I wanted to share a little bit of Mignola's history before he got to Hellboy (as much as a short instagram reel would allow). I share info from Mignola's interviews and other sources, documenting how he came up with the character! For those who don't know... it really started with the caped crusader!
A few tidbits of research that I thought were interesting:
- Mignola first seems to have found the 'style' of story he wanted to work on, which involved a detective character confronting paranormal threats (which would allow him to draw monsters, of course)
- He initially didn't want to write any scripts, just do the artwork. A lot of you here probably know this, but Seed of Destruction wasn't written by Mignola, and the style difference is pretty stark (you have Hellboy sharing his mental thought process in that first story, which you don't get in the Mignola versions -- a change for the better, imo)
- Mignola's first Hellboy books didn't sell super well, they sold 'okay', in his own words. He immediately thought of going back to Batman books, but his wife encouraged him to keep doing Hellboy (despite her not being super sure of the idea at first!)
If you like what I'm doing there, please follow! I already did Lovecraft, Stephen King, and Shirley Jackson besides Mignola. Next post will be about frustrating monster deaths in literature!