Itty Bitty Hellboy #4: Review


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After what’s felt like a nearly perfect game, Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani take an unexpected nosedive with issue #4 of Itty Bitty Hellboy. What started as a lovable (and kid-friendly) re-imagining of everybody’s favorite hell spawn suddenly got strangely mature with this latest issue.

Here’s the official word from DarkHorse:

What comes down must go UP! All the way up to the heavens! That’s right! Things may never be the same for Itty Bitty Hellboy and his pals after Roger tries to make friends with the Baba Yaga! What? Doesn’t she like flowers? Maybe it’s just Roger she finds irritating. Roger may be feeling separation anxiety after this story! Prepare yourself for the fluffiest, cloudiest, heavenliest issue yet!

Part of the magic of Baltazar and Franco has always been their ability to engage two audiences at once. Screen shot 2013-11-25 at 8.56.59 PMEven back during their Tiny Titans phase this team seemed especially talented at creating books that both kids and adult readers could enjoy together. Call it the Pixar effect — or call it whatever you want — but Baltazar and Franco’s ability to entertain both kids and continuity savvy adults is what helped their work transcend its own campy premise and read like sophisticated satire. And I, like everyone, was excited about how they might apply these talents to this newest Hellboy project (especially given that they were tackling a set of characters that were originally meant for more mature audiences). But issue #4 offers a misstep that turns this comic from something that an adult might read with a kid, into something that’s more suited for adult tastes and humors. Which is too damn bad.

Those following this series have known for a while the Roger has a penchant for walking around butt naked — the art is handled so abstractly that it’s about as offensive as seeing a Ken doll in the nude. But then (spoiler alert), with issue #4, Baba Yaga suddenly offers Roger the gift of pants. “Really? Pants?” Roger replies. “I thought you liked…” Baba Yaga interrupts: “Well, people are starting to stare,” she says. “Y’know…with you being SMOOTH down there. It’s a bit uncomfortable.” For a comic that generally relies on gags to inspire chuckles, this abrupt pivot towards a dick joke (or pubic hair joke to be fair) seems incredibly tone deaf. And disappointing.

Some of you might think I’m overreacting. And if so, I just ask you to consider this simple test: read this comic to a child (I’ve yet to find a comic shop that doesn’t carry Baltazar and Franco in the kid’s section; and most of the books letters are from kids, too) and then consider how you explain this “smooth down there” joke to them.

This rant aside, I’ll stay say this: I still love Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani. I always have. And this is why I expected so much more of them.

2/5

twostar

 

 

S#!T Talking Central

  • BCYa

    I’m sorry, but either you must be joking, or you are way too sensitive. Roger never wears pants and has no genitals – any kid with eyes can see that. So unless you’re reading this book to blind kids, I think your reaction is ridiculous.