Hellboy: King Vold
For my comic book report, I chose Hellboy: The Complete Short Stories Volume 1. The basic premise of Hellboy is that a demon toddler- a Hellboy as you will- is found and adopted by Trevor Bruttenholm, who was part of an Ally force sent to investigate a paranormal event, which was caused by a Nazi Occult force. Hellboy is raised amongst Humans and becomes a field agent for the B.P.R.D. (The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense). The comics tell the stories of Hellboy’s journeys and B.P.R.D. the series does a fantastic job of exploring the tropes and humor of the superhero, gothic horror, and science fiction genres. The Hellboy series also explores different continents, encountering different cultural folklores and mythological beings throughout the series. I specifically chose King Vold due to its combination of horror and folklore connections.
King Vold starts out with Hellboy being sent on mission to assist Professor Edmond Aickman in Norway. Aickman and Hellboy travel to a mountainous region, whilst Aickman tells Hellboy of few paranormal instances that have occurred in the region. Aickman and Hellboy arrive to their destination where Aickman tells the story of King Vold, a King whose blasphemy against God damned him to endlessly hunt for all eternity. Aickman believes Hellboy’s presence will bring about an encounter, which it does. King Vold appears, with his team of hunting “wolves”, and requests Aickman to hold one of his “lame” wolves, in which Aickman agrees to in return for a rich reward. Aickman claims he will split the reward with Hellboy, if he handles the wolf, much to Hellboy’s confusion/doubt. The wolf attacks and transforms into a wolf-man, then again into a Viking Berserker. Hellboy is left unconscious from the fight as King Vold returns from the hunt with his catch, a mermaid. Aickman takes credit for “holding the wolf”, saying Hellboy is just his servant. King Vold honors his deal, and tosses gold coins Aickman’s way, however these coins burn through Aickman’s hand and turn to stones once they hit the ground. King Vold then rides away, only bidding Hellboy farewell.
Mike Mignola is the primary writer and illustrator of the Hellboy comics, including King Vold. When it comes to his drawing style, Alan Moore himself described Mignola’s style as “German Expressionism meets Jack Kirby”. So, his work makes use of the typical Jack Kirby like comic book figures, but there are these unusual-geometric-noir like elements to his work. There is heavy jet-black shading with almost every character’s profile, and dark silhouettes amongst every panel, but hardly ever is a Hellboy comic in black and white, The King Vold comic is interesting in how it applies colors in the foreground and background. Afterall, Hellboy is a big ass red demon-ape-man looking thing, in a beige trench-coat, so it’s interesting to see how color is applied in relation to the main character. The color scheme of the background- the office, village, mountains, and the rest of the characters- is made up of desaturated cool colors. It is overwhelming based around indigo, violet based blues with grey-beiges, with a little bit of faded greenery in the beginning. The color theory really starts to take place on pages 74 and 75, with wolf fight scene, when another warm color other than Hellboy is seen with a pastel-peachy red background and the blood red…blood. This creates a subtle color scheme of primary colors.
The other warm color is yellow; King Vold’s speech bubbles are slightly tinted yellow, whereas his eyes and the gold coins are a gold-orange-yellow. On page 78, the overwhelming indigo background is now accented by this gold-orange-yellow, creating a complementary color scheme.
The panels, time, and narrative transitions are mostly in the superhero genre standard way. None of the panels are strange or experimental shapes, just various sized squares and rectangles. Interestingly enough, in Understanding Comics, McCloud uses Jack Kirby’s comics as examples of certain transitions, which I must say is convenient for me since Mike Mignola’s style is so similar to Jack Kirby’s, but with that German Expressionist touch. Most of the panels in King Vold make use of action to action, subject to subject, moment to moment, and scene to scene. Time is expressed through speech bubbles and the motion from panel to panel. The most interesting page of King Vold would be page 78, where the size and color of panels affect the way the viewer perceives time. The panels with the falling coins are stacked diagonal from each other, which allows the panels to blend in with each other despite the frames. This was an effective way to depict time since it’s such a brief yet poignant moment of the story.
