November 2, 2007

{     Hellboy 8" Qee - Dark Horse / Toy2R Collab     }    

Hellboy and Qee are the new chocolate and peanut butter. It's kind of a no-brainer, really, combining Mike Mignola's iconic character with the designer toy market's most venerable production house (Toy2R) has resulted in one of the year's niftiest pieces of collectible vinyl. And The Right Hand of Doom has never looked so adorable.

Following a successful stint in the Qee standard 2.5-inch format, this limited edition run clocks in at a whopping 8" tall and commands some serious shelf presence. This is one massive hunk of vinyl, and it captures the raw lines of Mignola's design amazingly well. The severed horns, broad jawline and even his signature ponytail are present and accounted for, and the production model features a screened-on utility belt that differs slightly from the prototype model seen here, keeping intact all the must-have Hellboy details while retaining the Qee superdeformed cute-factor. Big Red's even packed with an accessory, a Qee-ized version of his huge-barreled pistol (fans of the movie may know it as the "Samaritan") that can be held in either hand.

The packaging itself is a work of art, Hellboy ships in a beautiful raw paper-board window-box silkscreened with bits of Mignola's artwork and adorned with the comic's logo in matte blacks and reds. The front has a Velcro-sealed flap that swings open to expose the window packaging, it's nicely dramatic and provides a suitable frame for the piece itself.

Offered in a limited run of 1,500, this stunner is likely to be hotter than the very fires of Hell that spawned him with both longtime fans of the comics and film as well as die-hard vinyl collectors scrabbling to snatch them up. I'm also hearing rumblings that we may soon see a variant colorway of the 8" Hellboy, designed by lowbrow luminary and CrownDozen fave Tara McPherson, which could very well up the ante on demand for this piece across the board. Here's hoping that they keep the variants coming, whether in the 2.5" or 8" format, it would be great to see multiple takes on everybody's favorite supernatural badass.

     » Get Yours While the Getting is Good!