Posted in: Comics | Tagged: eccc, hellboy, mike mignola

ECCC: From The Pages Of Hellboy

Published Sun, 03 Mar 2013 08:30:48 -0600

Gavin Lees writes;

Dark Horse's Hellboy panel was a very casual affair this year, with no official, pre-prepared announcements from the creators, no previews of upcoming art, or slideshows of any kind. Instead, panelists Scott Allie (series editor), Tyler Crook (BPRD artist), Dave Stewart (series colourist), and Mike Mignola (creator, writer, and artist of the Hellboy universe) sat down for an hour to answer questions from the huge gathering of fans. In a way, this was a refreshing approach to the panel format, since it allowed far more of Hellboy's fans to ask questions, and the conversation was often taken in surprising directions.

Some interesting points from the conversation:

Hellboy 3 movie. Mignola spoke about the differences between his and Guillermo Del Toro's styles ("I'm a less-is-more guy; for him it's: more is not enough!") and that they way in which the characters had been taken in the movies almost completely precluded adapting any of the comic stories direct to the screen.
Hellboy in Hell is planned as an ongoing series and is the future for Hellboy as far as Mignola is concerned.
Hellboy in Hell will be an adaptation of a Grimm's fairy tale. Mignola said that the beauty of working in Hell was that he could talk folklore from around the world and incorporate it into the stories, without having to worry about getting cultural details wrong when he drew foreign locations.
Hellboy in Hell will not be a monthly series, so that Mignola will be able to draw every issue, as well as take on other writing projects for the larger Hellboy universe. He said that most issues will be self-contained, but when they do extend to two or more issues, those comics will come out on a regular monthly schedule. It was intimated that many issues would not feature Hellboy (or at least not as the lead character) and would focus on the stories of those he meets in Hell.
When asked about which mythologies he might use in future comics Mignola was keen to distance himself from religion as a possibility. For one, he doesn't want to step on any toes and possibly offend people. Also, he spoke of how he felt at home with older myths, and that he was able to give a voice to those characters. When he deals with Judeo-Christian mythology, he likes to put explanations of the workings of the universe in the mouths of lunatics to keep the real mysteries a secret.

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