Hilda and the Black Hound is the fourth entry in Luke Pearson's Hilda series. It was published in 2014 by Flying Eye Books.
After Hilda gets enlisted in the Sparrow Scouts, she ends up stumbling across a mysterious little creature known as Tontu, a homeless nisse who, alongside his peers, has been kicked out of his home after he was falsely blamed for wrecking his owner's home. Hilda, being the emphatic girl she is, decides to help the critter out, much to her mother's objections.
Meanwhile, there have been various reports of a mysterious giant black hound around both Trolberg and the wilderness who has been causing mayhem, from destroying homes to even eating people. Could the Black Hound and the Nisse's situation be connected in some form?
The Black Hound storyline would be loosely adopted in Episodes 12 and 13 of the series, with both episodes making up the finale of Season 1.
In 2022, the comic would be reissued along with Hilda and the Bird Parade as Hilda: The Trolberg Stories.
The comic would be followed up by Hilda and the Stone Forest
Hilda and the Black Hound provides examples of:
- Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Entering the Nowhere Space of the outside world, due to it’s immense size. The two Tontu’s are forced to do it anyway to avoid the car they, Johanna, Hilda and Jellybean are in from crashing into the city wall.
- Door Slam of Rage: Johanna slams the door after angrily ordering Tontu to leave her house.
- Fluffy the Terrible: The Black Hound...is called Jellybean.
- Getting Eaten Is Harmless: The Black Hound eats 3 people, but when he barfs them up again they are no worse for the wear.
- Militaries Are Useless: The Safety Patrol is unable to track down the hound, and when they finally do they can’t capture him since their net guns are too small.
- Our Gnomes Are Weirder: Literally so, since the nisse (Scandinavian gnome) are far more diverse creatures in Trolberg than they are in traditional folklore.
- Pocket Dimension: Nisse live in one called Nowhere Space, made up of all the unused space in a house.
- Pulling Your Child Away: When Hilda first sees the homeless Tontu, Johanna quickly pulls her away and warns her a homeless Nisse is likely banished from his house for a good reason.
- Scout-Out: The Sparrow Scouts.
- Signs of Disrepair: The sign "Scout Hall" on top of Sparrow Scout HQ is missing the "T", "A" and last "L".
- Stopped Reading Too Soon: Determined to get at least one badge, Hilda browses through the badge guide, settles on the Friend to Animals badge, and goes through the three tasks needed to earn it. Only after she finished the last task does she read the footnote that states at least one of the tasks needs to be performed in the presence of a Scout Leader in order to qualify for the badge. Cue an Oh, Crap! expression.
- Tempting Fate: When trying to earn a badge by finding a number of locations on a map, Hilda remarks it can’t be too hard since it’s not that big a map. When she is finally done unfolding it however, the map takes up a huge section of the floor in Scout Hall.
- Wham Line:...Jellybean?
