Hi, Folks!

This weekend I read Hellboy, Volume 8, Darkness Calls.  As usual for Hellboy comics, this was dark, moody, and full of delicious contrasts.  Unlike other Hellboy comics, Mike Mignola did not provide the penciling and inking, rather assigning Duncan Fegredo the “heavy lifting.” I’ll explain why this is noteworthy to me, as I would assume it is to many other Hellboy fans.

Not everyone likes Mike Mignola’s unusual, Noirish, Gothic-flavored neo-Kirby art.  Those who get it tend to become lifelong fans and likely to buy anything Mike Mignola draws.  I’m one of those fans.  I adore his style.  It’s nothing like my own art, really, but it’s so good at what it does, and that’s telling horror stories.  I could name a bunch of adjectives that I believe apply to Mr. Mignola’s style, or more specifically the delicious melancholy that his work inspires in me, but I won’t.  That’s just too subjective, and I’ll let you decide what you think of Mike Mignola’s art yourself. 

The question then becomes: Which do you like more, Mignola’s art, or Hellboy?  If it is all about the art, then you can skip Darkness Calls.  If you are a Hellboy fan, then you want this book.  Seems simple enough, right?

Not necessarily.  Duncan Fegrado’s art is quite beautiful in its own right, very reminiscent of Mike Mignola’s work, and it fits the Hellboy setting quite well.  Fegredo appears to have made a conscious effort to fit his style on this book into the Hellboy world, and his inking is very reminiscent of Mike Mignola’s trademark inking style.  This appears to be a creative choice on Duncan’s part, because the material I remember him producing in the past for Vertigo was much more naturalistic than the graphical Mignola style. 

So, if you like Mike Mignola, buy Darkness Calls.  (Mike Mignola did indeed write the story, in any case).  If you like Hellboy, buy this book.  It’s as easy as that.

I should also mention that Dave Stewart, the colorist I praised for his work on Umbrella Academy, works his typical, tasteful magic on this story.  I mention this because I hate oversaturated, garish coloring in comics, and Mr. Stewart’s coloring qualifies as tasteful, moody, and sensitive in my book.

Grade: A-

My position is that this comic is noir or at least nourish because of its moral ambiguity, urban setting, crime and criminals, and its celebration of doomed and/or fatalistic characters. We also have femme fatales, police, hard-luck heroes, brutal action, and gangsters (meta-villains, usually). Spire City is maze-like, all encompassing, a grimy urban chasm with no exits.

There are some ways that Johnny Saturn doesn’t fit the standard definitions of noir. For one, private investigators aren’t the main characters; police procedurals aren’t a plot standard for us; and the art is not high key chiaroscuro or black & white. Is that enough to disqualify us? I don’t believe so.

I’ve often stated that my personal specialty is noble, stoic characters with sad, fatalistic quests. As far as I’m concerned, Johnny Saturn is still as gritty and hardboiled as they come, so I’m sticking its noir title.