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Hellboy: Chained Coffin/Baba Yaga
Hellboy's origin and how the Baba Yaga's eye was shot out are revealed in these two essential Hellboy stories.
20 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 4, 2012
2 people are currently reading
22 people want to read
About the author
Mike Mignola
1,865 books2,527 followersMike Mignola was born September 16, 1960 in Berkeley, California and grew up in nearby Oakland. His fascination with ghosts and monsters began at an early age (he doesn't remember why) and reading Dracula at age 13 introduced him to Victorian literature and folklore from which he has never recovered.
In 1982, hoping to find a way to draw monsters for a living, he moved to New York City and began working for Marvel Comics, first as a (very terrible) inker and then as an artist on comics like Rocket Raccoon, Alpha Flight and The Hulk. By the late 80s he had begun to develop his signature style (thin lines, clunky shapes and lots of black) and moved onto higher profile commercial projects like Cosmic Odyssey (1988) and Gotham by Gaslight (1989) for DC Comics, and the not-so-commercial Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser (1990) for Marvel. In 1992, he drew the comic book adaptation of the film Bram Stoker's Dracula for Topps Comics.
In 1993, Mike moved to Dark Horse comics and created Hellboy, a half-demon occult detective who may or may not be the Beast of the Apocalypse. While the first story line (Seed of Destruction, 1994) was co-written by John Byrne, Mike has continued writing the series himself. There are, at this moment, 13 Hellboy graphic novel collections (with more on the way), several spin-off titles (B.P.R.D., Lobster Johnson, Abe Sapien and Witchfinder), three anthologies of prose stories, several novels, two animated films and two live-action films staring Ron Perlman. Hellboy has earned numerous comic industry awards and is published in a great many countries.
Mike also created the award-winning comic book The Amazing Screw-on Head and has co-written two novels (Baltimore, or, the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire and Joe Golem and the Drowning City) with best-selling author Christopher Golden.
Mike worked (very briefly) with Francis Ford Coppola on his film Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), was a production designer on the Disney film Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) and was visual consultant to director Guillermo del Toro on Blade II (2002), Hellboy (2004) and Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008). He lives somewhere in Southern California with his wife, daughter, a lot of books and a cat.
In 1982, hoping to find a way to draw monsters for a living, he moved to New York City and began working for Marvel Comics, first as a (very terrible) inker and then as an artist on comics like Rocket Raccoon, Alpha Flight and The Hulk. By the late 80s he had begun to develop his signature style (thin lines, clunky shapes and lots of black) and moved onto higher profile commercial projects like Cosmic Odyssey (1988) and Gotham by Gaslight (1989) for DC Comics, and the not-so-commercial Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser (1990) for Marvel. In 1992, he drew the comic book adaptation of the film Bram Stoker's Dracula for Topps Comics.
In 1993, Mike moved to Dark Horse comics and created Hellboy, a half-demon occult detective who may or may not be the Beast of the Apocalypse. While the first story line (Seed of Destruction, 1994) was co-written by John Byrne, Mike has continued writing the series himself. There are, at this moment, 13 Hellboy graphic novel collections (with more on the way), several spin-off titles (B.P.R.D., Lobster Johnson, Abe Sapien and Witchfinder), three anthologies of prose stories, several novels, two animated films and two live-action films staring Ron Perlman. Hellboy has earned numerous comic industry awards and is published in a great many countries.
Mike also created the award-winning comic book The Amazing Screw-on Head and has co-written two novels (Baltimore, or, the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire and Joe Golem and the Drowning City) with best-selling author Christopher Golden.
Mike worked (very briefly) with Francis Ford Coppola on his film Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), was a production designer on the Disney film Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) and was visual consultant to director Guillermo del Toro on Blade II (2002), Hellboy (2004) and Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008). He lives somewhere in Southern California with his wife, daughter, a lot of books and a cat.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 26, 2024
Hellboy dreams of how he came to be, Abe Sapian dreams of fish, and I dream of being chased by a green witch, throwing water on her, but she doesn't melt, so I start screaming, but nothing comes out, then everything catches on fire, and I hyperventilate until I wake up and realize I was dreaming (no joke, I've dreamt this at least 3 times)...
August 12, 2024
ABRAHAM.
We've known each other long time, and I guess you know my habits pretty well, so you won't be all that surprised to hear I'm in England again. I always come clear my after particularly ugly cases.
What might surprise you is that right now I'm standing in the ruin of that church in East Bromwich. I've only been here once, and that was fifty years ago, when my life Earth began. Dec. 23, 1944. I've been told I made quite a dramatic entrance. You can still see the burn marks on the floor. I don't remember anything about it.
Having enjoyed the 2024 free-comic-book-day one-shot, I found myself in a Hellboy mood. With Amazon offering me a free trial of Kindle Unlimited, and with the Hellboy single issues being included, it felt rude not to start from the beginning.
This standalone issue doesn't seem to be part of the Goodreads single issue series, but Amazon says it's next in line so i went with it.
During a previous issue I complained that the Chained Coffin hadn't been covered despite being referenced, well now it has and it gives some new insight into Hellboy's origin.
Baba Yaga also fills in some context from previous issues and details how Hellboy blinded her in one eye.
Heavy on folklore and superstition, this is a must read to fill in the gaps. 5 stars.
We've known each other long time, and I guess you know my habits pretty well, so you won't be all that surprised to hear I'm in England again. I always come clear my after particularly ugly cases.
What might surprise you is that right now I'm standing in the ruin of that church in East Bromwich. I've only been here once, and that was fifty years ago, when my life Earth began. Dec. 23, 1944. I've been told I made quite a dramatic entrance. You can still see the burn marks on the floor. I don't remember anything about it.
Having enjoyed the 2024 free-comic-book-day one-shot, I found myself in a Hellboy mood. With Amazon offering me a free trial of Kindle Unlimited, and with the Hellboy single issues being included, it felt rude not to start from the beginning.
This standalone issue doesn't seem to be part of the Goodreads single issue series, but Amazon says it's next in line so i went with it.
During a previous issue I complained that the Chained Coffin hadn't been covered despite being referenced, well now it has and it gives some new insight into Hellboy's origin.
Baba Yaga also fills in some context from previous issues and details how Hellboy blinded her in one eye.
Heavy on folklore and superstition, this is a must read to fill in the gaps. 5 stars.
March 16, 2019
The chained coffin is great. The baba yaga is good.
January 12, 2017
I saw this referenced in other stories, but the background it gave was not the background I was expecting.
The Baba Yaga story is important because that enmity comes up in other stories, but it is interesting in that the encounter here seems to do actual harm to the people around, without it being clear that it also does good.
Chained Coffin covers a few extra details in a story that is covered other places, but is bookended by a nice reminder of the friendship between Hellboy and Abe, and lets us know that they both dream, which is kind of touching, and possibly more meaningful depending on what other works you read.
The Baba Yaga story is important because that enmity comes up in other stories, but it is interesting in that the encounter here seems to do actual harm to the people around, without it being clear that it also does good.
Chained Coffin covers a few extra details in a story that is covered other places, but is bookended by a nice reminder of the friendship between Hellboy and Abe, and lets us know that they both dream, which is kind of touching, and possibly more meaningful depending on what other works you read.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews