the amazing screw on head and other curious objects

‘Abu Gung and the Beanstalk’ is a gloss on the classic fairytale which also links to events in Screw-On Head. The other stories in this collection include ‘The Magician and the Snake’, a very short story written by Mignola’s then seven-year-old daughter, a funny and weirdly poignant little tale that won another Eisner.

Mignola’s brooding and atmospheric artwork adapts surprisingly well to this completely silly parade of goofiness, which won an Eisner award (and was later adapted into a 22-minute cartoon which you can find on YouTube). Unfortunately for the world, Emperor Zombie is a master of ancient languages. This piece of parchment is a map to a ‘melon-sized jewel’ that will give the finder the power to conquer the world, but nobody has been able to decipher it. President Abraham Lincoln, speaking via a giant video screen to his most special agent, Screw-On Head, tells him that ‘the Kalakistan Fragment’ has been stolen from the Museum of Dangerous Books and Paper by the villainous Emperor Zombie. His neck has a spiral thread (like a screw) so that he can insert his head into any number of robot bodies, each equipped with special gadgets for the job at hand. It’s a 19th century steampunky brew of science, vampires, zombies and airships. The title story is a relatively short and fast escapade that Mignola mostly improvised as he went along. The self-aware humour is often what saves Hellboy’s battles against giant monsters and Nazis from being just a little too obvious, and in The Amazing Screw-On Head Mignola finally goes all the way into a joke-filled parody of his work and the fantasy/supernatural genre it’s built on. Mike Mignola’s Hellboy has always teetered on the edge of ridiculousness, from his own name to many of the creatures and circumstances that he finds himself dealing with.

The amazing screw on head and other curious objects