Two and a half years ago, Hellboy returned to Hell and Mike Mignola returned to writing and drawing the character with whom he has become most closely associated. The ongoing series Hellboy in Hell unfolds in an Inferno-like journey as the half-demon makes his way through a bleak but fantastic underworld.
The book is a return to the day-to-day world of the big, red hellspawn for the cartoonist, who has often played an oversight role in the line of Dark Horse books centered around his creation — including various series starring the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD) and the amphibious Abe Sapien.
We spoke to Mignola before the release of the series' long-awaited seventh issue (which kicks of the two-part "The Hounds of Pluto" arc) about his return to the character, the evolution of his craft and his thoughts on the much-discussed potential third Hellboy film.
Thanks for taking the time. I assume you're pretty busy these days — how many series are you working on right now?
Oh, I don't even know. My main thing is Hellboy in Hell, but most of the time is spent doing bits and pieces of other stuff, so I'm looking forward to getting back to working on Hellboy in Hell.
This is a bit of a logistical question, but how do budget your time when you're working on so much at once?
They send me a list of deadlines. I always have them on my drawing table, so I know what they need. But on the story stuff, most of it is really in the hands of the real writers. When I'm listed as a co-writer, it generally means that I've discussed the direction of the book at some point. But it varies.
On something like Hellboy and the BPRD: 1953, I actually wrote the plot for that. So that's a big chunk of time, if I have to do some real writing. Frankenstein I had to really write. But most of the Abe Sapien stuff, Scott Allie and I discuss it every once in a while in really broad strokes. We probably had a really big conversation about it way back in the beginning.
Every once in a while, John Arcudi and I will have a big discussion about the direction of the BPRD. But for the most part, Abe is in Scott's hands, BPRD is in John's hands. Chris Roberson and I are discussing the direction for the Hellboy and the BPRD: 1953 book. But I just end up putting out little fires, answering little questions, doing covers or doing design work on somebody's thumbnails. There's a lot of little stuff, but somehow that all adds up to me not being able to get any real work done.
Do you have the time to read every single thing that's published under your name?
Boy, should I admit that I don't? It's certainly my intention. I am well aware of the stories. There's a pile of trade paperbacks that I haven't read front-to-back. At some point, I discussed the stories or read bits and pieces of them, but actually sitting down and reading them cover-to-cover, that I probably haven't done with a lot of the stuff.
Have there been any instances when a book came out and it didn't feel true to the characters or storyline? That you had to go and take up with the writer?
Not really. The beauty is that we're working with so few writers that – by the time we have the writers – I'm really comfortable with them, and I've also turned a mental corner where I say, "It's their book." I obviously help steer it in a general direction, but I'm not going to micro-manage, and I try not to do that with the artists, either.
When Duncan Fegredo first started drawing Hellboy, I would look at his pages and say, "could you move the sword a quarter of an inch this way?" and "wouldn't it be better if his foot was over here?" And then you realize they'll quit. Nobody is going to put up with that. I wouldn't put up with that.
Certain artists I work with are looking for my comments on layout and thumbnails and stuff like that. Ben Stenbeck and I work much more closely on his layouts for whatever reason. And that's only on books I write myself. It varies, but my approach is to hire really good people and try not to get in their way. There have been one or two instances when something just didn't work, when something went off the rails. I do have Scott Allie to catch most of that stuff. And every once in a while, people do intrude on my territory — like there's some stuff coming up in BPRD that deals with some of the same issues as Hellboy in Hell, so Scott sends me those pages and says, "you've got to read these and make sure they jibe with what you're doing."
When you say "your stuff," you mean specifically what you're working on at the time?
Yeah. I'm still the keeper and creator of the mythology, the big picture in all of these books. If we do stuff that deals with the history or the mythology or if we do stuff that deals with Hell — I'm the only one who knows how the hell-hell works. And I'm the only guy who knows all of the hyper-boring history and stuff like that. The more the books deal with that stuff, the more people have to check with me.
And also when we do broad strokes stuff, discussing certain story ideas, I will go, "here's this chunk of history that has never been revealed in the comics, but I've got it in the back of my head. If we're going to do this kind of story, can we bring in this? Can we reference this? Can we reference what the Russians were doing then?"
In a way, I don't look at the specific books. I look at the gigantic picture. I think that's one of the things that makes this line of books unique. Even though they're radically different books, they do share this common history and mythology that I'm trying to keep going in all of the different titles.
Hellboy has existed for more than 20 years. How much of that overarching mythology did you craft from the outset?
I had almost none at the beginning, and it just kind of snowballed. By the end of the first mini-series, I had come up with a really rough idea of a certain creation myth, which is why in the first series you get this thing about the Ogdru Jahad. I'd come up with that, I'd come up with a creation myth based on a little research I did. I kind of knew it would run behind all of the books, but it wasn't really fleshed out. And with the second mini-series, Wake the Devil, it feels like I put a whole lot more pieces on the board. That's where Hellboy ends up being the beast of the apocalypse. A lot of the prophecies and stuff, a lot of that really started exploding in the second series.
With the first mini-series, I didn't know there would be a second one. I didn't think it was going to work. I figured it would only last four issues and no one was going to buy it and I'll be drawing Batman or something again. But by the time I started drawing the second mini-series, I thought that maybe I would be able to get away with it and decided to put a lot more pieces on the board, because I was planning to be there for a while.
A lot of things seem to be coming to a head in Hellboy in Hell. How long has the story been in the works?
It certainly has changed a lot since I started. When I decided we were going to kill him off, I really did think that Hellboy in Hell was going to be a collection of odd little stories where Hellboy meandered around.
Like Dante, in a way — walking through the afterlife and having all of these weird little encounters.
Well, in Dante, there was kind of a purpose in where he was going, and I kind of wanted to do something similar to what I did with past Hellboy short stories where they're stand-alone. I wanted to ditch the big mythology stuff, and then when I got closer to doing it, I realized that we've got a lot of stuff that has to get done. We might as well do that stuff and get it out of the way. And then, when I had him kill Satan – which was going to not be dealt with – it kind of started taking over the book. It became kind of a big deal. So the Hellboy in Hell stuff expanded quite a bit.
Suddenly, there was this gigantic, epic journey, and then an interesting thing happened, where some of that stuff started collapsing in on itself, so some of the stories started condensing quite a bit. I had a list of things that had to get done, and the list hasn't changed, but how I'm dealing with that list is changing. The whole Hellboy in Hell thing is starting to compact down, at least the part of it that deals with "here's your destiny, here are things you have to do." Part of that might be impatience on my part. I'd love to give Hellboy a break and get all of the stuff that has to get down out of the way — and give Hellboy a vacation.
It's interesting the way you describe it, as though there are these plot points you have to get out of the way before working on what you really want to be working on.
That's one of the real beauties of the new Hellboy and BPRD [prequel], is dealing with a character who's much less complicated. Who doesn't have these gigantic prophecies hanging over his head — but what I'm dealing with in Hellboy in Hell is having to pay off all of these things I've been hinting at. There's a line in one of the comics before Hellboy in Hell, where somebody starts yakking on about the beast of the apocalypse stuff and Hellboy says, "I don't want to hear another word about that."
That was actually me saying to the other part of my brain who brought it up, "we're not going to do that any more. Stop talking about it. We're not going to open that can of worms." But once that can of worms is out there, you kind of have to deal with it. You can't just say, "nevermind. I got tired of that idea."
Is that due to expectations from the readers? Are these things they expect to be dealt with?
I don't know that it's the reader as much as it is me saying, "okay, you've created this thing. You need to resolve it." I brought up the origin of Hellboy's hand, even though the readers never said, "dude, what's the deal with that giant hand?" Nobody brought that up, but I started doing stories about the giant hand, even though nobody was curious about it. I won't say I don't care what the readers think, but this book is about me telling this particular story. And so far, the readers seem to be fine and following along — but I'm really trying to resolve it all to my satisfaction.
Over the years, the artwork seems to have become more and more minimalist. Is that in any way related to the big workload you've taken on? Or is that more of an organic evolution?
I think, given all of the time in the world, I would still draw the way I draw. It's more about pure storytelling, composition, page design, creating certain rhythms. It's all about storytelling. The fussiness of wanting to render the hell out of a shoe – well, it would never be a shoe because I don't draw feet – but there are certain things that, in previous years, I would be focusing on one particular thing. And now, my thought process is: "what serves the storytelling the best?" If I can get the storytelling as simple as possible, it's all about simple, clear readability and not "stop and look at me draw the shit out of this."
There are some backgrounds and cities in Hell where I spend a lot of time drawing, because I need to sell the idea of what the place is. But everyone knows what Hellboy looks like, so for me to say, "I've got to draw the shit out of his belt" — he's red, he's got the coat, he's got the tail. That's enough to sell who he is. Rather than facial expressions, a lot of the concern goes into the angle the character is at. That's where the storytelling is — not "we've got to put more hairs on his arm."
The goal for so many artists is making work look as effortless as possible, and you've gotten there. I don't know if it's become as effortless as it looks after so many years-
It's certainly not. If it looks effortless, that's great, but I don't know if I've done anything in my career that was actually effortless — maybe once or twice. A lot of work goes into getting it down to those minimal shapes.
The cover of [the upcoming] issue eight is inspired by a plastic Halloween decoration?
I Googled mummified cats and I saw on Facebook that a friend of mine had a Halloween decoration of a cat skeleton, so I said, "ooh, I've got to get that." So, some of the reference is based on this toy cat skeleton, but it was mostly just a lot of horrific images of mummified cats from Google Images.
Your Google Image history must be atrocious.
It's getting there, but mostly I have this file cabinet full of stuff that I want to use. And now that I'm doing the Hell stuff, so many pictures I've been putting aside to draw some day, that's what my version of Hell is made of. It's made entirely of stuff that I've always wanted to draw.
It's a junk store of all of the things you wanted to draw.
It's the inside of my head. Hellboy didn't really go to Hell. He went to the inside of my head.
That's terrifying.
I mean, if you consider what the Earth looks like in the BPRD books, Hell is actually a much more pleasant place.
Was this a lifelong obsession, drawing grotesqueries?
I don't really think of my stuff as being grotesque. Everything is very old-fashioned. I draw a lot of grim stuff and skeletons and things, but it's not anything I would consider grotesque. But it's the gothic stuff, the moody stuff. But since I read Dracula as a kid, that's always been my world. That's been the stuff I wanted to draw, which is why halfway through my career, before Hellboy, in the Marvel and DC years when I started doing superhero stuff (which I never wanted to do), when that Gotham by Gaslight book came along — that's when I said, "I have to do that book." That's the first time I could show people the kind of work I want to do and establish the kind of art I want to be known for.
Is the character still fun to draw?
Yeah. It's amazing. Before I did Hellboy, I'd never drawn any one character for more than one year, but I still love drawing that guy.
I have to ask — there's so much talk now around a third Hellboy film. Are you pushing for that, as well?
I'm certainly not pushing as hard as Ron [Perlman] is, but I would be fine if that happens. I don't know what my involvement would be, because even the second film had gotten so far removed from the comic that there was no reason for me to even be there. If a third one went further in that direction — they have the rights to do it. They don't need my permission. Certainly I would love to see something that's closer in feel to the work that I've done. I would love to rein it back further to what the comic is like. But I couldn't see that happening with [Guillermo] del Toro, because he's taken it so far in the other direction. But nothing's in the works now. Hopefully something will happen, but I don't know.
Were you able to enjoy the second film objectively as a fan?
No. I can't enjoy either one as a fan because I was there. To me, they're like home movies. I was on the set so much for them that you look at them and say, "oh, it was cold as shit that day" or "that was the third take and the second take was better." And with the second one, there was just so much shit that he did that I begged him not to that it's really difficult for me to watch the second one.
He's obviously a great director, but it's still hard for you to divorce the films from your creation.
Yeah. At some point, part of it is easy because it bears so little resemblance to your work that you kind of forget that it's Hellboy. At least for me. And also with the second movie, we had come up with an idea for it, which is radically different from what he ended up doing. So part of me can still see the movie that we were going to do, which was much darker and much more supernatural and not as broad-humor as the second ended up being.
But he's great and people love that movie, and I'm just too close to it.
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It's nothing I can complain about, and I know I sometimes rag on it too much, but I'm so fortunate to have a filmmaker like del Toro interested enough in this property that he really fought to make those movies. And people really like those movies. It's more important that the public like those movies than me. They didn't make them for me. And one thing I'm really happy with is the fact that the fans of the comics are fans of the movies, even though they're so radically different. In the first movie, del Toro said, "gee, they're going to lynch us when they find out about the love interest." But people seem fine with it.
And you're keeping your head down and making sure the direction of the movies doesn't directly impact the comics.
There were things in the comics that I wasn't going to do, but since he had done his version in the movies – like the reveal of the Ogdru Jahad – I wasn't going to deal with it, but I went in and told the story of that mythology more than I would have. Not because I wanted it to be like the movie, but because I wanted it to be clear how different my stuff was.
You had your own version to tell.
Yeah. And I don't know if he did it on purpose, but Duncan started drawing Hellboy with this fat object. I tried telling him that he smokes a cigarette [in the comics] and only smokes a cigar in the movie. But he drew it so big I think we ended up making it a cigar. Certainly every time I draw him, he's smoking a cigarette. I want to make those differences as clear as possible.
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