Catching Up with Mike Mignola and Hellboy

This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on January 22, 2008 Sign up now!

By Tom McLean -- Publishers Weekly, 1/22/2008 9:40:00 AM

Mike Mignola’s signature character will get a huge boost this summer from the highly anticipated movie sequel, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, but the writer and artist says what really makes him happy is working on comic books. “I’m 45 years old—at this point, I know what I do and what I don’t do, and more and more I come to see that I want to be a comic book guy and I want to get back to drawing comics,” Mignola said from his home in Manhattan Beach, Calif.

But they won’t necessarily be Hellboy comics. “After 13 years of doing Hellboy, I love the character, I love doing the covers, I love writing the stories, but I’m kind of looking to do something a little different,” Mignola said. Duncan Fegredo has taken over the interior art on the recently concluded six-issue series Hellboy: Darkness Calls, and is at work on a new Hellboy series due in July. Mignola also is writing a Hellboy story for comics legend Richard Corben to draw. Mignola will continue to write—or in the case of spin-off series such as B.P.R.D., co-write—and contribute covers, but says he plans to get back to drawing comics by midyear on a series set in the same world as Hellboy but not featuring that character.

Dark Horse’s plans for Hellboy in 2008 include a five-issue spin-off series, Abe Sapien: The Drowning, a trade paperback collection of Darkness Calls, a prose novel titled Hellboy: Emerald Hell, and Hellboy: The Companion, a definitive reference guide due out in May. Spin-off series B.P.R.D. gets a new five-issue series, B.P.R.D.: 1946, and collections of B.P.R.D.: The Garden of Souls in late January and B.P.R.D.: The Killing Ground in May.

When it comes to publishing comics, Mignola said he prefers to wait and ensure the material is of the best quality rather than rushing to meet a schedule. For example, the new series drawn by Fegredo seems perfectly timed to take advantage of the film’s release, but he says he won’t rush out work that’s not ready just to take advantage of the publicity the film will generate.

“I worked so many years in regular comics, where the schedule was king and, as a result, you saw a lot of crappy comics come out on time,” Mignola said. “I’d rather the stuff be good and maybe not exactly timed with the film rather than get a different, faster artist to rush it out just to capitalize on the film.”

The sequel promises to be a huge event for Hellboy and his fans, especially with the acclaim director and co-writer Guillermo del Toro earned since directing the first Hellboy movie, most notably last year with the international success of the Oscar-winning film Pan’s Labyrinth. As with the first film, Mignola said he co-wrote the original story for the film with del Toro and then contributed some conceptual artwork. Aside from a trip to the set in Budapest, Mignola said he’s happy to let the moviemaking pros do the rest and is impressed by what he’s seen so far. “I can’t believe the scale of this thing,” he said. “I’m kind of looking forward to seeing that this looks like when it’s done.”

When it comes to overseeing the business end of the Hellboy empire, Mignola says the details can be overwhelming. He said he does his best to keep his hands in all the Hellboy material put out by Dark Horse, but leaves the film-related material to the studios. “I try to keep a strong grip on the stuff that I can control, and with things like the film related stuff I can go, ‘Oh, that’s their decision to do with what they please and thank god that’s something I don’t need to be involved in.’” Mignola said that while he’s sure there will be plenty of film tie-ins, he’s not involved in them. Aside from a few covers for Hellboy novels unrelated to the film, Mignola says he’s working solely on the comics. One area that won’t continue is the animated features, of which two were produced and released on DVD. Mignola said that while he and producer Tad Stones had planned a third feature, the project was never approved and has stalled.

As with many comics creations these days, Mignola has an ending in mind for Hellboy. “I think we’re almost halfway there,” he said. “I don’t know exactly how long it’s going to take to get there—I don’t know how many issues of the comic book or how many trade paperbacks or graphic novels; I don’t know how many books it will be. But yeah, the character has definitely turned a couple corners recently where there’s no going back.”

« Back | Print