This week I had an opportunity to review the latest project from Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, Bowling with Corpses and Other Tales from Lands Unknown. This isn’t a new chapter of the Hellboy universe, but an entirely new world and cast of characters. Mignola, handling writing and art duties, presents his new creation through a series of seemingly unrelated short stories. The only constant is the setting and history of the world. These stories have the aura of fairy tales and, in many ways, this is Mignola’s Grimms’ Fairy Tales. When taken as a whole, these tales form the foundation of this new world and set the stage for future stories to come.
The first tale in the collection is the titular “Bowling with Corpses” which centers on a boy named Spoon who decides to set off to make his fortune. “Bowling with Corpses” is full of the usual Mignola humor and absurdity and is a perfect introduction to this new world. It is here that we get our first sense of the overall mythology of Mignola’s new creation. Spoon is told of the origins of his world from a strangers in an even stranger hat: that the great celestial dragon and old gods will soon sit in judgment of this world. This encounter is followed up immediately in the next chapter, “In the Beginning,” in which the reader is told the ancient history of the land and its primordial creation. The world was created after the previous world had succumbed to its own darkness, purged by the Great Dragon who then created this new world. We then learn of the names of the deities and their relationship to humankind and the Dragon.
Mignola isn’t done with his worldbuilding, as the next chapter, “The Making of the World,” expands on the information from the previous chapter and, in surprising ways, contradicts what we just learned. Here, we learn of a World Tree that the Dragon begs to create the world anew. This story draws on Norse mythology and the myth of Yggradsil, the World Tree, Ragnarok, and the Midgard Serpent. After completing this chapter, I felt compelled to return to “Bowling with Corpses” to see if the two stories connected. Spoon encounters three corpses, and “The Making of the World” said that the World Tree created a Gyoss/godlike being and several daughters to serve the world. It made me wonder if Spoon had actually been bowling with three of those mythical daughters of Gyoss or perhaps granddaughters of Gyoss. Those corpses also grant Spoon the arm of an inanimate corpse that has great power. Was that the arm of a daughter of Gyoss?
I found myself doing this throughout the collection, looking for little hints at what the bigger picture might be and enjoying every minute of it. “Justice Denied,” the next chapter, is the most Hellboy-like story in the anthology. The main character is a storyteller and former sailor who agrees to solve the mystery of a haunted house. Like his B.P.R.D. and Hellboy adventures, I appreciated that once again Mignola challenges our expectations of good and evil. The next chapter, “Immortality Is Dust,” is similar to “Justice Denied” in that they are fairytale morality stories. In this chapter, two friends (Gozig and Crab) seek the immortal blood of an infamous evil warlord. Gozig goads Crab into joining him in his quest for knowledge better left out of the hands of mortal humans. In the end, both characters wonder if that knowledge was worth the price.
The anthology continues with the tale of retired soldier Vinder Hoak in “The Old Soldier and the King.” Vinder Hoak relays the story of how when he was younger he had met the King of the Lost People. In this world, the Lost People can refer to elves, gnomes, kobolds, and other traditional fairy creatures. Mignola provides us with an unreliable narrator in Hoak as we come to question the veracity of the story by the end. This is a playful story of epic adventure and miniature cows and was my favorite of the anthology.
The next entry in this collection is “Una and the Devil” – a dark examination of sexism told through the story of a desperate woman and her pact with the Devil. This chapter makes us question what we have been told about the history of the world previously. Una encounters the Devil as a batlike, almost vampiric being that resembles the evil sorcerers encountered by Spoon in the first chapter. Una herself develops vampiric characteristics due to her deal with the Devil. Before Una can fulfill her deal, she is interrupted by the Mother of Witches. From this Mother of Wishes, the reader learns of and older, darker dragon who existed before creation and from whom the witches draw their power. It could be interpreted by the reader that this dragon is the World Tree and perhaps this witch mother is, in fact, Gyoss and the witches are her daughters spoken of in previous chapters. Mignola chooses to keep us guessing, leaving Una’s final fate untold. The last story, “Lands Unknown,” is narrated by a crow who acts as a guide, introducing the reader to each land in Mignola’s new fantasy world. The crow is attempting to cajole a skeletal-looking figure into leaving their tower and books.
I can’t end this review without commenting on Mignola’s artwork. As usual, his work is haunting and immediately draws the reader into the story. His character design is at its usual high level, and this book is full of new and wonderful creations to enjoy. Dave Stewart’s color work is the perfect complement to Mignola’s pencils and inks. Dark Horse also adds on extra notes of commentary from Mignola at the end. I’m always up for delving deeper into the creative process, and I loved that this project all stemmed from a picture Mignola had in his head of a guy bowling with corpses.
I will join Mignola in hoping that Dark Horse allows us to return to this world in the future. There is just so much potential story to mine from this new fantasy setting. I really enjoyed this often strange, sometimes funny, and always quirky collection. This is some of Mignola’s best work, and it reminds me of the excitement I felt when I discovered Hellboy for the first time. As I mentioned before, this anthology is littered with clues about the origins and history of this sublime, new fantasy world. There is so much to discover in these stories that it begs to be read a second and third time. All fans of Mignola and dark fantasy should pick this up. Dark Horse, I demand a sequel!
Creative Team: Mike Mignola (Writer and Artist), Dave Stewart (Colorist)
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
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