July 9, 2008 - This summer is quite possibly the greatest ever for fans of big budget superhero movies. Amidst all the Iron Mans and Dark Knights of Hollywood, a sequel to a little film called Hellboy is set for release this Friday. Hellboy 2: The Golden Army returns to this quirky band of monster hunters and investigators, offering another unique blend of visual flourish and character development.

Of course, any self-respecting comic book fan is aware that Hellboy has been a major player in the industry for well over a decade now. Last week saw the release of the latest in a long line of Hellboy mini-series – The Crooked Man #1.

As the creator of Hellboy, Mike Mignola was heavily involved in both projects. As our excitement for Hellboy 2 continues to grow, we tracked down Mignola to find out his thoughts on developing the sequel and why the filmmakers chose to veer from the comics. Naturally, we also discussed the process of writing The Crooked Man and where it fits in with past stories. Mignola even reveals some details on the next Hellboy project, In The Chapel of Moloch, which he will both write and draw.

To round out today's dose of Hellboy goodness, we have a review of the new Hellboy Library Vol. 1, a nice little package for new and old readers alike.



IGN Comics: I wanted to start out talking about the movie before getting into the comics...

Mike Mignola: What a surprise!

IGN Comics: I know, right? So, when it came time to sit down and plan out a Hellboy sequel, what were your thoughts? What kind of story were you hoping to tell?

Mignola: Well, I had no thoughts going into it. I was a completely open book as far as doing whatever Guillermo del Toro wanted to do. I went out to his place and spent a couple days there. We spent a couple days trying to adapt one of my stories. He wanted to adapt my story Almost Colossus because we really loves the character Roger the Homunculus.




So we started doing that, and after a couple hours we kind of hit a snag. We both said, "Oh, let's do fairies instead." He was preparing Pan's Labyrinth – probably writing Pan's Labyrinth at that time. And I was already planning my next series of Hellboy comics which are pretty much all the comics coming out right now – folklore, elf, and fairy-related stories. I think that's where both our heads were at, so it was so much easier to come up with an original story than try to adapt one of mine.

IGN Comics: So it's an original story that doesn't really pull from any one Hellboy comic?

Mignola: Right. It kind of parallels some of the things I'm doing in the comic right now, but in a really broad sense. It's radically different. All the characters - with the exception of the core Hellboy characters – all the villains and the Golden Army and everything, that's all completely new. In fact, when we originally came up with it, it was a much different story and we didn't even have the Golden Army in it. Things changed radically when Guillermo took the story we had come up with and actually wrote the screenplay. It changed radically.

IGN Comics: In general, do you feel that comic-to-movie adaptations work better if they try to veer away from the established storylines and source material?

Mignola: Not necessarily. In our case what happened was the first film, as much as it was an adaptation of my work, Guillermo had changed the relationships between the characters so much from the comic. If you were going to continue evolving the relationships you've established in the first film, that doesn't relate at all to the Hellboy in my comics. The whole Hellboy/Liz Sherman thing isn't in the comic at all. If you're going to advance that relationship, it doesn't line up with anything in the comics at all. You might as well make up a new story to wrap around their relationship.




But something like Iron Man, which is very different than the comic, is so true to the spirit of the comic. Even though they updated the origin it was pretty faithful to that origin. So I think there is a balancing act. Certain things work better in a film than a comic. Some things you want to update or whatever. I think the important thing is to stay true to the spirit of the comic and what made the comic special, which is why I think something like Fantastic Four falls really flat. It doesn't feel anything like those characters and it doesn't have the scale of those classic Fantastic Four stories.