around.

Dolls are one type of object that is constantly being possessed. The club does have a few interesting characters and Simon is well written enough for readers to care about him. Of course, by the end of the issue, you start to think that maybe Simon invented this story after a drunken stupor. Hellboy and Bruttenholm do meet him in a pub so this story may be more booze than boos. The comic lists which page each artist’s art appears on. Stenbeck is 1-3 and 20 and Mitten is 4-19.

The art styles do blend nicely, but overall Mitten’s art seems to be more pleasing to the eye. That’s not a dig at Stenbeck. Both artists have great talent and their contributions to the comic are wonderful. The only difference is that Mitten’s art looks slightly more pleasing even though everything looks similar. The first issue of “Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club” has an interesting story and great art that, despite different pages were drawn by different artists, looks great. Whether these stories happened or were thought up in a drunken stupor remains to be seen.