Indie Squid Kid

©Dark Horse Comics

This is a panel detail from the mini-series Abe Sapien: The Drowning (Feburary-June, 2008), written by Mike Mignola with art by Jason Shawn Alexander. (Read a plot synopsis here.)

Abe Sapien is a central character from Mignola’s Hellboy comic and its subsequent spin-off title B.P.R.D.. He was originally a Victorian scientist named Langdon Everett Caull, a member of an occult society that revered the Babylonian deity Oannes. Caull was accidentally transformed into a fish man (”icthyo sapien”) in an arcane ritual gone terribly wrong. His comatose body was placed in a tube of water and sealed up beneath a Washington D.C. hospital at the outbreak of the Civil War. He remained in a state of suspended animation until being discovered in 1979. Having no memory of his previous life or identity, he adopted the name “Abraham Sapien” and was taken in by the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. Abe would eventually become a top B.P.R.D. field agent and learn the secrets of his mysterious past.

The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite #1 (Sept. 2007) ©Dark Horse Comics

The Umbrella Academy is a thoroughly delightful series written by Gerard Way with art by Gabriel Bá and published by Dark Horse Comics. Instead of a continuous on-going series, Umbrella Academy is released as separately numbered mini-series, beginning with Apocalypse Suite #1 (September, 2007).

The original Umbrella Academy was made up of seven extraordinary children, each gifted with a different ability. Together, they were an unstoppable force against evil, but they eventually disbanded under mysterious circumstances. Now all grown up, the surviving members come together after the death of Sir Reginald Hargreeves, the only father the children had ever known. They realize they must now face a new looming crisis and that only a reunited Umbrella Academy can save the world.

This beautiful cover of Apocalypse Suite #1 by James Jean depicts the Eiffel Tower sprouting a number of giant tentacles. This is, of course, exceedingly cool. It also shows a person (as both a man and a boy) with a mass of tentacles emerging from his chest. This is The Horror, who is long dead when the story opens, and remains one of the most enigmatic members of the Academy. (Incidentally, the blond knife-wielding man is code-named The Kraken, but that is the extent of his cephalpod-ness.)

From the very first page of Apocalypse Suite (below), it quickly becomes obvious to the reader that anything can happen in the world of The Umbrella Academy.

And it does.

©Dark Horse Comics

Also, there are talking chimpanzees. I’m just sayin’…

Available on Amazon.com:

The Umbrella Academy (Vol 1): Apocalypse Suite
The Umbrella Academy (Vol 2): Dallas

Nothing says “Merry Christmas” like Hellboy draped in tentacles., originally uploaded by Cryptonaut.

The classic image of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy draped in giant tentacles, that we first saw in Hellboy: Seed of Destruction #2 (1994), was finally rendered in Christmas ornament form in 2002. The ornament was sculpted by the now apparently defunct Big Chief Studios and released by Dark Horse Comics.

Hellboy: Seed of Destruction #2 (April, 1994)

If there was one threat that Mike Mignola’s paranormal (literally!) investigator is best equipped to fight, it would be…Nazi cyborg gorillas. If there were two things, it would be Nazi cyborg gorillas and giant tentacle monsters! Yes, Hellboy always seems right at home giving the big red smack down to our suckery friends. Granted, these betentacled creatures usually want to eat Hellboy, and the world, in that order, so I guess you really can’t blame him.

The comic depicted above (written and drawn by Mignola, of course) is the second issue of the original Hellboy mini-series. I won’t go into the plot here (Wikipedia has a concise synopsis), but the tentacle monster in question is Sadu-Hem, one of the 369 Ogdru Hem—spawn of the demonic Ogdru Jahad, who lie imprisoned in the heart of the abyss waiting for the day when they will devour the Earth. As you might surmise, Sadu-Hem is one of the bad guys.

Hellboy goes on to battle many foes, with and without tentacles, and his ongoing story is still being published by Dark Horse Comics. Hellboy vs. tentacles is a popular theme of Hellboy fan art, such as the awesome image below by Nick Derington (via Flickr).

"Hellboy vs. Tentacles" by Nick Derington

This one-shot comic by Dark Horse Comics was written and illustrated by Gary Gianni. It was originally published in October 1992-January 1993 as a four-part serial in issues 3-6 of the anthology series Dark Horse Comics. All four parts were collected in this one-shot in September 1994.

You can read a detailed plot summary here, but, the story boils down to this: Indiana Jones vs. a giant octopus! And really, what else do you need?