As someone who has been reading comic books (Or, ahem…”Graphic Novels”……) since the ripe old age of two, I have to start out by saying this: Comics don’t get much better than Mike Mignola’s Hellboy, and it’s assorted spin-offs and ancillary titles. Mignola is a master of creepy, gothic Horror, and his books are a pleasure to read. So when it was announced in 2007 that Mignola (With partner Christopher Golden) was branching out to write a prose novel, I greeted the news with a mixture of glee (MIGNOLA!!!! YAY!!!!) and dread (I’ve never really warmed to Christopher Golden’s style….). The end result, Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and The Vampire, was a beautifully designed mixed bag. Now, four years later, Lord Henry Baltimore makes his comic book debut in the Dark Horse Comics hardcover Baltimore: The Plague Ships, collecting the five-issue mini-series of the same name.
The original Baltimore novel was a short story collection masquerading as a novel. The titular Steadfast Tin Soldier probably appears in, maybe, 20% of the book, basically bookending the novel, with a brief mention here and there throughout the rest of the book. A sort of Horror-themed Waiting For Godot, the bulk of the narrative is taken up with three of Baltimore’s acquaintances sitting around in a gloomy tavern, telling of their own brushes with the Supernatural, and providing tidbits about Baltimore’s life and adventures, as they await his arrival. After reading The Plague Ships, it was easy to see why they kept Baltimore offstage so much in the novel: He’s really not that interesting a character. Lord Henry Baltimore is basically Ahab on land….a singularly driven character, totally obsessed with the destruction of his enemies. The Plague Ships, neither sequel or prequel, takes place during the missing years that make up the middle sequence of the novel, when Baltimore traveled the World looking for the Vampire who murdered his Family and unleashed the plague that is ravaging Humanity. The story has enough recaps and flashbacks to the novel that new readers won’t feel lost, but for those that have already read the novel, there’s really not much new here……Baltimore and a female acquaintance are shipwrecked on a deserted island that is soon to be infested with plague-driven, ravenous corpses. That’s pretty much it. Artist Ben Stenbeck contributes some some really clean linework, managing to evoke Mignola’s style without looking like a clone, but it’s all in service of a very bland, predictable story that can never rise above it’s hollow lead character. The book ends with a fairly intriguing set-up for a sequel, and The Plague Ships was good enough to make me want to come back, but just barely. Hopefully, Mignola, Golden, and Stenbeck can add a little more life to their moribund lead next time around.
Baltimore: The Plague Ships features an introduction by novelist and Graphic Novel lover Joe Hill, and an extensive sketchbook section featuring designs, pin-ups, and sketches by Artist Ben Stenbeck, as well as a complete gallery of the covers from the mini-series.
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