Elephant Graveyard

Billy the Kid’s Old Timey Oddities and the Ghastly Fiend of London #4

Edward Hyde, the good half of serial killer H.H. Holmes — well, he might not be the good half after all. In fact, there may be no good half of him, because the minute he’s alone with Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man, he goes straight-up psycho on him. Can Billy and the rest of the freak posse catch up to him before he makes his escape? And in the backup story, the Goon and Franky are up against a gang of feral hobos, the King Hobo, and Dr. Metaphoric Name. Can they survive the terrifying onslaught?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Some unexpected twists to the story and altogether a good ending, along with a nice lead-in for the next series. The Goon story is, as always, funny, crude, and awesome.

Hellboy: The Sleeping and the Dead #1

Hellboy is hunting a vampire, when some old guy shoots him to rescue the bloodsucker. When Hellboy gets back to his feet, he tracks the vamp’s blood trail back to an old mansion, where the old gunman tells how an vampire once decimated his family, turning him into a slave, turning one of his sisters into a vampire (the one, in fact, that Hellboy just destroyed), and doing something even more unspeakable to his youngest sister. And when Hellboy gets dropped into the spooky basement, something nasty is going to be coming after him.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nice and creepy, just like I like my Hellboy stories.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Wordless comics are cool.
• Here’s a nicely detailed list of most of the Batmobiles through the decades.
• A complete set of the “Mars Attacks” bubble gum cards from the ’60s.