Mike Mignola is the creative mind behind the big, red hero known as Hellboy, a half-demon brought to Earth as a baby by Nazi occultists. But, he grew up in the care of a nice British man who just so happens to found the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD). The comics then follow Hellboy and other members of the bureau saving humanity from supernatural threats.
Hellboy has been in the pop culture zeitgeist since 1993 and has been adapted onto the big screen a few times. There’s even a documentary coming out about Mignola’s iconic work that’s playing across the country this spooky season. But Mignola still has a lot in store for the big man, especially in the new series Hellboy In Love, coming October 19, that sees Hellboy reuniting with Dr. Anastasia Bransfield for a goblin train heist story. And Mignola isn’t just working on projects with Hellboy. He’s also collaborating on one-off projects such as Leonide the Vampyr: Miracle at Crow’s Head (out now) with artist Rachele Aragno.
We spoke with Mignola over email about his new projects, monsters, being the creator of such an iconic character, his new comics, and more.
Mike Mignola: What is it about monsters:—I don’t know. All I know is that I’ve been fascinated for as long as I can remember. Was it a movie I saw as a kid—Jason And The Argonauts, maybe? That would have done it. I remember checking a book out of the elementary school library over and over, a big colorful thing all about Norse mythology. I would have been, what? Eleven or twelve. There was also a book there on ghosts—it had a really great “true” photo of a ghost on the cover—scared the crap out of me, but I must have checked that one out a dozen times. Then, of course, reading Dracula around age thirteen really cinched the deal. But what’s the fascination? Escape? I don’t know.
MM: So strange—especially because after a while it doesn’t seem strange anymore. It’s almost like somebody else created the thing and every once in a while it just hits me—“Oh, wait. That was me.”
MM: It was very easy. I was inspired by Rachele’s sketches of that little vampire girl, and the stories came really fast. I think within a day or two of discussing doing stories, I was sending her my ideas. She liked them. Then we bounced some sketches back and forth for a couple of the locations, and that was pretty much it. I wrote the plots and had originally thought the stories would be mostly silent, but when I saw the art the words sort of just…presented themselves. It was an odd thing, but sometimes (when you’re lucky) the writing goes like that.
MM: Favorite monster? Other than Hellboy? I usually forget he’s a monster. So I really fell in love with the little pig guy, the Gruagach. I created him—actually I borrowed him from English folklore—in the Hellboy story “The Corpse,” and thought I was done with him. But then he refused to stay gone, so he returned in Darkness Calls and very much took over that book and a couple of books that came after.
MM: Well, in Hellboy most of the stuff is actually borrowed from some old myths or folktales, so I usually have some vague description to start with. The guys I come up with from scratch—it depends on the story of course, but mostly it’s just a matter of coming up with some kind of shape I like.
MM: My goal with Hellboy was always to have him travel the whole world and encounter creatures native to all the different places—so we still have a whole lot of ground to cover. Fortunately, in Hellboy In Love he does a lot of traveling, so we get to see some crazy stuff.
MM: Too many to even begin to name. I watch a lot of films and just never know when something is going to hit a nerve. Usually, I’m trying to watch just as an escape, but then some element will trigger the Writer Brain and it will start trying to cobble something together. Sometimes that’s nice, but if I’m really just trying to watch a movie it can be annoying.
Want more Mignola? Check out these upcoming screening events for Mike Mignola: Drawing Monsters: