Monday 16 June 2008

I misjudged you, demon

Paranormal, tentacled terrors from the pit, no, this isn’t a reference to the 70s toilet in my flat but my new love. Boy Hell, I mean, Hellboy. Its unsettling that, apart from inheriting several physical and physiological traits from my dad, I’ve also inherited an uncontrollable tendency for irrational prejudices when it comes to certain franchises.


It happened with Firefly, despite the love that dare not speak its name, (not in public at any rate) for Buffy and Angel. Again, I suffered this affliction when considering Clone Wars despite knowing some Samurai Jack episodes verbatim. And so, it follows, like a chicken burger that has stewed under a heat lamp, follows too much Bombay Safire, that I would feel the same way about Hellboy.


The Hellboy revulsion is easier to dissect. My first real exposure was a giant bust (for the non-geek this amounts to a classical bust but of a popular comic/anime character) of Hellboy on the desk of a tard I did a degrading summer job for. Negative enforcement number one. The second exposure came via the film version, which, despite being directed by Del Toro loses a lot of the elements that future me would come to love about the graphic novels. The references to Lovecraft and blending of folklore were watered down for a heavier emphasis on action…lame.

So, the moral...the moral? Amoral. Toril, that’s a planet apparently. Don’t judge a graphic novel character by the sawn off horns on his head.

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