HellBoy: Seed of Destruction

The good news is that this graphic novel offers exactly what I loved about the movie. HellBoy is a devil summoned by a mysterious Nazi who wants to unleash cthulhu-like elder gods upon the world. He’s got an anger problem, he’s a smart ass, and he calls himself the World’s Best Paranormal Investigator. The art is dark, yet HellBoy’s attitude adds some levity to the atmosphere.
The bad news is that there isn’t much in this first volume that you don’t know from watching the first movie. Having started with the movie that’s to be expected, but it did make the short promo strips included at the back of the volume the most interesting bits. Because I really enjoyed those, I believe if this had been my first HellBoy experience I’d have been won over. (In other words, if I wasn’t already a fan, I would be after reading Seed of Destruction.)
Not only is HellBoy a paranormal tale, and intriguingly so, but it is also carried by an anti-hero of sorts (as the impression readers are given is that HellBoy isn’t supposed to be the hero, he’s supposed to end the world) and one of my favorite character types, the intelligent, more-human-than-humans monstrous creature(Abe). It’s a combination that, when it works, will always get my interest and likely my dollar.