Product Review: Dark Horse — Hellboy Animated, Statue #1: Hellboy

There are certain days in a man’s life that nurture and inspire what is, perhaps, an innate predisposition or desire to believe in the ultimate goodness of the universe; to believe, as it were, that everything that happens is meant to happen and leads us all upon the path towards the greater good. 

Wednesday, January 24 was just such a day.

Whether due to a killer alignment of the planets, the stars amazingly floating in the dark ether in exactly the right position, my inner-child finding a four-leaf clover in the fields of my memory, or the spirit of my mother pulling strings for me with the big-bearded deity up-stairs — fortune smiled on me and blessed me with the chance to now possess the coolest damn thing I’ve ever seen in my life, much less been able to own and review.

Then again, the lovely lady named Christina that works for Dark Horse might have had the most to do with it. She did, after all, see something in me that made her think I would be the perfect person to review said item, or she felt sorry for me and caved after receiving the 99,999,999 emails I sent, in which I begged and begged and… you get the idea.

What is it, you ask? What could I possibly be writing a review for that would lead me to gush and babble and write about basically nothing at all for three straight paragraphs? First of all, that’s a trick question. All my reviews are basically long-winded babblings about nothing at all. You can’t fool me!

The product I am gazing lovingly upon as I write this is the amazingly cool and kick-ass Hellboy Animated Statue #1 that Dark Horse sent me.

Seconds after receiving it, I found myself having to hunt down a rag to wipe up all the drool the situation had caused. After a few moments of caressing the box and nuzzling it close to my face, I opened it and began to slide the two tape-together bricks of Styrofoam out. Eventually, after whispering encouraging words to the statue that was still encased in its crunchy prison, I freed it and opened up the Styrofoam.

You guessed it — this time I needed to go get a towel and a bib.

Held in my hands was perhaps the coolest thing I have ever seen in my life. Not only was it a statue of Hellboy, it was an amazingly COOL statue of Hellboy. It wasn’t some unfinished bust that featured only the upper portion of his body, or some small little six inch tall modeled character that hinted at the coolness that could have been if only someone had put a little thought into it — no.

It was this 10” tall and gloriously hefty statue based off of an original sculpture by Tony Cipriano from the character design done by Sean “Cheeks” Galloway for Mike Mignola’s new laminated adventures of Hellboy. In short, it is all I could ever dream that a statue of one of my favorite comic characters could be — beautifully crafted, wonderfully painted, solid and powerful, and just flat out wicked and freakin’ cool looking.

The astute reader will no doubt pick up on the fact that I like this statue. Kudos, my friends, kudos, as I have tried to be as subtle as I can…

For the few days in my possession, Hellboy has had a prominent position atop the desk in our office. Gazing over his shoulder and armed with what appears to be the largest caliber pistol ever dreamt of by man, I’m not sure anything is powerful enough to ever take away his position of honor.

None of the other toys in the house are armed with that kind of firepower. Plus, seriously, his right fist seems as solid as the brick it is apparently crafted from. Who’s going to mess with that? Do you think any of our cats’ tinkle-balls are going to want to mess with that? Heck, I’d put money on the statue holding its own against one or possibly two of the cats themselves.

Not three, though. That’s silly.

The only serious competition it might have would be the sweet robot clock I own. Named Big Tic, I think it could give a fair accounting of itself before Hellboy smashed it into bits. Here is what I imagine such a battle would look like, though.

I’d pay to see it.

In the end, really, what all of this excited rambling and gibberish is meant to convey is that this statue is also something I’d have paid at least twice the asking price for. When you take into consideration the craftsmanship, quality, and downright coolness of the piece, and then add to it the knowledge that it was limited to a production of only 1,300 in total — and you definitely have something worth babbling about.

It’s beautiful, it’s amazing, and were you to buy one for yourself, the comic-book fan in your family (we all have one!), or someone that simply appreciates quality pieces of sculpture that tend toward the unique side of things, you will not be disappointed. As an added bonus, you could then imagine fictitious battles of your statue with anything and everything in the universe and know that it would win.

Unless it battled my statue, though — then it would lose. Sorry.