BALTIMORE, or The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden(2008).
© Spectra
Father of the Beast II: More with Mike Mignola
By: Josh GordonDate: Wednesday, July 16, 2008
In part II of our conversation with Mike Mignola we learn a bit about the possible Baltimore or the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire movie, working with his publisher Dark Horse Comics, the pros and cons on the popularity of Comic-Con and the next fifteen years of Hellboy
Q: What is your process these days for drawing and writing? Is it nine to five?
Mike Mignola: It’s never been nine to five. Nine is a pretty good starting time but I work until the end of the day which is usually midnight. Unfortunately the last couple of years I’ve been mostly just writing because of various interruptions and because the Hellboy thing has expanded so much; there are so many different Hellboy books –I’m writing “this book” and I’m co-writing “that book”. I’m hoping once the dust settles on this that I’ll be going back to drawing again. I won’t be taking over drawing the Hellboycomic anytime soon but there are some Hellboy related things I want to do.
Q: How about more animated films?
MM: Again, that’s somebody else’s call. Tad Stone and I (Tad ran the animated shows) He and I actually wrote a third Hellboy animated film that we were really excited about and they just decided not to continue it. That would have had Lobster Johnson in it.
Q: If you had your choice which character would you like to see make it into the third movie?
MM: I think Lobster Johnson would be great. That’s the one that the fans love. It’s a character I think is great. You know, it’s hard to say. Considering the kind of story he (del Toro) wants to tell I think that character would make the most sense to bring in.
Q: What’s coming up in the comic in the near future?
MM: The comic in the near future is, again, without being the same story line as in Hellboy II, it deals with a lot of the same subject matter with the idea of a kind of revolt or a war that’s building between the elves and trolls and dispossessed ancient characters that have been kind of living underground and it’s a rebel, not a prince, but a kind of rebel character that’s saying “hey, lets take the world back.”
Q: Could you give us an update on what’s going on with the David Goyer project? And also Frank Millers directing are we going to ever see Mike Mignola direct?
MM: I can almost a hundred percent tell you that you’ll never see me direct. I love sitting next to Guillermo when he’s directing but within minutes I know that that’s a job I never want. Not only would I not want it, it’s just too big a job and it takes forever. I’m slow drawing comics let alone doing something like this. Guillermo knows everything, he knows a little bit about everything and he knows a lot about a lot of stuff and if I wanted to direct I think I would have had to be thinking about directing since about the time I was ten years old. I watched him doing post production and I watched him doing the music with Danny Elfman, I mean he can talk music with Elfman and talk lenses with Navarro, he can tell the special effects guys how to do the special effects; I don’t know anything so I would just be a useless lump sitting there in the chair. So that’s not going to happen. The other part of the question…David Goyer who is attached to the film adaptation of a novel I co-wrote last year called Baltimore or the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire, Chris Golden and I wrote the novel together and we just turned in the second draft of the screenplay. It’s sitting on David’s desk and I know David’s got a bunch of different films that are all his next film and hopefully this one gets to the top of the pile. I’d kind of like to think from that studio’s perspective “from the creator of Hellboy and the writer of Batman” would kinda look pretty good. Again, I never expect things to work out but I would be very excited to see that film happen.
Q: You’ve been around comic-con for years and years. Are you a little disappointed that it’s become this huge Hollywood event. Do you miss the old days?
MM: I would be more disappointed if Hellboy wasn’t a film because it staggers what Hellboy is but yeah, it is sad that the comic book stuff has become such a Hollywood machine. I miss the old days a little bit; it is a little strange to go into the biggest comic book convention in America and say “are there any comics here?” and the guys that create the comics are stuck against the farthest wall but it’s the nature of the beast these days and it is good for comics. There are bad things about it but a few years ago we were all saying “are comics going to go away?” sales had gotten really terrible. If for no other reason comics will stay around because publishers are thinking “maybe we won’t make any money on the comic but hey maybe that’ll be a film…”
Q: How is the comic book business going?
MM: It’s not, it’s not great. I know my publisher does publish a certain amount of things that don’t make any money as a comic but my publisher is also a movie producer so they’re always looking at things as “does it have a possible other life” and I think other publishers are all thinking the same thing. The good thing about that from a comic book creator perspective is, you know, a publisher looks at your material, especially your original material and they might say “you know, we’ll sell ten thousand copies of this BUT we might be able to develop it as a film property so we will publish it”. So at least things are getting published that might not otherwise get published.
Q: Do you think the fact that Mike Richardson (head of Dark Horse comics, Hellboy’s publisher) has produced things like The Mask and Timecop has helped Hellboy get made?
MM: I’d like to think I’d still be doing Hellboy even if there wasn’t a film but the truth is God knows what my sales figures (would be), if I would be able to pay the rent or the mortgage or whatever it is if it was just a comic and there had never been a film.
Q: When I was a kid collecting comics in the 70’s, comics were a quarter, which back then wasn’t that much money. Comic books are now five bucks, ten bucks; I mean that is prohibitively expensive. Five dollars today is (a lot more) than what a quarter was back then. Has there been any talk in the industry –
MM: Apparently it’s not too expensive because people do keep buying them. Comics aren’t geared to kids as much now so it’s not like kids squirreling away their lunch money to buy comics. I don’t know how people pay what they pay for comics but the truth is also that paper prices are going through the roof so it’s not like the oil companies saying “let’s squeeze a little bit more money out of them!” I don’t think that’s what it is; at least that’s not how it’s explained to me.
Q: Can you talk a little bit about working with Mike Richardson, what that’s been like?
MM: There’s a lot of neck strain because he’s so damn tall! He’s been great. From day one as my comic book publisher, a guy who never asked what Hellboy was about, he said “we want you to do something” and I said “I got this thing called Hellboy” and he said “great! We’ll give you the same deal we gave Frank Miller”. My relationship has been great with Dark Horse.
Q: You mention that your Hellboy ending is some fifteen years away, do you have all of the stories well laid out in your head or do you just have kind of the ending that you’re shooting for?
MM: I’ve got the next five years of Hellboy pretty well figured out. Then there’s a chunk of the story that’s roughly figured out and then there’s the ending.
Q: Why fifteen years –
MM: That number is kind of pulled out of – It’s been fifteen years and it feels like I’m about half way through the story. It depends on if the artist I’ve got drawing it is kind of slow and if I come in at some point and draw it again, I’m really slow. So, I’d like to think fifteen years, that in fifteen years I’ll still be able to do this stuff and beyond that, God knows, so, ah, I just don’t want to get hit by a bus before the ending.
Q: Any new things you’re thinking of starting?
MM: I’ve got a couple of projects that are set in the Hellboy world. I’ve got a Victorian occult detective that I’ve wanted to do for a long time and I’ve got some original non-Hellboy, odd, little short stories that I’ve been wanting to do but, you know, there just aren’t enough hours in the day.
Q: Does it feel weird having someone else draw the actual comics?
MM: It was the toughest decision I have had to make professionally, finding somebody else draw Hellboy but I knew this story that I’d made up, this gigantic story was never going to get done if I was the artist on it. It was tough and there are days where it’s still tough but the guy’s great, he’s fantastic so I’ve been very lucky with the people I’ve been able to work with.
Q: So Hellboy is still the main priority?
MM: For me, Hellboy is. I co-write some of the other books. I wrote an Abe Sapien book last year, I wrote a Lobster Johnson book last year. I keep trying to put all my energies into something else but I’ve created this big thing, this pile of inter-related books and I’m the one guy who know where those stories are going so I can’t just say “hey Bob, you figure it out”, it’s my baby.
Q: Do you know if there’s going to be anything special for the DVD extras for Hellboy II?
MM: There’s going to be a gigantic documentary, Our DVD guy, Javier, was on the film forever and he was in pre-production so there’s a ton of making-of stuff.
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