Hellboy Christmas Special is an Eisner award

Eisner Award

The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, and sometimes referred to as the Oscar Awards of the Comics Industry, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books. The Eisner Awards were first conferred in 1988, created in response to the...

 winning Dark Horse Comics

Dark Horse Comics

Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...

  one-shot comic book horror anthology edited by Scott Allie

Scott Allie

Scott Allie is an American comics writer and editor, currently the Senior Managing Editor for Dark Horse Comics.-Career:Scott Allie is the author of The Devil's Footprints and the editor of the Hellboy, Conan, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Serenity comics, as well as the founding editor of Dark...

 and featuring the work of Mike Mignola

Mike Mignola

Michael Joseph "Mike" Mignola is an American comic book artist and writer who created the comic book series Hellboy for Dark Horse Comics. He has worked for animation projects such as Atlantis: The Lost Empire and the adaptation of his one shot comic book, The Amazing Screw-On Head.-Career:Mignola...

, Gary Gianni

Gary Gianni

Gary Gianni is an American comics artist best known for the syndicated newspaper comic Prince Valiant.-Biography:Gianni graduated from the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts in 1976...

 and Steve Purcell

Steve Purcell

Steve Ross Purcell is an American cartoonist, animator and game designer. He is most widely known as the creator of Sam & Max, an independent comic book series about a pair of anthropomorphic animal vigilantes and private investigators, for which Purcell received an Eisner Award in 2007...

.

Creation

Mignola has stated that when he and Gary Gianni came up with the idea for this Christmas special and that for his own entry for it he took a story based on an old folktale that he had long mooted and added a Christmas angel to it.

Publication history

Hellboy Christmas Special (December 3, 1997

1997 in comics

-January:*Avengers #3 - Marvel Comics*Captain America #3 - Marvel Comics*Fantastic Four #3 - Marvel Comics*Iron Man #3 - Marvel Comics-February:...

) featured a cover by Gary Gianni.

Title	Creators
A Christmas Underground	by Mike Mignola
In the story Hellboy travels to England England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...  on Christmas Eve Christmas Eve Christmas Eve refers to the evening or entire day preceding Christmas Day, a widely celebrated festival commemorating the birth of Jesus of Nazareth that takes place on December 25...  1989 where he descends through a passage in a graveyard in search of the daughter of a dying woman who is married to a prince of the underworld.
Ernie’s Holiday Ditty	by Steve Purcell
This one page feature relates the lyrics to a horrific and satirical take on traditional Christmas carols from the fictional Little Ernie and the Citizens of Toybox Community Glee Club who appear in Toybox also in this special.
A Strange Story	by Gary Gianni
Corpus Monstrum creator Gianni relates how his case of writer’s block, that threatened to leave a blank page in this special, was overcome by a series synchronistic incidents that pointed to 1870, the year Charles Dickens Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...  died.
Christmas	by Geof Darrow
A double page Christmas themed pinup.
Toybox	by Steve Purcell
In the story Ernie and Suda take shelter on Christmas Eve in the home of an old lady who they discover devoured by spider larvae and while Suda sleeps Ernie does batlle with the giant spider who returns down the chimney with a surprise.
A Gift for the Wicked	by Gary Gianni
Hodgson, St. George and Benedict of Corpus Monstrum spend Christmas night in a forbidden chamber at the ancestral home of Baron Grodak in an attempt to lift the curse that has left him the last of his line.
Further Reading	by Mike Mignola
Hellboy creator Mignola lists some yuletide ghost stories including his all-time favourite story A Christmas Carol A Christmas Carol A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of... by Charles Dickens along with his two best movie adaptations of the story Alastair Sim Alastair Sim Alastair George Bell Sim, CBE was a Scottish character actor who appeared in a string of classic British films. He is best remembered in the role of Ebenezer Scrooge in the 1951 film Scrooge, and for his portrayal of Miss Fritton, the headmistress in two St. Trinian's films...  in 1951 Scrooge (1951 film) Scrooge, released as A Christmas Carol in the United States, is a 1951 film adaptation of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. It starred Alastair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge and was directed by Brian Desmond Hurst, with a screenplay by Noel Langley.The film also features Kathleen Harrison in an...  and George C. Scott George C. Scott George Campbell Scott was an American stage and film actor, director and producer. He was best known for his stage work, as well as his portrayal of General George S. Patton in the film Patton, and as General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's Dr...  in 1984 A Christmas Carol (1984 film) A Christmas Carol is a 1984 made-for-television film adaptation of Charles Dickens' famous 1843 novella of the same name. The film is directed by Clive Donner who had been an editor of the 1951 film Scrooge and stars George C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge... .

Awards

The special won two 1998

1998 in comics

-Spring:* Gay Comix , with issue #25, publishes its final issue -October:* Toy Biz buys Marvel Comics* Excalibur is canceled by Marvel with issue #125.-November:...

 Eisner Award

Eisner Award

The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, and sometimes referred to as the Oscar Awards of the Comics Industry, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books. The Eisner Awards were first conferred in 1988, created in response to the...

s;

• Best Writer/Artist: Drama for Mike Mignola.
• Best Anthology for Scott Allie.