See the steam powered (well his robot bodies are), Screw On-Head battle with the undead villain Emperor Zombie to stop the total destruction of the world at the behest of President Lincoln! Marvel at possessed puppets, Martian ghosts, wizard/snake love stories, and beanstalkery! All told by the master of weirdness creator of Hellboy Mike Mignola.
This is a truly delightful mix of weird goodness from the fertile imagination of Mignola. I have always thought that his collections of shorts are some of the best Hellboy books and this first Hellboy free collection of odds and ends is a wonderful companion. “The Amazing Screw-On Head” is the longest of the short stories and one of Mignola’s best. Free from the overarching Hellboy mythology, Mignola can throw whatever wacky ideas he wants at our title character and he packs quite a bit into a few pages. It occasionally feels rushed and like there isn’t enough, but the overall madcap nature of the story keeps this form harming the story too much. The other adventures vary quite a bit, but have a shared trait of deliberate weirdness that never seems forced or unnecessary. My absolute favorite is “The Prisoner of Mars”. It is a send up of classic British adventurer stories defeating HG Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs styled Martians. As with most of Mignola’s work it mixes a load of classic pulp fiction and science fiction and blends it with oddball humor and truly unique art. If you are a fan of Hellboy then this is a no-brainer must read slam dunk. If you haven’t read Hellboy, then what’s wrong with you!? Start with Seed of Destruction in YP MIGNOLA.
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