The Monsters of the Week and Their Day Job – B.P.R.D. Plague of Frogs: Volume One

You have no idea how excited I am to have gotten here. I’ve tried not to show my hand too much over these past few months, but as much as I love the Hellboy series, I think I love B.P.R.D. more. I picked it up originally after I got through the Hellboy books, thinking it…

I Still Can’t Believe This is the Pushing Daisies Guy – Hannibal (show)

A good horror show is rare to find. Films are common, but something about the transition in medium from a short to a long form makes it difficult to elicit that same rush of dread and fright. Which is a pity, because the longer nature of television shows offers a lot that is difficult to…

Out of the Shadows – Hellboy: Complete Short Stories, Book Two

I’ll be honest, this is not my favorite Hellboy book. It’s not bad, but it’s similar to the previous short story collection, and of the two, I think this one has fewer stories that I love. Fewer. Not none. ___________________________ 3P Reviews Series: Hellboy: The Complete Short Stories, Volume Two ___________________________ Spoilers: Yes Audience Assumptions: Familiarity…

Leg – The Umbrella Academy, Season Two, Episode Five

The band is back together, more or less. As the Umbrella Academy reunites (finally), we return to that sibling group dynamic that made the first season function. There have been a few important changes since the seven protagonists were all in the same room together. For one, the characters have been through one apocalypse already.…

Fun in Jolly Old England – Hellboy, Book Three

Hoo boy, this is going to be a long one. I should be up front and admit that I'm not going to get around to all of it. This book is massive, and it's dense on top of that. I'd be here all week if I tried to address every moment I felt deserved attention,…

Corn and Swedes – The Umbrella Academy, Season Two, Episode Three

Continuing our foray into The Umbrella Academy's wonton chaos, Episode Three starts to bring two major subplots to a culmination but ends up prompting more questions than it answers. As an early entry into the season, that's not necessarily a problem, but the season is solidifying in form, and as we get to the midpoint,…

This Fish, I Like Him – The Umbrella Academy, Season Two, Episode Two

Guess who figured out how to auto-trace bitmap images? I definitely didn't work that out after completing 75% of the drawings for this review, that's for sure... We continue our reviews of season two of The Umbrella Academy, hopefully with greater velocity from now on, as things start to escalate. The kids are moving closer…

Greater Depths – Hellboy, Book Two

Sometimes you need to shake things up a bit and turn your monster-of-the-week serial into Moby Dick and get your main character lost at sea for several years to vividly hallucinate and find himself. It happens. Hellboy Omnibus Volume Two takes an unexpected twist as the titular character continues to run into reminders of his…

“It’s Hip, It’s Wow, It’s Now, And How!” – Spider-Man 3

Now I know what you're thinking: Hat, what are you doing? Why would you review Spider-Man 3 without having reviewed the first two Spider-Man films? It's not even new, it came out in 2007. It's the bad one. Where's our Umbrella Academy review? And yes, of course all of those are very valid points. (The…

Break the Engine – Snowpiercer

Dystopian science fiction has an uncanny ability to come up with entertaining concepts that can contain far more narrative space than they ought to have. Such is the case with Snowpiercer, a 2013 film that I remember touted as a bit of an indie production by Bong Joon-ho that few in the U.S. saw when…