As I sat in the NY Comic Con press room on Saturday, typing away on one of my numerous NYCC stories, I noticed an unusual item buried beneath a wade of promo paper right next to my laptop. It looked like a green leaf sticking out from the pile, though how and why a leaf would be there, I did not know. So I dug it out and upon inspection saw that it had a message on it — SAVE THE TROLLS — and a URL. A pin nearby pin contained the same message and Web site on it.

The URL under the message seemed so familiar to me, but I just couldn’t place it. So, off to HETFET.ORG I went, which brought me to the site for Humans for the Ethical Treatment of Fairies, Elves, and Trolls (SaveTheTrolls.com will get you there, too). That’s when I remembered that this was the viral site for Hellboy II: The Golden Army (the site URL and logo appeared at the very end of the film’s trailer that’s on the HBII official site).

The site’s welcome message explains this non-profit organization’s mission to “preserve the rights of mystic creatures and to ensure their survival” and “belief that these misunderstood beings deserve the same rights as those given to animals or people. No more, no less; just the right to coexist and be left alone.” The story of Hellboy II deals with an ancient truce that’s been broken between humankind and mythical creatures causing “hell on earth” so that’s where the HETFET connection comes in.

So far the site has an essay on endangered trolls, a forum, an area to grab the link codes for their banners (see one just below), and a store, which, by the way, has those “Save the Trolls” buttons for sale for $1.75.

With many viral sites, there’s a code to break, and here we have one that’s similar to the campaign that ran for The Seeker: The Dark is Rising. If you visit the area for The Secret Device, there’s a link to a “device” that works as a type of portal. Turn the dials to the correct code (the red arrows will light up when you hit the correct number) to unlock a message. It looks like this is the first of ten codes to unlock.

For those of you who don’t feel like scrolling through 100 numbers on the three dials, here’s the code (left to right): 7, 11, 8. When the message appears, type in the letters that are lit up (lexilloyd.com). This brings you to a personal blog called “Dreaming In Lexivision” run by Lexie, a teenage (?) girl who likes fairies.