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Hellboy

Hellboy is the latest guest review, from a new guest reviewer.  Please give him a hearty MROTW welcome!

I'm Colin and Michael was nice enough to let me put some reviews up here on his site.  Today, I'm reviewing Hellboy from Graphitti Designs Big Blast. My local comic shop was a little bit behind in getting the new set of Graphitti figures so I had to go to a comic shop in another town to get Hellboy.  The rest of the set is the Hunter Rose Grendel and Will Eisner's "The Spirit".  There is also a variant Hellboy figure that is not being reviewed.  He is identical except that he is wearing a black BPRD T-Shirt.



 

Packaging - ***
The packaging is decent.  The figure is very prominent, taking up most of the front of the package.  There is a drawing of the character behind the figure but it is easy to lose the picture since the character's colors are too close to the background colors.  The back of the package has a sketch by character creator Mike Mignola and a brief bio of Hellboy.  The other figures in the assortment are also shown at the bottom.  Graphitti also credits the sculptor.  A nice touch that other companies should pick up as well.

Sculpting - ****
WOW!  This figure is a dead on likeness of the character. Hellboy has a very strong Jack Kirby influence that seems like it would be difficult to capture in 3 dimensions. However, they managed quite well. Visually, the figure is very impressive. At 8" in height, the toy is large enough to allow the sculptor to accurately capture the likeness. The sculpt is really the strongest argument for buying the figure.

Paint - ****
Hellboy's a pretty simple figure, colorwise.  The paint lines are all neat and crisp.  I wouldn't imagine that you'll see a Hellboy with a bad paint job since there aren't a whole lot of paint apps for this figure.

Articulation - ***
Articulation is a double-edged sword on this figure.  He has a whopping 17 points of articulation: neck, shoulders, bicep, elbow, wrist, waist, hip, knee, ankle, and tail.  Not all of these are exceptionally useful.  The shoulders are ball jointed but have a pretty limited range of motion.  The bicep articulation is nice, but looks odd when faced at an angle other than that which exactly lines up with the sculpt.  Continuing a trend from Graphitti, he has ball jointed hips with a waist that is sculpted so that there is no way for the figure to sit or raise his legs.  In spite of what sounds like complaints, I am very impressed with the articulation on this figure.  The only real problem that I have is that the ankles are not especially tight and he pitches forward every couple of weeks and falls off of my shelf.

Accessories - ***1/2
Hellboy comes with his gun, a sword, an extra hand for holding the sword, and a coat.  One hand is designed to hold only the gun and the other hand is designed to hold only the sword.  Both weapons fit very nicely and snugly in the hands.  The sculpting on the weapons, especially the gun, is very accurate to the comic. Oddly, the weapons are molded in red plastic and painted gray. A cost cutting measure, I'm sure. The coat fits nicely although I would have liked a coat with both sleeves.  One of the sleeves is damaged as though torn in a fight with some otherworldly beast.

Value - ***
I will admit it, I'm cheap.  When I shell out $15 for a toy, I want a lot for my money.  Hellboy is not a bad deal at $15.  he has a lot of heft and looks really great on a shelf where he kind of makes the other toys look bad by comparison.  While not as good a value as the new Spider-Man Classics at $6, he is a much better value than DC Direct figures, who also run $15.  He is the same price as DCD figures, is bigger, more articulated, and comes with more accessories.  With Kid Flash, I looked at him and said " I spent $15 on this?" and shook my head.  When I looked at Hellboy, there wasn't any of that same buyer's remorse.

Overall - ***1/2
This figure is a great addition to my collection.  I would have liked for the articulation to have been a bit more useful for striking some more dynamic poses, but it is serviceable.  If you have any fondness for the character you should go buy one.  You won't regret it.  I bought the figure because I liked the character visually and then read the comics and have enjoyed the comics more than the figure. He is the most striking of the Graphitti Big Blast figures and just dwarfs everything else on the shelf.  If you buy one, open it.  I am a big advocate of opening what you buy and this figure is much better when freed from his blister prison.

Where to Buy
Mine came from a comic shop, but you could probably also find them on ebay.  These are exclusively through Diamond so it is possible, although unlikely, that Software Etc., Gamestop, Babbages, or Electronics Boutique could also get them.

Michael here!  I did a little looking around and found this on-line option:

- Comics Infinity has the figure for $13.46 plus shipping.  They've always provided good service to me.


Figure from the collection of Colin

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