The Hellboy Universe Publishing Order

[middenway]

Where was it mentioned that the new omnibi will be paperback?

Mike Mignola told me on Twitter.

[Joker]

So these are basically the Library Editions, in paperback, re ordered?

[Shargor]

What do you mean by LE in paperbacks? They are standart-size trades, like Plague of Frogs TPB-omnibuses.
Or you mean content-wise? Then I'm sure they wont include bonus sections from LE, but will include material not yet collected in LE, like OGNs or latest Mexico stories.

[Kees_L]

So these are basically the Library Editions, in paperback, re ordered?

Yes and no.

If next year the movie is out, there's a good chance there will be new folks unfamiliar with the comics going:

'Okay so that Mignola Hellboy comic, like Seed of Destruction and the Corpse, down to the Blood Queen and stuff, can I buy that?
Do I need to scour around for editions from 20 or 12 years ago or are there current ones? Not necessarily oversized hardbacks with bonus sketchbook material but more like affordible thick omnibuses?'

I think if I were a new reader, these would be for me, even moreso than the normal paperbacks or the Library Editions. Because even the idea of the re-ordering could settle the notion that after 20+ years a hell-of-a-lot of TPBs seem to have amassed for the Mignolaverse. Which could appear daunting to new readers these days?

Also: new covers.

[Joker]

I mean, they're collecting 2 trades worth of material. Vol. 1 2 and 3 will be the same two stories per volume as Volume 1 3 and 5 of the Library Editions, with LE 2 and 4 being the "complete short stories" omnibus'. Right?

[Kees_L]

I mean, they're collecting 2 trades worth of material. Vol. 1 2 and 3 will be the same two stories per volume as Volume 1 3 and 5 of the Library Editions, with LE 2 and 4 being the "complete short stories" omnibus'. Right?

That's basically what I would assume, but I can't help thinking the short stories seem far too many pages to fit. I mean, aren't there more than 2 "And Other Stories"-TPBs?

[Shargor]

No, these omnibuses will also include Hellboy in Hell series (in vol. 4), so 6 omnibuses will at least collect 14 trades (7 LEs) + as I mentioned before, I guess they will also collect material not-present in LEs, like OGNs and stories from Hellboy in Mexico trade (Hellboy versus the Aztec Mummy, Hellboy Gets Married, The Coffin Man, The Coffin Man 2: The Rematch) and possibly upcoming winter special about Krampus and Being Human one-shot (dreams, dreams).

So it's approx 16 trades of material in 6 omnibuses, more than 2,5 trades per volume.

[Joker]

Eh, I guess we'll have to wait and see what they contain when they release that info. Odd they didn't with the press release.

I guess I just don't understand how they plan to parse the stories out. Hellboy In Hell can only contain 10 issues and on short (if they include it). But, The Wild Hunt can and should include Darkness Calls, The Wild Hunt, and The Storm and The Fury. That's a pretty complete trilogy there. it'd be weird to split those up. So will these just be really uneven in page count?

I'm just confused by the marketing. It seems a little horse before the cart.

(Also, it doesn't really matter, I'm not buying these. I have the Library Editions.)

[middenway]

I guess I just don't understand how they plan to parse the stories out. Hellboy In Hell can only contain 10 issues and on short (if they include it). But, The Wild Hunt can and should include Darkness Calls, The Wild Hunt, and The Storm and The Fury. That's a pretty complete trilogy there. it'd be weird to split those up. So will these just be really uneven in page count?

Yeah, the omnibuses aren't going to be even lengths. The Hellboy in Hell omnibus will be the shortest for obvious reasions, while The Wild Hunt omnibus will easily be the longest. These collections aren't aimed at long-term readers, but at new readers that have just seen the new film and want an easy place to start without consulting a reading order, and without the jumping back and forth that's in the original trades or the library editions. The library editions are for the long-term readers. Which is in part why the press release didn't cover the contents, because the Hellboy omnibuses' intended audience wouldn't understand that information. All they need to know is "all of it, in order".

[Joker]

That makes sense. I guess it's just that I'm not the target audience.

[Shargor]

And here is the content. As expected, collections cover everything published under Hellboy name.

Hellboy Omnibus Volume 1: Seed of Destruction
Available in comic stores on May 23rd and in bookstores on June 5, 2018.
This 368-page volume covers Hellboy’s adventures from 1994 to 1997, reprinting Seed of Destruction, Wake the Devil, and “Wolves of St August,” “The Chained Coffin,” and “Almost Colossus,” from The Chained Coffin and The Right Hand of Doom.

Hellboy: The Complete Short Stories Vol. 1
Available Summer 2018.
This 368-page volume covers Hellboy’s adventures from 1947 to 1961, reprinting stories from The Chained Coffin, The Right Hand of Doom, The Bride of Hell, The Crooked Man, The Troll Witch, and Hellboy’s childhood adventure, The Midnight Circus, drawn by Duncan Fegredo.

Hellboy Omnibus Volume 2: Strange Places
Available Summer 2018.
This 416-page volume covers Hellboy’s adventures from 1998 to 2005, reprinting Conqueror Worm, Strange Places, Into the Silent Sea, and “The Right Hand of Doom,” “Box Full of Evil,” and “Being Human” from The Right Hand of Doom and B.P.R.D. Being Human.

Hellboy Omnibus Volume 3: The Wild Hunt
Available Fall 2018.
Mike Mignola and Duncan Fegredo’s complete trilogy is collected for the first time in this 512-page volume, reprinting Darkness Calls, The Wild Hunt, and The Storm and the Fury, and the short story “The Mole.”

Hellboy: The Complete Short Stories Vol. 2
Available Fall 2018.
Featuring “The Hydra and the Lion,” “The Troll Witch,” “The Baba Yaga,” “The Sleeping and the Dead,” “Heads,” “Goodbye Mister Tod,” “The Vârcolac,” “The Vampire of Prague,” “The Bride of Hell,” “The Whittier Legacy,” “Buster Oakley Gets His Wish,” “They That Go Down to the Sea in Ships,” “A Christmas Underground”, “Dr. Carp’s Experiment,” “The Ghoul,” “In the Chapel of Moloch,” and “Makoma.”

Hellboy Omnibus Volume 4: Hellboy in Hell
Available Winter 2019
Hellboy in Hell, The Exorcist of Vorsk, The Magician and the Snake

A real shame they decided not to release it in hardcover

[RickyMeister]

Will the bprd omnibus collections stay in print? I want to get them along with the new hellboy collections when released

[Jan Bentzen]

So "The Magician and the Snake" is now a Hellboy in Hell story - cool.

[Joker]

Interesting seeing how they divided these up. I've never read Hellboy chronologically. Always thought it might be fun on a re read... but I always liked how it skipped around.

I'm glad these exist for new readers. I hope they do well.

[Kees_L]

Interesting seeing how they divided these up. I've never read Hellboy chronologically. Always thought it might be fun on a re read... but I always liked how it skipped around.

I'm glad these exist for new readers. I hope they do well.

To respond to the bolded bit purely in my own words and from my personal perspective/presumption:

when the Hellboy Companion was published in 2008, containing a full timeline up to that point of all Hellboy and B.P.R.D.-related story ideas,
(realised ones as well as a good couple of events or tidbits that have hardly even found their way into stories at all),
a lengthy foreword by mr Scott Allie appears to convey that this timeline had more or less arisen due to being used as a tool for the writer(s) to pick and choose what stories would be needing to get made and published, the more any books and titles got to be expanded upon.

Scott Allie's foreword reveals it was a thrill as well as a *pain in the ass* to be dropping the timeline onto the fanbase, due to it having emerged as a handy and even inspiration-inducing tool on the creative end more rather than how up to that point the stories had just been published the way they were with servicing reader experience the most without providing a timeline next to it.

Eventhough some Hellboy stories do not even contain dates in the story, the Companion timeline reveals how they all could get a date or order stuck to them. Which tells me such a chronology was sought and utilised on the creative end - by mr Mike most initially presumably.

And now that most all of the stories are out there and published, they can be rearranged in order (although not fully because this collection is still divided between main stories and short stories, for making it possible to arrange separate volumes better).

I think newer fans will like these editions, although any of the fans owning the old order can be to read their books in the very same order if they want without having to buy new books.

I think this new order or the Companion aren't existing to replace the publication order at all, but the stories were originally conceived with proposing a lifelike expansive and non-linear sense of time and history. Which is why the publication order is still a great way to read everything, like as starting with Seed of Destruction, eventhough the new order more rather services or enforces how - expansive or not - there is a chronology to things. Something that couldn't be achieved or wouldn't service anything at a point when only a few or not the bulk of stuff had become published or realized into actual stories yet.

Also: new covers .

But I agree with you it's interesting, plus I would like to hear how it all really and actually emerged - like straight from the Horse's mouth, meaning mr Mike and Scott Allie themselves - but come to think of it I'm pretty sure these new editions will be containing forewords of their own, possibly with containing such information.