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Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: Time Is A River Review: Steady

Published Sun, 07 Aug 2022 14:33:09 -0500

Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: Time Is A River follows a 2020 Hellboy story from the Hellboy Winter Special called "The Miser's Gift." Penciller Márk László draws water well, so there's tons of water in Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: Time Is A River.

Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: Time Is A River Review: Steady — The cover to Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: Time Is A River

The short version is: Inside a haunted Budapest, an eccentric professor called Lajos must be saved. Hellboy is figuratively dropkicked into the drowned, ghostly echo of the city, and László is allowed to go nuts depicting a spooky, flooded city. The strength of these one-shots is simple: The storytellers are excellent, and the stories are self-contained. Did you read "The Miser's Gift?" Doesn't matter. Writer Mike Mignola and László catch the reader up in one and a half pages, in-universe, without requiring a recap page or a chart.

The work from reliable Mignolaverse mainstays Dave Stewart (colorist) and Clem Robins remain good. At this point, it'd be more surprising if a Hellboy one-shot wasn't a solid buy month in, month out.

The one critique comes on the second to last page, where there's a speech bubble that breaks out of the panel and into the gutters. It looks like László didn't leave enough space in the panel for the word balloon. Then again, the word balloon indicates the appearance of a previously unseen supernatural force, so that could be by design. There also could be punctuation missing, though it's unclear.

Publisher Dark Horse Comics hosts a five-page preview here.

When Hellboy accidentally left eclectic academic Lajos in a ghostly version of Budapest in The Miser's Gift, he didn't realize how far-reaching the consequences would be! As timelines get crossed, reality starts to crumble and Hellboy must return to the ghostly city to recover Lajos before it's too late.
Mike Mignola and Márk László, along with colorist Dave Stewart, return with an explosive one-shot to continue the story they began in The Miser's Gift, part of the Hellboy Winter Special from January 2020.

Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: Time Is A River