Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, Dark Horse Comics | Tagged: duncan fegredo, hellboy, mike mignola

Mike Mignola & Duncan Fegredo on Giant Robot Hellboy and the Sketches

One of Mike Mignola's first chosen artists to draw Hellboy when he switched to just writing more of the comics, was Duncan Fegredo.

One of Mike Mignola's first chosen artists to draw Hellboy when he switched to just writing more of the comics, was Duncan Fegredo. Together they created Hellboy: Darkness Calls, Hellboy: The Wild Hunt, and Hellboy: The Storm and The Fury. Now they are reuniting with Dave Stewart and Clem Robins, for Giant Robot Hellboy which was inspired by Mignola's pencil drawings from Mike Mignola: The Quarantine Sketchbook that were posted online during lockdown. Giant Robot Hellboy features a Mecha-Hellboy and Mega-Monsters. The first issue is published by Dark Horse Comics in October, just in time for Halloween, featuring a variant cover by Mignola and Stewart. Issue 2 will feature a variant cover by Geof Darrow and Dave Stewart, and issue 3 will feature a variant cover by Art Adams.

According to THR, in this all-new series, Hellboy is kidnapped and hooked up to a massive mecha-Hellboy for a mission on a mysterious, faraway island, but the island might just put up a fight of its own.

Mike Mignola commented, "Giant Robot Hellboy is my very obvious nod to all those Japanese giant monster movies—which I actually have no particular love for. What I DO love is listening to Geof Darrow and Art Adams TALK about those movies—so really, I guess this series was inspired by those guys. I had the idea for this one a long time ago but figured it was too silly to actually do—then the pandemic came along and I started to do all those sketches I would post online. I had never given a serious thought to what a giant robot Hellboy would look like but I knocked out a few sketches and I liked them—and so the thing started to seem like something that could actually be done. But I knew I wasn't the artist for it and I knew both Arthur and Geof were busy with other things, so the only other artist I thought of was Duncan. I had no idea how Duncan would respond. Too silly? I didn't know,  but I figured I'd pitch it to him and if he said no that would be an end to it. The rest is history." Here's a look on Bleeding Cool at some of those sketches.

"Hellboy awakes to an out-of-body experience and simultaneously has to deal with the usual fallout from mad scientists doing their thing whilst learning to walk again," said Fegredo. "Come to think of it, that pretty much describes my return to collaborating with Mike Mignola… if you enjoyed my previous forays into grand scale storytelling, whoops, I did it again!"

"It was a thrill to be working with Duncan again," said Mignola. "The man can draw anything which is very nice for a writer. What is special about Duncan is no matter what you ask him to draw, no matter how difficult or complicated—he will make it MORE complicated (and, of course, more difficult) . Everything ends up being so much more than you asked for and Duncan will endlessly curse HIMSELF for overdoing things—and we will all sit back (eventually) and marvel at this amazing thing he has created."  The first issue of Giant Robot Hellboy is on sale on the 25th of October, 2023.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!