Hellboy Turn 20, Gets Some Awesome Fan Art Creations Courtesy Of Multiversity Comics

Hellboy is one of my favorite characters and could possibly be one of the most popular characters in the history of independent (not DC & Marvel) comics. Big Red is easily recognized not only from his adventures on the pages of Dark Horse Comics (courtesy of the great Mike Mignola, but also from the two films based on his comics by famed filmmaker Guillermo del Torro. The two movies made booku bucks and have lead to Red being more popular then ever. So it is no surprise that our old buddy is getting the full fledged bday barrage from not only DH Comics but tons of other outlets that spotlight comics as well. But few have gone just as far as Multiversity Comics in honoring the comic. Multiversity had over 80 professional artists do their best Hellboy pieces in honor of the 20th anniversary. They were posted daily through the Month of March, all leading to the grand celebration in April. The work that resulted is amazing, as each artist uses their unique styling to create vastly different yet familiar versions of the bug guy. Most DO NOT really look much like Mignola's original art, but they all feature some unique aspects put forth by Mignola through the years. At the end of the month Multiversity made a huge roundup of all the posts (over 80... wow) in one page, which makes for some really cool viewing and makes it a lot easier to compare and contrast all the pieces. You can find that full post by clicking here, and you can see my personal faves after the jump. There are many great pieces, so make sure you visit the above link to see 'em all. Happy bday Big Red... 20 years down, many more to go!!!

Great Comics Revisited: The Rocket Raccoon Mini Series (1985)

I am someone who can't read comics month to month anymore... I can't bear to wait four weeks to continue a story, and 22 pages of an issue just don't satisfy me. So I usually let storylines build up and then read collected editions to get caught back up. I also like to back and read the classics that laid the groundwork for some of the stories being told today. So recently I decided to revisit a mini series from the golden era of comics... well, the golden era to me anyway... 1985. It is the Rocket Raccoon mini series, published in 1985 and introducing the character of Rocket to a wide spread audience in his own book for the first time. The series was written by Bill Mantlo, and the art comes courtesy of a young Mike Mignola (pencils) and Al Gordon (inks). I must have read this as a kid as the story seemed familiar to me, but I honestly can't remember... and boy does that make me sad! This is such a great series, for a variety of reasons.

Check more after the jump...

Graffiti Artists Dose DV Takes Tagging To Hell With His Mignola Inspired Mural

I love coming across awesome time lapse videos of major art project because they provide a glimpse into what happens to be hours worth of work in a few mere minutes. I love the artistic process... but it can be a slow one. So to speed it up, see a blank slate and then finished piece, and only have to dedicate a few minutes to seeing how it was constructed is a perfect scenario for me. Take this video from artist Dose DV. He decided to construct a huge mural in Lakeside, England and decided to make the piece even cooler by adding a 7 foot Hellboy portrait. This piece is crazy, and I love the grid style approach that Dose DV uses to proportion Big Red's facial structure. This is the kind of thing that I never knew artists did, and it was really cool to see this (as someone who is not very artistic myself). Check out the video and some pics of the completed project after the jump...

Hellnuts 2 by Raid 71

I love some good geek art, but really love some good geek art that was created for a good cause. There is an English charity entitled Artists V Cancer that is selling some majorly cool geek prints and original pieces of art in order to raise money for the fight against cancer. There are many cool pieces available (click here to see the full show run), but the one that stood out to me came from artist Raid 71. It is called Hellnuts 2 and re-imagines some of Mike Mignola's Hellboy characters as the Peanut gang. Well thought out and executed, this is a killer piece. And to get one of the 100 prints created for the show it will only cost you 35 bucks... and it is for a good cause. Click the above link and pick up a piece to support the cancer battle, and click after the jump to see a bigger version of the Hellnuts 2 poster...