Comics2Film sat down recently with Mike Mignola, creator of 'Hellboy,' to talk about his involvement in 'Hellboy II: The Golden Army', the entire franchise that his comic spawned, and the transition of another artist, Guillermo del Toro, creating a variation of his material.
"The first film was an adaptation of the first graphic novel ['Seeds of Destruction'], I mean a loose adaptation, but it was coming off my work, and it was basically taking the 'Hellboy' universe that I had created and translating it into del Toro's world," Mignola said.
"So the second film, which, though we started out to do an adaptation of one of my stories, we chucked that idea after about eight hours because even in the first film, that character is already veering away from the world I created in the comic, so it was much easier and actually a lot more fun to just say, 'Well, let's not try to tie it to the comic. Let's just continue what you did in the first film,' so...the first film was taking my stuff, putting it in his world and now we're just going with his world."
For those that don't read the Dark Horse books, the "Hellboy" universe of del Toro's films at times contrasts greatly with that of Mignola's comics. He explained,
"There was a big change in the first film that, Hellboy having this love interest, which doesn't exist in the comic, where the Hellboy-Sherman relationship was much more of a brother-sister kind of thing, there's never been any kind of romance relationship," Mignola said.
"When you put more focus on that love interest and you introduce the idea of children, it's veering off in this radically different direction than where my book is going, and so at the same point they're heading off in different directions and a third film would be even further in a different direction. It's like they started in the same place and then Guillermo as he became more invested in it just has evolved this whole other world."
Mignola's artwork influenced the look of the first film a great deal, but when sitting down with del Toro he said a lot of what looks like Mignola's art just sort of happens that way. As the artist, Mignola's take was, "I know in the first film, he was making conscious decisions to try to suggest certain things that I do in the artwork. I think he's just, and I don't think he got this from me, but I think he's just very careful about his use of color and a limited palette and little things like using red for a reason.
"I just think that's the way his mind works. I mean I'd love to think that he got some of that from studying my comic, but I just think he's a very careful craftsman in using color for a reason. I certainly never heard any conversations about adapting my style on the second film. I think especially after 'Pan's Labyrinth' he just knew what he wanted to do, knew how to do it, and just wanted to do it."
When pressed about similarities in the Golden Army of warriors, Mignola responded,
"No, not really. Again, as a designer on the film, I did so little, I mean I did real rough ideas for a lot of things. [The] Golden Army is something I had no hand in whatsoever. It's a very appealing design sensibility to me. But I can't point to anything I've ever done in saying, oh yeah, that's where he got that idea and I was around when other guys designed those characters so I was never able to contribute a single bit of an idea to those guys."
Many artists and writers, even though they understand the deal they make to sell the rights to their material, still have a tough time dealing with the transition and the results. Mignola seemed well adjusted in the press conference likely because he "went through that process of letting go on the first picture. I had worked with Guillermo on 'Blade II' and it was much easier working on 'Blade II' because it wasn't my thing. It was much easier to say 'Well, I'm not invested in this thing. I'll help you do whatever you want to do.' With your own thing, as much as I went into "Hellboy" originally saying, change whatever you want, do whatever you want with it, when you're sitting there in the office with him and I'm saying, 'why don't we do this?' and he's going, 'No, no, no. We'll do this,' I kind of go, dude, that's my character, man. But you're asking me to help you change it into something different.
"So, while we didn't run into any real big conflicts, there was a mental adjustment period for me, but so much of that mental adjustment was done on the first picture, that with the second picture I really went into it feeling like I was working on his characters, and actually I only remember one moment during the filming of the second one, there was a scene where Hellboy comes out and he's wearing no shirt but the coat, and that's the way I've always drawn him in the comic, and so there was that one moment, I went, 'Ooooh, it looks my character,' and somebody else had to point out - they're all your character, but at this point, I had mentally shifted them so far into being his characters that it needed that one moment to go hey, I recognize that guy!"
It most likely helped their relationship that "Guillermo started out as just a huge fan of the comic. And so he wanted me involved from Day One, and so on the second film, he invited me to come and work with him on the original story so that was great."
When asked if he had seen the finished film, Mignola enthusiastically responded, "I am very happy with what he did."
'Hellboy II: The Golden Army' arrives in theaters tomorrow!
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