Tales from the Batcave

School's back in full swing, and that means lots of my free time has been taken up these past two weeks, hence the lack of posting. Things will get back to what passes for normalcy in the Batcave soon enough though. One thing that hasn't changed, I still have time for comics. I always have time for comics.

Big things have been promised from the Hellboy stable of books at Dark Horse for this year, and I gotta say so far they've delivered the goods. This arc in BPRD though, is the one I've been itching to read. My initial thought when I saw the title "The Return of the Master" was that Rasputin was being resurrected, and I got all excited. Looks like that's not the case though, and the "Master" being referred to is Dr. Lazar. In any event, the BPRD is going to be neck deep in evil nazi scientists again, courtesy of Zinco Corp, and that friends is the kind of Hellboy comic bookery I love to read. Bring on Kroenen!

If you've followed my advice, you already have the stories collected in this "Neighborhood Watch" one-shot. However, if you love the Beasts of Burden the way I do, you'll buy this anyway. I've been reading comics for almost 25 years, and in that time only once has a book nearly brought me to tears, and it wasn't when Bane broke Batman's back either, it was an issue of Beasts of Burden. I've talked about the Beasts before, when they teamed up with Hellboy, but I simply can not recommend it enough. As I said, Neighborhood Watch is a collection of the short stories that were originally printed in Dark Horse Presents, in which the gang must thwart a devious Goblin who has been stealing chickens, three pups get a history lesson from a wise old dog about a dog's place in the Dark Ages, and they investigate the mysterious appearance of a flock of ghost sheep. Believe me when I tell you this is far from childish, despite how it may sound, and is also a perfect example of comic book storytelling at it's finest.