It’s almost time for the “From the Pages of Hellboy” panel at the Emerald City con and we’ll be liveblogging it.
Get ready to start hitting refresh.
Matt from Multiveristy is running the panel. Our cast includes, Mike Mignola, Scott Allie, Tyler Crook and Dave Stewart.
All Q&A panel!
Q: Hellboy 3 happening?
A: No news.
Q: What’s coming up for Hellboy?
A: Hellboy in Hell is an ongoing series.
Q: What’s your favorite arc?
A: Allie – The Corpse or the Fury.
Mignola – It’s hard to pick a favorite, but he thought The Crooked Man with Corben was a high point.
Stewart – Hellboy in Hell
Q: What sets Hellboy apart from something like Fables that has a real world setting?
A: Mignola isn’t interested in the real world. He prefers to emphasize the really weird aspects of folklore and embracing that.
Q: Do you have a favorite fairy tale you haven’t used yet?
A: He’s used a lot of the stuff he’s planned to. Hellboy in Hell #5 is based on a Grimm’s Fairy Tell. Now that he’s putting stuff in hell, he can use the folklore without worrying what the culture looks like.
Future issues may come out irregularly, but multiple parters will be monthly. Hellboy in Hell is the ongoing title, though.
Q: More Baltimore and Witchfinder?
A: Yes, more Balitmore one-shots on the way and work has started on a series. Witchfinder – eventually.
Q: How does the team work together on BPRD?
A: It varies. Mostly it happens by phone calls. Sometimes all three people, sometimes not. Acrudi runs on his own, to a certain extent. By the time it hits the artist, nobody’s sure who came up with which bits. There have only been three writers on it. The artist rotation is also fairly stable.
Q: What was the visual collaboration with Del Toro like?
A: Mignola – They collaborated well early on. The first film was aimed at his design. Mignola is “less is more.” Del Toro tends to be “more is not enough.” Hellboy 2 didn’t originally have gold robots with moving gears. It was originally going to be a fat guy with wings like the original Faust movie.
The second film was taking Mignola characters and adapting them to Del Toro characters.
Q: BPRD – will there be more hollow earth stuff?
A: There will be a new book with hollow earth stuff in it later in the year.
Q: Where did Jenny Finn come from?
A: Mignola asked Troy Nixey what he wanted to draw.
Q: How do you lay out the story while you’re writing?
A: He does thumbnail the story, though he doesn’t do it as much now. Part of it depends on the artist he’s dealing with.
Q: Would you ever do another crossover (like Hellboy/Starman/Batman)?
A: He probably wouldn’t do it again. He completely rewrote Hellboy’s dialogue.
Q: Any hesitation about tackling “capital G” God in Hellboy?
A: That would written really vague. He doesn’t need to deal with it directly in the story. He just doesn’t think he can write God’s dialogue. The guys who explain how things happen tend to be crazy. It’s easier to put that dialogue in the mouth of lunatic than “a burning bush.”
Q: Why did it take so long for the Frogs to return?
A: “I forgot?” The idea was always in the back of his head and then it gave the series a direction.
Q: Where did the idea come to give Roger a crotch ring?
A: Not a lot of thought went into it. Roger wasn’t originally supposed to be BPRD regular?
Q: Will Captain Ben return?
A: John isn’t telling anyone. He might be dead. He might be inside the Wendigo. It hasn’t been formally spelled out (which they don’t usually do in the Hellboyverse anyway). It would be up to John, who created the character.
Q: As a writer and artist do you get more excited by writing or art?
A: It depends. If he’s stuck on a cover, he might like writing more. He stayed away from the drawing board longer than he intended. That said, he can write things that he can’t draw (but his artists can). He usually misses the one he isn’t doing.
Q: Are the Chekov’s guns all deliberate?
A: Allie – Mignola just throws out so much stuff, it’s easy to go back and pick them up. Point in case – Roger.
Mignola – The trick is making it look like that’s what you’re doing. He’s got three character he’s now planning on doing something with.
Q: When did you first plan to kill Hellboy?
A: Fairly early on, since he’d rather draw a fantasy world than the real world. He’s not sure if he had decided to kill him when he started working with Hellboy. By the time he was done with Darkness Falls it all started coming it together.
Also Duncan rooted Hellboy in the real world so well, it was also a good way to mark a change in eras.
Q: More Joe Golem?
A: He tries not to have more books than 4/month. He has the ideas, but he doesn’t want to add another title right now. It _is_ in film development, though. If there’s a movie, there will probably be a comic.
Q: Will the spacemen from Conqueror Worm return?
A: One of them almost got a book for awhile. Mignola’s not that comfortable with science fiction. It’s not part of the big plan… unless he changes his mind.
Q: Any thoughts about pitching BPRD as a TV series.
A: He’s not pitching. Universal has the rights, so they’d probably have made it by now. He wouldn’t stop them from doing it.
Q: Abe seemed different in the movies. Was that you or Del Toro.
A: Del Toro. He loves the Abe character.
Is Mignola talking in 3rd person?
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