What order should I read all of the Hellboy and BPRD books in? I’ve been wondering about the answer to this question for a while. Fortunately I’ve read them all already, most of them in the order they were released–as should you if you enjoy genre comics at all, because all of them really are that good, whether Mignola’s drawing them or not at this point–so it hasn’t been that pressing a problem for me. However, I now have a nice empty bookshelf with all the Mignolaverse books’ name on it, and I really wanted to shelve them all in proper order. After all, they are meant to be part of one massive overarching storyline and should probably be treated as such. And with character-specific collections starring Abe Sapien and Lobster Johnson now joining in, it’s getting more and more complicated to keep everything straight. However, I’ve googled high and low for a proper reading-order list and come up empty.

So, I did some digging around on the official, if sporadically updated, Hellboy site and on Amazon.com’s Mike Mignola search-results page, and I think I’ve nailed down the order in which to read everything that’s been released in trade paperback so far.

Hellboy Vol. 1: Seed of Destruction

Hellboy Vol. 2: Wake the Devil

Hellboy Vol. 3: The Chained Coffin and Others

Hellboy Vol. 4: The Right Hand of Doom

Hellboy Vol. 5: Conqueror Worm

BPRD Vol. 1: Hollow Earth and Other Stories

Hellboy: Weird Tales Vol. 1

BPRD Vol. 2: The Soul of Venice and Other Stories

Hellboy: Weird Tales Vol. 2

BPRD Vol. 3: Plague of Frogs

BPRD Vol. 4: The Dead

Hellboy Vol. 5: Strange Places

BPRD Vol. 5: The Black Flame

BPRD Vol. 6: The Universal Machine

Hellboy Vol. 7: The Troll Witch and Others

BPRD Vol. 7: Garden of Souls

BPRD Vol. 8: Killing Ground

Lobster Johnson Vol. 1: The Iron Prometheus

Hellboy Vol. 8: Darkness Calls

Abe Sapien Vol. 1: The Drowning

BPRD Vol. 9: 1946

I think this will be the next release, by the way.

BPRD Vol. 10: The Warning

I left off Hellboy Junior, since that’s kinda obviously not canon unless you’re feeling extremely generous (I also left out crossovers and cameos for the same reason), but it would go between Weird Tales Vol. 1 and Soul of Venice if you’re feeling like a completist.

So there you have it! The reading order for all of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy universe books. My public service of the day!

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