When Italy’s Giuseppe Manunta Has His Sights on Hellboy!

This summer, fans of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy and Giuseppe Manunta’s visual talent can see a union of the beast as they hit the beach for this fun filled tale!

Hellboy and Giuseppe ManuntaRelease Date:
August 27, 2025

Although artist Giuseppe Manunta may be unknown to the mainstream, his contributions featured in Heavy Metal magazine and his graphic novels are very telling. This pin-up artist has quite the imagination, and he’s done many graphic novels (Amazon link) since. And when he says he wants to draw something for Dark Horse Comics / Mike Mignola, I’ll be looking forward to the release of Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: Professor Harvey is Gone.

When he’s also contributed to the animated series Winx, I’m glad he’s not limiting himself to specific genres. This French production has a very distinctive style to it and to be part of that team of storyboard artists and costume designers had me tuning in! For this particular upcoming comic book,  when an octopus is somehow involved, I’m curious! The season to go play at the beach is nearly here, and the release date is rather timely. After looking at Monster from the Ocean Floor (movie review) recently. I have to wonder….

From the Press Release:

“I’m a big fan of Giuseppe’s work,, so I was thrilled when he told me he wanted to do a Hellboy story—The only problem was that I had sort of (finally) run out of Hellboy stories,” says Mike Mignola. ”My head is so much in my new LANDS UNKNOWN series now that for a while I was really drawing a blank.

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Who’s Afraid of 2024 with Hellboy Winter Special: The Yule Cat?

In this year’s Hellboy Winter Special, our favourite lonely soldier boy is in Iceland to face off against a feline!

Hellboy Winter Special The Yule CatDark Horse Comics

As longer days of darkness settles in Iceland, and everyone is getting ready for the end of year festivities, Red has other concerns to face. In this year’s Hellboy Winter Special: The Yule Cat, he is in Reykjavík investigating recent unsettling sightings concerning a kaiju-sized feline! Although his adventure is nothing like my fight with it (namely in a Call of Cthulhu RPG session last year), the fact I’m familiar with the legend before reading this side story inspired me to delve into why I must read this comic book.

Writer/artist Matt Smith included falcons, trolls, a spear maiden and a völva! All these creatures feature prominently in Viking lore, and in addition to these earth elementals, there’s an old crone (with the gift of seeing into the future) to which I’m curious about. Also, this author is no stranger to everything Mignolia, as he’s penned many works, namely the Young Hellboy series which is worth the read!

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It’s Just Classic Toho Fun with Giant Robot Hellboy!

The concept behind this Giant Robot Hellboy is simple. It brings some of that classic Pacific Rim vibe into what is otherwise a Toho film featuring a certain other big G….

Giant Robot Hellboy #1 Comic Book CoverDark Horse Comics
Spoiler Alert

Kaiju fans will love everything Mike Mignola has dreamed up in Giant Robot Hellboy. This story is inspired by the sketches he drew and got published in The Quarantine Sketchbook, and due to demand, he’s crafted an excellent story that blends Japanese style action to a familiar concept.

The first issue sets up something that I would expect in Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner. He gets a phone call and soon gets gassed. After passing out, he’s whisked away by unknown agents to some bunker, where he’s hooked up to various neural devices. As for the mysterious giant box, all I see is that it’s destined to some island said to be located east of Africa.

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When Dreams Becomes Horrific Nightmares in Panya: The Mummy’s Curse #2

Just what lurks in the dreams of Panya in this latest issue hints that all is not well for her!

Panya The Mummy's Curse #2 Comic Book CoverDark Horse Comics
Spoiler Alert

In issue #2 of Panya: The Mummy’s Curse, we get to see how some places of worship have rebuilt themselves after Akhenaten’s rule. Now that he’s fallen, the old gods are back. As for the title character, she’s much older now, and is quite the dutiful caretaker as life is as it once was.

But her days are being tormented in gentle ways. Something is calling to her in her dreams, and while what we see is her role in the ongoing fight between Apophis and Re in their animal forms, there’s something else calling to her in the aether. Also, like the past issue, there are lots of cats! As for who the new antagonist is, it’s hard to tell. Since the heretic king is no longer present, someone else will have to get involved.

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Digging for the Truth in Panya: The Mummy’s Curse

At long last, we get to know the story of one of the Mignolaverse most enigmatic characters in Panya: The Mummy’s Curse.

Payna: The Mummy's Curse #1 Comic Book CoverDark Horse Comics
Now Available

Panya: The Mummy’s Curse is a wonderful story that brings more of Ancient Egypt to the Mignolaverse. Not even the Heliopic Brotherhood of Ra has formed. This first issue of the four-volume series has a lot of nuances nestled in every page, and for a budding Egyptologist like me, it offers everything I love about this ancient world!

While long time readers of Hellboy know of the mummified version of this character, this story is about her growth from child to sorceress. Here, the title character is thrilled to learn about the old ways, and the true gods. She loves hearing about the eternal war between Ra and Apophis. But when Akhenaten changed the rules in who to worship, anyone who speaks of them better say it in hushed tones, otherwise they’ll be recognised as heretics.

Without spoiling too much, the tale offers everything I’d want to see about this world realised in a fictional form. Between that and showing Tutankhamen got me hooked. Whether this prince has a greater role to play, I’m not sure. I’ll be picking up the next issues rather than waiting months down the road to grab the trade paperback to find out!

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The BPRD Omnibus is here, and Should We Fear Volume Two’s Coming Next Month?

Dark Horse Comics will be releasing three BPRD Omnibus collections featuring past adventures of the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defence (from the Hellboy universe)! Review of the first at:

BPRD OmnibusAvailable to purchase on Amazon USA

Not every reader of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy may be aware of how important the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defence is. When Red isn’t out on his own, he’s also an agent of this organisation, and they’ve done a lot to help keep Earth safe. The BPRD Omnibus is a terrific book to see what else they’ve done throughout the run, if one considers the decades of books released like a living world ever expanding as new comic book series comes out.

Collectors and newcomers can also easily lose track on where each mini-series fits in. Thus, the BPRD Ominus is the tome to read rather than to go digging through comic book bins for what to examine for the night. I’m still taking my time reading this big 400-page compilation. It’s huge, and going through this book shouldn’t be rushed. The work put into this collection has a lot of material to appreciate. Since it focuses on all the field agents, we’re not going to be seeing Hellboy all the time.

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