As a follow-up to my previous post which put all the Hellboy stories in chronological order, I suddenly realised that it would be better for new readers (like me) to have a list showing a suggested reading order.Those who have read the first three trade-paperback collections will appreciate how the published order isn't actually the order you should read the stories in.
Of course a reading order can be tricky to judge because it's perfectly usual for Hellboy's timeline to jump around the place and without any serious knock-on effect to any other story.
With this in mind I only mark stories in RED that require you to read them in order.
Stories in BLACK are related to the stories in red, but can be read at any time.
The other stories (those in GREY) can be read at absolutely any time and are completely stand-alone.
Hellboy #1: Seed of Destruction
1993: Untitled promo story (San Diego Comic Con Comics #2)
1994: Seed of Destruction
1994: Untitled promo story (The Comic Buyer's Guide #1070)
Hellboy #3: The Chained Coffin and Others
1959: The Corpse
1961: The Iron Shoes
1989: A Christmas Underground
1994: The Wolves of Saint August
1995: The Chained Coffin
1964: The Baba Yaga
Hellboy #2: Wake the Devil
1996: Wake the Devil
Hellboy #3: The Chained Coffin and Others
1996: Almost Colossus
Hellboy #4: The Right Hand of Doom
1947: Pancakes
1954: The Nature of the Beast
1956: King Vold
1967: Heads
1979: Goodbye, Mister Tod
1982: The Vârcolac
1998: The Right Hand of Doom
1999: Box Full of Evil
BPRD #1: Hollow Earth and Other Stories
1998: Abe Sapien: Drums of the Dead
1938: Lobster Johnson: The Killer in my Skull
1997: Abe Sapien vs Science
Hellboy #5: Conqueror Worm
2001: Conqueror Worm
BPRD #1: Hollow Earth and Other Stories
2002: BPRD: Hollow Earth
Hellboy #6: Strange Places
2002: The Third Wish
BPRD #2: The Soul of Venice & Other Stories
2003: The Soul of Venice
2003: Dark Waters
2003: Night Train
2003: There's Something Under My Bed
2004: Another Day at the Office
Hellboy #7: The Troll Witch and Others
1963: The Troll Witch
1958: The Penanggalan
1991: Dr. Carp's Experiment
1992: The Ghoul
1993: Makoma
BPRD #3: Plague of Frogs
2004: Plague of Frogs
BPRD #4: The Dead
2004: Born Again (Listed as "Prologue" to main story.)
2004: The Dead
BPRD #5: The Black Flame
2005: The Black Flame
Hellboy #6: Strange Places
2005: The Island (You can read this any time after The Third Wish, if you like, but it might retain more impact if you wait.)
BPRD #6: The Universal Machine
2006: The Universal Machine
Hellboy #8: Darkness Calls
2006: Darkness Calls
BPRD #7: Garden of Souls
2006: Garden of Souls
BPRD #8: Killing Ground
2007: Killing Ground
BPRD #9: 1946
1946: 1946
1939: Bishop Olek's Devil
Ape Sapien #1: The Drowning
1981: The Drowning
Lobster Johnson #1: The Iron Prometheus
1937: The Iron Prometheus
BPRD #10: The Warning
2008: The Warning
Please leave corrections and/or suggestions! Thanks!
Thanks to Shady on the Darkhorse forums for additional help.
3 comments:
Thank you for creating this list. I have a all of the Hellboy/B.P.R.D. trades with me (am on vacation) and am working my way through them for the first time. Reading them in the wrong order would've driven me mad.
Hello, this is Syntheticgerbil from the forums. I don't really have anything to add, even though I think this is a very good list. I've been stuck at the end of 2004 for Hellboy comics for about 3 years now. I made my own reading order similar to yours except with the prose novels in between according to publishing dates, which has really delayed things. Sooner or later I'll pick it back up and finish chronologically.
Hey Synthy! Nice of you to drop by! Only the first two prose novels are canon, I believe, and I don't think they add anything to the overall story do they?
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