Red-hot Hellboy is just getting warmed up
Mignola reflects on 20 years of his apocalyptic creation
Hellboy has been around for 20 years, and in a way he’s not yet a grown-up for his comic-book creator Mike Mignola.
“It’s strange because on one hand, I still think of Hellboy as my new project, but it is twothirds of my career at this point,” says Mignola, 53, who introduced the big red cat-loving guy with the cut-off horns and the Right Hand of Doom in March 1994 with Dark Horse Comics’ Hellboy:
Seed of Destruction No. 1. Over two decades, Mignola has built a universe full of horror, noir, pulp and high adventure around Hellboy. And Dark Horse is making it easy for fans new and old to get their fix, with a Hellboy Day digital bundle of every Hellboy comic — all 2,201 pages featuring the prophesied “beast of the apocalypse” — for $50 now through 3 a.m. ET Wednesday (digital.darkhorse.com).
USA TODAY talks with Mignola about his first Hellboy drawing, the character’s origins and where he’s going from here.
Q: Hellboy dates to 1991, with your first drawing of him. He looks much different from the modern guy.
A: I was just drawing a monster. At literally the last minute, I realized he had this blank space in the middle of whatever belt thing he’s wearing, and I wrote in “Hell Boy.” He’s big and he’s lunky and he’s hairy and he’s got a crab hanging off his belt and he’s got a vulture on his shoulder and his name is Hell Boy. It was just meant to be funny. There was no thought at all about doing anything with it.
Q: You’ve done many “Hellboy” stories since 1994. What’s changed the most?
A: I know my voice. In the beginning, I had no confidence at all — I now get periods of confidence. I don’t get it every day. It’s funny that I still don’t think of myself as a writer, even though I’ve been writing for 20 years.
Q: Director Guillermo del
Toro’s first Hellboy movie in 2004 definitely drew from the first issue. Was there any
particular scene that really captured what you’d done?
A: My favorite is still probably the World War II stuff at the opening of the first movie. That is the one part where I kinda go, “Oh, look. I made a comic, and they made a movie out of it.”
Q: You could have picked any villain for that first issue. Why Nazis?
A: Marvel Comics had its roots in World War II, so my idea of real comics was that stuff. I wanted Hellboy to be grounded in that kind of old-school, black-andwhite, greatest-generation thing.
And Nazis do not require a lot of explanation.
Q: What influenced Hellboy’s personality?
A: The personality of Hellboy is just me. I’d never written before, so the only way I knew how to write Hellboy was, what would I say in this situation? The stories draw from my literary interests, but the personality of that character is just me throwing myself into that story.
Q: Hellboy in Hell No. 6 is out in May. What’s going to mark Hellboy’s 21st year?
A: He’s got a parade of troubles that will run for at least 20 issues. All I’m thinking now is get through that big story before he turns 25.
Where he goes after that, maybe then he gets to become a roaming hobo-like character who nobody (cares) about anymore and he gets to just wander through the suburbs of hell and have a good time.