Although the Hellboy Universe is an expansive series of titles, it has always drawn from a relatively small group of core writers. This year brought Chris Roberson (“iZombie”) into the fold, and now he’s writing “Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.,” “Witchfinder,” and “Rise of the Black Flame.” Throughout September we’ll be talking to him about each series. This week we’re discussing “Rise of the Black Flame” along with artist Christopher Mitten (“Criminal Macabre,” “30 Days of Night”).
Chris Roberson: Scott Allie approached me and said that he and Mike were interested in a story that explored the history of the Black Flame, and I think that they already had in mind that it would have a kind of Sax Rohmer vibe, but otherwise I built the rest of it from the ground up. But setting it in the 1920s, midway between Sir Edward Grey’s Victorian London and the Cold War setting that we’re exploring with Hellboy’s 1950s adventures, meant that we could pull in characters and story elements that we’d planned to do in future “Witchfinder” and “Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.” storylines, but that we won’t be getting to for a long time.
And, Christopher Mitten, how did you become involved in the project?
Christopher Mitten: Pretty much the same, really; it was all fairly straightforward. Scott asked if I’d be interested in possibly doing a Black Flame story. He’s such an interesting character, such a mysterious character, getting the chance to explore some of that with Chris and Mike was a no-brainer. I drew a few sketches for Scott to show Mike—not character sketches, I never did any of those for this, but more things that would show environment and tone; set pieces, basically—and once those got the thumbs-up from everybody we were off to the races.
This is quite a different book for a Hellboy Universe spin-off. In the past, these stories usually have leads that have been pre-established in existing stories, but here we’re meeting the leads for the first time. Can you tell us a little about McAllister and Sandhu?
Chris R.: Sergeant Geoffrey McAllister and Constable A.N. Sandhu, members of the Indian Imperial Police in British Colonial Burma, are the first two members of our cast to be introduced. McAllister is originally from Scotland, and served with the Metropolitan Police in London before shipping overseas, while Sandhu is a relatively new recruit from India. They are investigating what seems to be a run-of-the-mill kidnapping case, which they quickly discover is much bigger and stranger than they imagined.
In our last interview you spoke about your passion for Sir Edward Grey. This story bears further evidence of this passion, as Sir Edward appears multiple times, teasing several different periods of his life, including our first glimpse of the Silver Lantern Club. On top of that, this issue is absolutely packed with Hellboy Universe mythology. I particularly appreciated the Chutt yeti.
Chris R.: I may be mistaken, but I think the Chutt yeti was Scott Allie’s suggestion. But yeah, getting a chance to show a few quick glimpses of what the future holds for Sir Edward Grey was one of the big attractions of setting the story at this point in history, as was exploring new connections between different parts of Hellboy’s world. And southeast Asia is relatively untrammeled territory in that world, so there were lots of spots in that map for us to explore.
There are two other characters introduced in this story, Sarah Jewell and Marie-Thérèse LaFleur, both of which were immediately fascinating to me. By the end of the issue I was convinced I needed to read “The Adventures of Sarah Jewell.”
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Chris R.: Sarah Jewell grew out of a conversation that Mike and I had a couple of years ago. He was thinking about a possible new character, a young woman who traveled the world fighting monsters, who could waltz into the Silver Lantern Club and instantly prove herself to be tougher and smarter than anybody else there (with the possible exception of Sir Edward, who would see her as an equal). The only problem was that he couldn’t figure out a good historical model for the character. I ended up drawing a lot of inspiration from Nellie Bly, the Victorian journalist who famously recreated Phileas Fogg’s journey around the world (only she managed it in 72 days, not 80!), with a little bit of socialite and globe-trotter Aimée Crocker mixed in, as well. Mike and I fell in love with the character, but it was going to be years and years before we’d have a chance to introduce her. When we started talking about “Rise of the Black Flame” I hit upon the idea of introducing Sarah Jewell later in life, who of course would have continued to travel the world having adventures long after she parted ways with Sir Edward. Her traveling companion Marie-Thérèse LaFleur was modeled heavily on Josephine Baker, right down to her hair style and clothing.
Christopher M.: I absolutely love Sarah and Marie. Love them. I couldn’t have had more fun with those two. The moment they showed up they were my favorite characters. They arrived so fully formed I knew who they were supposed to be, how they’d act and react to whatever came their way. With any character, with any book, there’s a settling in period where you’re trying to find the characters, find the rhythm, but with Sarah and Marie, that was virtually non-existent. And that’s due to Chris and Mike and Scott working with and finding these wonderful characters before anything got to me.
They won me over immediately as well. I imagine you must have had fun finding the look for Sarah and Marie.
Christopher M.: Very much so. But like I said, they were so fully realized before it came time for me to draw them, there wasn’t much flailing around trying to find their look. What was fun was they came so fully formed, so I could zero in on simply enjoying their interplay, imagining the crazy adventures they had before arriving in this story. When one has Nellie Bly and Josephine Baker as springboards, in looks and, to a point, personalities, that’s kind of it: they’re there and set and ready to go. And, really, tromping through the jungle with them couldn’t have been more enjoyable.
It seems like you both must’ve done a lot of research for this story to get the era and location right. Was there anything you discovered during this phase of development that changed the story or impacted the way characters were portrayed?
Chris R.: Oh, definitely. Whenever you’re doing a period piece like this, you start with your basic idea for what the story is going to be, and then make adjustments as you find things while researching that affect how things are going to play out. And there were lots of serendipitous discoveries along the way that affected things a lot. Discovering that there was a literal lost civilization in Siam that existed up until the sixth century, Funan, that we only know about from a few scattered references by Chinese cartographers and such at the time, certainly affected the story greatly!
Christopher M.: Chris was hugely helpful, here, sending reference with each script. Then I’d go off and start digging around to see what I could find, too, to augment things or find odd little offshoots of design or, at the very least, design elements, things that would’ve never sprung to mind left to my own devices.
Of course Google’s a treasure trove and to have at one’s disposal is immeasurably useful, but I also find it fun, and I do this with most of the projects with which I’ve been involved, to go to the library and hunt around, too; a lot of happy accidents happen there, finding stuff you didn’t even know you were looking for until stumbling across it. There’s just something about having an actual book to leaf through looking for stuff that’s really satisfying.
Continued belowAnd none of this is about exactly replicating a time and place—I’m not sure that’d be particularly interesting for anybody, creators or readers, were that the case—but the feel, the impression, of that time and place.
I love the way you draw Sandhu. He’s a character that often can’t say what he’d like to; he has to approach certain topics diplomatically. The way you draw him though, he has very communicative eyes that say something that McAllister is entirely ignorant of.
Christopher M.: Thanks! I honestly don’t know how much of that was conscious on my part or simply part of interpreting and drawing what Chris had already built so expertly into these characters. Like Sarah and Marie, McAllister and Sandhu were a blast, and arrived with a fully formed dynamic, all I had to do was get that onto paper and into the little boxes without getting in its way.
Chris R.: I love the way that Chris handled those scenes! I knew it was going to be a little tricky, having as one of our viewpoint characters a British colonial who was obviously have a somewhat skewed view of local history and culture, which was one of the reasons why I gave him a South Asian partner in an attempt to balance some of that out. There’s a moment where the discussion turns to Thuggee, and in particular the suppression of the Thugs by William Henry Sleeman. There was an awful lot of racist propaganda surrounding all of that, which a character like McAllister would likely have bought into as a loyal servant of the crown, but which a South Asian native like Sandhu could be a little more skeptical about.
His underplayed skepticism is certainly a part of his appeal for me.
I couldn’t help but notice Sandhu shares his surname with Dr. Sandhu from “Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.” I would not be surprised if the events of “Rise of the Black Flame” inspire a family interest in the paranormal.
Chris R.: Well spotted! Yes, in the second issue of “Rise of the Black Flame” Sandhu mentions that he has a younger sister back home in India, and it is entirely likely that the Dr. Sandhu who has been seen in the 1950s assisting Susan Xiang with her psychic powers in “Hellboy And The B.P.R.D.” is that sister. (Okay, more than likely. That IS his sister that we’ve met before…)
Christopher M., I love your work on this issue. There’s a lot of action moments, and different locations and time periods, but at its heart this story only works if the characters click. Yet for most of the issue, the leads are in discussion. This was actually my favorite stuff in the issue. These aren’t just talking heads; there’s attitude and shifts of power. You take out the speech balloons and these beats still read in the body language of the characters and the composition of panels. How do you tackle scenes like these?
Christopher M.: Maybe this sounds weird, but those moments, the quieter moments, the character moments, building set pieces and playing with settings and environments, those tend to be some of my favorite things to draw. There’s just a flow to it all, telling a story, a rhythm, what feels or looks right and what doesn’t. I don’t know, I think it’s the subtle challenge of the thing; the chance to let the characters act and react, relax and just kind of exist. If the quieter moments don’t work, or if, on the page, it feels like I’m bored or rushing through these scenes just to get to the flashier stuff, the flashier stuff, the big moments, they don’t really work or have the impact they should and the whole thing kind of falls down. I haven’t done my job.
Mignola’s never set a story in Siam before, so at first glance it may appear to be a strange place to dig into the origins of one of his biggest villains. But the Black Flame’s ties to Siam were hinted at before in “Lobster Johnson: The Burning Hand.” Kamala, the wife of the first Black Flame was a Siamese woman, able to resurrect her husband by singing. I suppose we’ll be learning a little more about where she came from too.
Continued belowChris R.: That seems entirely possible, yes.
I suppose we’ll learn a little more about the Black Goddess too. After all, Kali is one of the many names she’s known by. Honestly, I was blown away by how densely packed this first issue was. It connects to so many stories (some that haven’t even been told yet) and yet it’s immediately accessible to new readers. The issue also introduces four entirely new characters, and yet somehow they feel like they’ve been a part of the universe all along. Was this a difficult story to figure out that balance?
Chris R.: It was a little tricky, yes. But having that blank canvas to start from offered all sorts of interesting possibilities, like being able to introduce Sarah Jewell years before we’d ever have a chance to get her on stage in “Witchfinder.” And though Dr. Sandhu in “Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.” has only appeared on one page so far, she’ll play a big part in some storylines further down the road, so this was an opportunity to start establishing her backstory way in advance. But even when dealing with entirely new characters and situations it was just a question of making sure that it was always grounded in Hellboy’s established world.
Before you go, is there anything you’d like to tease in the upcoming issues?
Chris R.: I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’ll keep my lips sealed for now. But there are a number of surprises coming up!
Christopher M.: It’s going to be a fun ride—of that I can assure you—but yeah, I think I’ll play it safe and simply echo Chris on this one.
You can follow Chris Roberson and Christopher Mitten on Twitter. “Rise of the Black Flame” #2 comes out October 5.
