Dirty Healings is a prequel comic to Hazbin Hotel. It tells the story of how Angel Dust was recruited by Charlie and Vaggie to become the first patron of the Happy (and later Hazbin) Hotel.
It was originally available on the official Hazbin Hotel website
but eventually got taken down for unknown reasons. An archived version of it can be read here on Imgur.
It began on October 27, 2019 and concluded on July 7, 2020. It is 22 pages long, not including the cover.
Tropes:
- Art Shift: Vaggie's explanation of the hotel and the plan around it are depicted through a Fantasy Sequence in a sketchier art style, featuring a cutely drawn version of Angel Dust.
- Berserk Button: Angel guns down the loan sharks when one of them nearly calls him a homophobic slur.
- Brutal Honesty: Upon first meeting Angel Dust and pitching the Happy Hotel to him, Charlie doesn't bother to sugarcoat her desire to see if rehabilitating a demon is possible.Charlie: We want you to be our first test subject!
Angel Dust: Why me?
Charlie: Because you seem like someone who regrets his life choices and would be interested in self reflection and bettering himself!
Angel Dust: *awkward glance* - By the Lights of Their Eyes: When Valentino first appears in his limo, only his heart-shaped lenses and toothy grin can be seen in the dark.
- Call-Forward: Like in the pilot that the comic is a prequel to, Angel takes a ride in Charlie's limo and wonders if there is any liquor in it.
- Color-Coded Speech: Each character has a different color scheme to their speech bubbles:
- Angel Dust's bubbles are pink-white, like himself, with red outlines and mostly red words.
- The shark mobster's bubbles are a light-to-medium blue gradient with dark blue outlines and words.
- Valentino's bubbles are deep, vivid red with black outlines. The words are mostly white, but change to black a couple times for emphasis.
- Charlie's bubbles are in soft shades of red with pale yellow outlines and words.
- Vaggie has dark gray bubbles with light gray outlines and words.
- Curse Cut Short: A mobster tries calling Angel a faggot and Angel mows him and his men down with his guns before he can finish getting the word out. He then asks the mobster if he'd like to finish that thought.
- Death Glare: When Angel says the hotel sounds lame, Vaggie glares at him with gritted pointy teeth and a skull taking the place of her iris and pupil while her hair bow takes the shape of horns.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- Not only does Angel have his pilot design of a striped tuxedo with short gloves rather than his main series design, but he also has a little top hat during his negotiation with the Loan Sharks he is never seen wearing in the actual series. Charlie and Vaggie are also drawn with their pilot designs.
- Among Angel's set of guns are a pair of revolvers, when in the full series he is only shown to use submachine guns.
- None of the "loan shark" demons resemble any of the sharklike demons common to the Greed Ring seen in any Hellaverse media after this point, despite ostensibly being the same type of demon.
- Angel is portrayed as struggling so badly financially that he has to "suck [his] greasy landlord's dick" just to make rent, when in the series he has an Arbitrarily Large Bank Account and doesn't appear to have any money troubles.
- Valentino retains his pre-release characterization of a suave yet obviously controlling and manipulative pimp whereas in the actual show he's a Psychopathic Manchild only barely capable of reining himself in around demon royalty like Charlie.
- Facepalm: When Angel first meets Charlie, Vaggie is in the background behind Charlie, facepalming at her choice to approach Angel.
- Fantasy Sequence: When Vaggie is explaining the hotel and the plan around it to Angel Dust, it's depicted through an imaginary sequence of Angel walking into the hotel, undergoing redemption, and ascending as an angel.
- Funetik Aksent: Angel's Brooklyn accent comes through in some of the spelling of his dialogue, e.g. "ya" for "you", "busta" for "buster", and "godda" for "gotta".
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Charlie gives Angel Dust a large stack of cash as an investment in himself very shortly after he agrees to be a patron at the Happy Hotel. His confusion betrays him to the point where he declares the gesture to be "a trick", which Charlie quickly reassures him that she thinks there's a lot more to Angel than he does, and she simply wishes to nourish that. Angel, not used to such kindness, simply takes the money with an awkward response and a promise to keep in touch.
- Gun Twirling: After Angel shoots the mobsters, he does a showy twirl with one of his handguns.
- High-Pressure Emotion: Charlie gets embarrassed when trying to describe Angel's prostitution and trails off with little puffs of steam coming off her.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Played with. While Charlie turns out to be correct that Angel has good in him, her assertion of this comes just after meeting him and is humorously contrasted with the fact that, at that very moment, he is sprawled out with a sleazy-looking pose and expression, holding a cigarette.Vaggie: Are you sure this is the one you wanna talk too? [sic]
[Panel of Angel sprawled out sleazily across from them]
Charlie: Yes. He's good. I can tell.
[Vaggie looks at her in disbelief] - Ironic Echo: When Angel says he'll take part in Charlie and Vaggie's plan, their responses to him are identical in word choice, but opposite in tone and meaning. Charlie beams and gushes, "REALLY?"; Vaggie follows it up with a skeptical "Really."
- Mistaken for Prostitute: Inverted. Charlie approaches Angel while he's soliciting on a sidewalk and he mistakes her as looking for his services.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Angel mows down the mobsters with a gun in each of his six hands.
- Pet the Dog: Angel shows a flippant, often rude attitude with most of the people he interacts with in the comic. It ends with him returning to his apartment and playing with his pet pig, showing that he has a soft and caring side.
- Pragmatic Pansexuality: Angel is implied to be gay, but willing to sleep with women for money. When he thinks Charlie is trying to solicit his services, he tells her he charges extra for ladies.
- Prequel: The comic was released after the pilot but is set before it. It shows how Angel wound up being Charlie's first patron.
- Say It with Hearts:
- Pretty much all of Valentino's speech bubbles have hearts in them as part of their background.
- When Angel mistakes Charlie and Vaggie for aspiring patrons, he starts to greet them in a flirty tone — denoted by hearts in the background of his speech bubble — before realizing they're women.
- Shameful Shrinking: Charlie picks up Angel while he's soliciting on the street to try and convince him to join the hotel. She says, "You can't tell me you enjoy standing on the side of the street waiting for someone to pay to—", then gets embarrassed and trails off while appearing smaller.
- Smoking Barrel Blowout: After Angel unleashes a barrage of gunfire, he blows the smoke away from one of his gun barrels.
- Villainous Face Hold: Valentino interrupts Angel's attempt at an excuse by forcefully grabbing his face and pulling him close.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Charlie expresses her belief to Angel that he has what it takes for redemption.Charlie: There's a lot more to you than what you think there is, Angel! We want to help you.
