Major Continuity Problems on the Horizon for BPRD/Hellboy

[Jeremy Powell]

Has anyone else noticed that the Hellboy universe's timeline, so brilliantly and meticulously presented in the Companion, seems already to be barreling toward incoherence?

Here's the problem: according to the Companion, "Killing Ground" takes place in September of 2006. From internal story cues we know that "Out of Reach" takes place immediately after "Killing Ground." And, again from internal story cues, we know that "The Warning" begins only a week or so after that. So "The Warning" must begin in late September or early October 2006.

But, again according to the Companion, the events of "Darkness Calls" occur throughout the year 2007. It seems unlikely that the still-unfolding events of "The Warning" are really supposed to have taken place before "Darkness Calls." And indeed it's looking increasingly likely that the epilogue to "Darkness Calls" (in which the still-unified BPRD crew receives a letter from HB) must take place before "The Warning" (though we'll have to wait until "The Warning" #5 comes out to know for sure).

Is it really Mike and John's intention that "The Warning" should take place two years prior to its publication date? I suppose it's possible. For all we know, "The Black Goddess" might turn out to be set two years after "The Warning," bringing the comics' storyline up to speed with the present of publication. But my intuition says that that's unlikely (especially given the solicitation blurb for the first issue of "The Black Goddess"), and that the gap between "story time" and publication time will continue to widen for the forseeable future.

This is a recurring problem in continuity-based serial comics, occasionally leading to moments of massive retcon such as DC's "Zero Hour." But Mignola and co. had always assiduously avoided such problems, by, for instance, writing into the storyline the longer-than-expected gaps between the publications of "The Third Wish," "The Island," and "The Mole"/"Darkness Calls." Their careful orchestration of an increasingly complex fictional world has not been merely incidental to my and other readers' enjoyment of these stories, as is evidenced by the warm reception of the Companion itself. (And yes, I know that the Companion's reception was actually somewhat mixed; but the detractors' objections centered around writing quality, thoroughness, redundancy etc. and never about the intrinsic value of, or desire for, an official HB-universe timeline.) It would be particularly tragic if this admirable orchestration breaks down so shortly after the release of a book designed in part to prevent such breakdowns from ever occurring . . .

[hellboyone]

I'll get over it. Hey, I already have!

[AbeSapien99]

That's the problem when you have so many authors working with something like Hellboy: it's hard to keep track of who's writing in what time period. I've seen that with a few other comic books, and eventually you come to realize that it just doesn't matter - unless two or more stories are specifically connected someway, you just assume they happen in different 'universes'.

But I see why it can bother some people in regards to Hellboy. So far it seems like HB and friends have been kept in a single, unified timeline, but I guess sooner or later there would be an oops. Hopefully that oops stays singular and doesn't evolve into apathy where anyone can write at any time and a thousand HB 'universes' emerge.

[Myron L]

I'm not one to get overly entrapped in the continuity trap.To be honest...I didn't even really know when the stories were taking place.

To me that is less important than the execution of the story and art itself...

Learn to let it pass, my Young Padawan.
;)

[TBolt]

Man, my brain hurts just from reading that continuity explaination. Just enjoy the stories and don't think to hard about it.

[Kees_L]

Well Jeremy, I can only say: thank you for keeping your ear to the grindstone in this, as I would not myself so much.
I would say: expect a thorough report and explanation by the Companion editing team promptly - but my words seem to carry weight rather hardly around here, probably for better I reckon :smile:.
I take the continuity in Hellboy's world like the continuity or time-line in REH's fiction or other SF-bodies: the depth of the stories allowes for a time-line to be worked out as it's more than 'protagonists doing some stuff'.

Toward DC's Zero Hour kind of stuff in comics I'm rather biassed: I feel in such it's done the other way around: 'protagonists doing some stuff', being presented in such a way that it seems some great continuity should be read in it. It seems I'll be generally more biassed towards Marvel than toward DC however, but still. Which is why I feel content with the Hellboy "Universe".

[Ambassador Curt]

There's only one thing I hate more than continuity... and that's things that go in a specific order.

[ROOBARB]

WHAT WHAT you have the Companion how come i dont have it
any one in the UK have the Companion:evilangry:
has just come out or somthing:confused:

[Nick W]

WHAT WHAT you have the Companion how come i dont have it
any one in the UK have the Companion:evilangry:
has just come out or somthing:confused:

It came out in the States back in May. You can get it on the cheap if you don't care about condition here. (http://www.tfaw.com/Profile/Hellboy%3A-The-Companion-TPB-Nick-|and|-Dent___328674)

And worrying about continuity is like worrying about how much rat poop is in the hotdog you're eating. There's nothing you can do to change it and it takes away from your enjoyment.

N

[mattmanw54301]

And worrying about continuity is like worrying about how much rat poop is in the hotdog you're eating. There's nothing you can do to change it and it takes away from your enjoyment.


Thanks for that mental image, Nick. :eek:

[MarisaSmith]

And worrying about continuity is like worrying about how much rat poop is in the hotdog you're eating. There's nothing you can do to change it and it takes away from your enjoyment.

Yes, agreed Nick!:biggrin:

Although I just finished some hot dogs for lunch... Erm...:frown:

[Ambassador Curt]

And worrying about continuity is like worrying about how much rat poop is in the hotdog you're eating. There's nothing you can do to change it and it takes away from your enjoyment.


I literally just ate a hot dog, and what you said rings true. Had I've known the amount of rat poop, its delicious goodness would have been sullied.

[AbeSapien99]

Hey it's just more protein... If it's good enough to go through a rat, it's good enough to go through a human. Think of it like experimental testing. ;)

[Myron L]

UHm...yeah...this thread officially went from relevant to just plain gross...

[ROOBARB]

phew panic over its avlable in the uk
it took a while breathing into a brown paper bag
b4 i googled it
and as for hotdogs thing so thats why they taste like s#!+
:biggrin:

[Ambassador Curt]

and as for hotdogs thing so thats why they taste like s#!+
:biggrin:

You sir, need to watch your mouth.


:smile:

[ROOBARB]

You sir, need to watch your mouth.


:smile:

yea sorry but that was to good an opportunity to pass up
ill bite my tongue next time:rolleyes:

[Otto66]

I agree with Jeremy. After all what was the point of the Companion?

Hey. Its the right of evey comic fan that plunks down their hard earned
monies to hold to task every publisher, editor and compiler of books that
claim to have the answers. And its the stuff of classic Con arguments.

Rave On!

[Rachel Edidin]

It would be particularly tragic if this admirable orchestration breaks down so shortly after the release of a book designed in part to prevent such breakdowns from ever occurring . . .

Has it not occurred to you that we are, in fact, still keeping track of continuity? We didn't just produce the book version of the timeline, throw our hands in the air, and let everything barrel on.

No, simultaneously released Hellboy and B.P.R.D. books don't necessarily take place at the same time, and they certainly don't line up with real time. Given the months between when any given book is written and when it hits shelves, that would cripple the writers spectacularly--and it would make series like B.P.R.D.: 1946, Hellboy: The Crooked Man, and Lobster Johnson: The Iron Prometheus altogether impossible.

Bear in mind, too, that this stuff all starts at the same point--Mike--and is then filtered through the same channels. Hellboy and B.P.R.D. aren't exactly being written in isolation from one another.

[InAdia]

That is why comics dull the brain.

The Real Inadia

[Kees_L]

I agree with Jeremy. After all what was the point of the Companion?


I hear you if you mean to say that everyone can have their say, Otto. (Did you priorly have a blond avatar by any chance?)

But what exactly do you agree to then, as I sincerely don't quite catch what is so problematic with the Companion, or really: 'the official time-line' to be more specific, since that is what Jeremy seems to be pointing at.

I cannot see why a gap of two years between Hellboy time and publication dates, or gaps between BPRD time and Hellboy time would be problematic, let alone prove or forebode a barreling toward incoherence unavoidably??
To me the time-line maps out the spaces in time that have been filled in, in Hellboy's biography and in that of the BPRD.

But knowing what happened when so far, can only tell you so much. I mean: to conclude all kinds of stuff within what has unfolded will still be hard, since in a story not everything (concerning time and points in time) is disclosed in total detail. Like it may not (yet) be entirely possible to know what Liz was doing where exactly, when Hellboy was beating up this or that.
And I think the general indifference uttered by other posters here toward what continuity means (if I may read as such at all), seems to hint on this: the time-frame needs to feel perfectly real or worked out. So, faultyness may indeed not be seeming to occur.
And for me, luckily, faultyness or incoherence don't seem to be occuring. But yeah, that maybe just me :tongue:.

[Jeremy Powell]

Great, Rachel! That's exactly what I hoped to hear. By the way, I like the Companion very, very much. So: thanks for your work.

Anyway, I wasn't just diddling around with posting this for the sake of having nothing better to do, and still less for some pathetically misguided sense of "gotcha" superiority to the creative talent working on the HB-verse. My nitpicking has a purpose.

According to the timeline, "Epilogue One" of "Darkness Calls" must take place approximately a year after "The Warning." (Though it would be narratively odd, it's remotely possible that Epilogue One might take place prior to the rest of "Darkness Calls." But it still couldn't take place before "The Warning," because--again according to the official timeline--Hellboy's boat didn't wash up in Southwold until June 2007, about eight months after "The Warning".)

This could just be a continuity snafu. In which case, you know, tant pis, but I, like everyone else, would get over it. I may have focused in my first post a little too much and a little melodramatically on the "tragic" possibility of such continuity breakdowns. I do hope that the goal of maintaining a really tight, consistent continuity throughout the titles remains a priority for the writers, because I, for one, appreciate the way that this continuity contributes to the sense of the reality of the fictional world in which these stories are set.

But what I'm really intrigued by is the possibility that this isn't an error.

If there's no error, then Epilogue One does take place in 2007. That means it gives us a glimpse further into the "future" of the BPRD than any other pages we've so far seen. This would mean that, about one year after the events of "The Warning," all the characters we see in Epilogue One are still alive, still part of the team, and look roughly the same as they do "now" (i.e. in October 2006, the time of "The Warning"). Kate's still around. The Colorado complex is still home base. And Liz has returned, and is not visibly changed . . .

[Kees_L]

But what I'm really intrigued by is the possibility that this isn't an error.


Wow Jeremy, you said tant pis... And wow some more, for reading from the time-line so interestingly :wink:.
If we'd be to compare notes: my plan is to stay on that shadowy Eddie Grey character from Ep. 2, and things might get Hec-tic...

[Rachel Edidin]

Great, Rachel! That's exactly what I hoped to hear. By the way, I like the Companion very, very much. So: thanks for your work.

Anyway, I wasn't just diddling around with posting this for the sake of having nothing better to do, and still less for some pathetically misguided sense of "gotcha" superiority to the creative talent working on the HB-verse. My nitpicking has a purpose.

According to the timeline, "Epilogue One" of "Darkness Calls" must take place approximately a year after "The Warning." (Though it would be narratively odd, it's remotely possible that Epilogue One might take place prior to the rest of "Darkness Calls." But it still couldn't take place before "The Warning," because--again according to the official timeline--Hellboy's boat didn't wash up in Southwold until June 2007, about eight months after "The Warning".)

This could just be a continuity snafu. In which case, you know, tant pis, but I, like everyone else, would get over it. I may have focused in my first post a little too much and a little melodramatically on the "tragic" possibility of such continuity breakdowns. I do hope that the goal of maintaining a really tight, consistent continuity throughout the titles remains a priority for the writers, because I, for one, appreciate the way that this continuity contributes to the sense of the reality of the fictional world in which these stories are set.

But what I'm really intrigued by is the possibility that this isn't an error.

If there's no error, then Epilogue One does take place in 2007. That means it gives us a glimpse further into the "future" of the BPRD than any other pages we've so far seen. This would mean that, about one year after the events of "The Warning," all the characters we see in Epilogue One are still alive, still part of the team, and look roughly the same as they do "now" (i.e. in October 2006, the time of "The Warning"). Kate's still around. The Colorado complex is still home base. And Liz has returned, and is not visibly changed . . .

When that epilogue takes place, Hellboy's functioning fairly far outside of time as it works normally--take that as you will.

[mattmanw54301]

TIME WARP HB!!!!

anyways, I think that whatever the continuity, the Companion is an incredible book, and an invaluable reference guide to the massive Mignola-verse. Even tho it is not written as such, I read it cover to cover like any other HB book. Graet stuff.

[Jeremy Powell]

When that epilogue takes place, Hellboy's functioning fairly far outside of time as it works normally--take that as you will.

Like Cooper in the Black Lodge, huh? Interesting . . .

Thanks for your replies, Rachel.

[jlagory]

I'm not sure that knowing exactly when the comics take place is something i think about that much.

That being said, it is important to know what the B.P.R.D. is up to during a Hellboy story and vice versa, seeing as how the two are so related. What exactly was the B.P.R.D. doing while Hellboy was battling Koschei? Were they dealing with Daimio's inner beast or trying to find Liz? What were they up to when they got the letter from HB? What's Hellboy doing while robots are destroying Munich?
This is why the timeline must be accurate, and hopefully it is!

If not, I will still enjoy the comics just as much.

[Tad]

Rachel got to it first but I'll echo the idea strongly. I don't think Hellboy has been walking through our world since The Third Wish and certainly being killed on The Island has to mess with his view of reality. Hellboy stayed with a dear friend for months after that, a friend who had been dead for years. I think that if the BPRD visited the sites of Hellboy's recent adventures they wouldn't see him. I doubt the cloud of witches that carried him through the sky showed up on radar anywhere.

The realities can cross like a ghost that rings a bell in a seance. Hellboy can post a letter that finds its way to the BPRD's world but when it was mailed and how long delivery took is anyone's guess.