In a lot of ways, the holidays are about tradition. Everyone’s got ’em. It might be a family latke recipe, or getting together to watch Klaus, or arranging the Christmas tree ornaments so the cats don’t knock them off the lowest branches. Here at Multiversity, we have an annual tradition of looking at shared comic book universes and politely ask them to do something differently. It’s one part new years resolution, one part gift giving — to us, every one!
Today, we’re looking at the works of Mike Mignola—so the Hellboy Universe, the Outerverse, the Adventures of Professor J.T. Meinhardt and His Assistant Mr. Knox, and any other universes he may have hidden up his sleeves. I think it’s pretty safe to say that we here at Multiversity Comics love the works of Mike Mignola. (We’ve had a dedicated column for his work since 2010, after all.) We don’t know much about what’s ahead in 2022 just yet, but what we do know (“Koshchei the Deathless in Hell”!!!) already sounds like wish fulfillment. That said, here are a few more things we’d like to see…
An animated Hellboy Universe series
We’ve seen this before with the Hellboy Animated series in the early 2000s, but it was a different time back then. I don’t think there was a good home for stories set in the Hellboy Universe back then, not without drastically changing the concept to the point that it’s only recognizable on a surface level.
But the world has changed. Streaming services rule now, and US animation has rapidly grown up. In 2021 we got The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, Arcane: League of Legends, and Invincible, all shows with very different tones aimed at adult audiences with art styles that reflected the atmosphere of the story. It seems like we’ve finally arrived at a time when Hellboy could be adapted to animation without a producer getting cold feet and kneecapping the series by forcing elements that fight the tone.
And the thing is, the Hellboy Universe needs to be a series. It’s so much a part of its structure that a movie will always be a compromised adaptation. It needs to be comfortable with slowing down, soaking in the atmosphere of the world, and embracing silence. And while there are movies that do this, television series do this far better.
And movies are getting worse at this. In the cinema landscape of superhero blockbusters, I don’t see a place for the Hellboy Universe. Inevitably, producers will always try to push the superhero aspect and drown out what makes the series unique in the first place. It’s an ecosystem that thrives on the “epic” stories, and while the Hellboy Universe has a lot of that sort of thing, it’s not what it does best. Of course, it has a lot of trappings of epic storytelling, which makes it cost-prohibitively expensive to do in liveaction on a television budget, but in animation a character that looks like Hellboy is no more expensive than a character like Thomas Manning. And it feels like we’ve finally arrived at an era where two animated characters can simply sit and have a conversation. A scene with the characters of the B.P.R.D. sitting around in a kitchen having a somber discussion about their experiences with death doesn’t feel like the first thing that would hit the cutting room floor anymore.
New Lobster Johnson
Dark Horse Comics is releasing two “Lobster Johnson” collections early next year, “Hellboy Universe Essentials: Lobster Johnson” and the “Lobster Johnson – Volume 1” omnibus edition. However, the “Lobster Johnson” series is still incomplete. We have six trades covering the Lobster’s career from 1932 to 1937, but there’s still more of his career to be told, and the series needs an ending. The Lobster famously fought gangsters in New York and in Chicago, but to date his stories have only ever unfolded in New York. Both ‘The Pirate’s Ghost’ and ‘The Iron Prometheus’ have laid the groundwork for Chicago stories though, so maybe that’s up next.
But the real question is who would write the series. John Arcudi, who wrote the previous five volumes of the series, is now focusing on his creator-owned work like “Rumble” and “Two Moons” (which you should check out if you haven’t already). “Lobster Johnson” artist Tonci Zonjic has written one short story ‘The Empty Chair,’ and I’d love to see him tackle a bigger story. At one point he was writing a two-issue miniseries, and I’d still love to see that project come to fruition someday. But there’s another writer I’d like to see take on the series: “Young Hellboy: The Hidden Land” writer Thomas Sniegoski.
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cover by Gregory Manchess
He’s already had experience writing the character too, back in 2009’s prose novel Lobster Johnson: The Satan Factory. And I think there’s even a chance this may already be happening, given Scarlett Santiago’s backstory in ‘The Hidden Land.’ She had her own run-ins with New York gangsters which lead to her becoming the Sky Devil. On one hand, this could just be an interesting backstory, but the sketchbook material in ‘The Hidden Land’ suggests we haven’t seen the last of Scarlett, and I would not be surprised if we see the Lobster and the Sky Devil team up to take on some gangsters at some point.
Deluxe editions of the novels
While the Hellboy Universe is famously a comic book series, it also has a significant life in prose too. Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden’s novels The Bones of Giants, The Lost Army, and The Dragon Pool are even canon, with their events and characters referenced within the comics. But, well, they’re all different sizes and they don’t fit well on a bookshelf alongside the comics collections.
So I’d like to see these books revisited, perhaps even get their own omnibuses to sit alongside the comic omnibuses. In the case of the The Satan Factory, it could even find a home alongside the comics in a future “Lobster Johnson” omnibus edition. For The Bones of Giants, a story which is currently being released anew as a comic adaptation, we could even get a deluxe edition that collects the novel and the comic side by side.
Which brings me to…
Anastasia Bransfield
Anastasia Bransfield is an archeologist and Hellboy’s ex. The two dated from 1979 to 1981. She’s also a part of the comics canon, mentioned but never seen. The two novels are set in 1986 and 1991 respectively, but the two-year period while they were together is only hinted at. They certainly had other adventures together, one involving a cult known as the Obsidian Danse, so there is more to explore.
For several years now, Christopher Golden has been teasing the possibility that she’ll appear in the comics someday. That doesn’t mean it will happen, of course, but in 2021 he stepped into writing the Hellboy Universe comics again for the first time since 2002, so it certainly feels closer than ever before, and I for one would love to meet Anastasia on the comics page.
A return to the Outerverse
Since we’re talking about Christopher Golden, let’s step away from the Hellboy Universe for a bit and talk about Mignola and Golden’s Outerverse. 2021 was a big year for the Outerverse. For those that have been paying attention, the Outerverse has existed for quite some time—‘Baltimore” and “Joe Golem” were both dropping hints they existed in the same universe—but it was only last year that the Outerverse stepped out of the shadows. We got “Lady Baltimore: The Witch Queens” and a bunch of “Tales from the Outerverse” short stories. Josef the Golem even showed up in the pages of “Lady Baltimore,” making the connection much more explicit.
We spent ten issues in the Outerverse in 2021, almost one for every month. As of this writing, nothing new has yet been announced, but Christopher Golden and artist Bridgit Connell have mentioned that they have plans for more “Lady Baltimore,” and after that reveal at the end ‘The Witch Queens,’ it feels inevitable. But more importantly, the Outerverse grew massively in terms of its scope in 2021. For a while, the leads were mostly straight white men, but this year the cast exploded with all kinds of characters, any one of which could take the lead for a story. “Imogen of the Wyrding Way” ended up being a stand-out read for me this year because Imogen’s so different from the usual Outerverse lead, even down to the clothes she wears—bright floral dresses while everyone else is in grays and browns. Yet it is still undeniably an Outerverse story, capturing that spark that was alive all the way back in the original Baltimore novel.
Continued belowSo, I guess this wish is simply, Yes, more please!
Short stories
cover by Mike Mignola
While we’ve had plenty of one-shots lately, we have not seen many short stories. Without “Dark Horse Presents” or the annual “Hellboy Winter Special,” there hasn’t really been a home for them. And that’s fine—short stories have always seen an ebb and flow in the Hellboy Universe—but they’re such a crucial part of what makes the Hellboy Universe special that I’d never want to see them completely go away.
I propose “Mike Mignola Presents,” an anthology comic that can come out any time of year and feature the Hellboy Universe, the Outerverse, and whatever other things Mignola may want.
Original graphic novels
We’ve had these before, but “Hellboy: House of Living Dead,” ‘The Midnight Circus,’ and ‘Into the Silent Sea’ were a very specific kind of graphic novel, essentially double the length of your average issue in a hardcover format. They were undoubtedly special stories, especially in terms of their art, where it was pushed to a level that wasn’t really feasible to do in single issues. However, in terms of story, there wasn’t much going on that couldn’t have played out in your average two-issue miniseries.
This year we got “The House of Lost Horizons: A Sarah Jewell Mystery,” which I loved, but I felt like the genre was an awkward fit for a five-issue miniseries. Not every story works in serialization with each installment being the same length, and the Hellboy Universe is such a huge place, there is room for all kinds of stories. And as time goes on, we’re seeing more and more original graphic novels in the comics market, so if ever there was a time to branch out and explore this format, it’s now.
I remember reading “Two Brothers” by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá back in 2015. Of course, I’d read their “B.P.R.D.: Vampire” miniseries and loved it, especially that gloriously languid opening, but in “Two Brothers” they could play with pacing much more. There was a chapter that was seven pages long. There were also chapters nearly forty pages long. And it felt so free. And I want to see the Hellboy Universe play in that sandbox. Just imagine what a 120-page or 200-page graphic novel in their hands could be like.
I dearly hope for more “B.P.R.D.: Vampire” and more “Sarah Jewell Mysteries,” and I believe both series could be taken to a whole other level if they stepped into a format that lets these stories express themselves unfettered. And there’s definitely room in the Hellboy Universe for our usual miniseries to co-exist alongside original graphic novels.
Library editions
I love my “Hellboy” library editions. Ask anyone that has these books and they’ll tell you they are the ultimate way to read these stories. And not just because the pages are bigger and the book design is exquisite, but because they’re also packed with extra material. Your average Hellboy Universe trade paperback has a sketchbook section of 10 to 18 pages. The sixth “Hellboy” library edition has a 73-page sketchbook. It’s not just a comic at that point; it’s a hybrid comic and art book. And that is so awesome.
But we haven’t had a new library edition since 2017. And that makes sense. While years have passed, there’s not enough new material that’s come out to fill another library edition. There’s the one-shot “Hellboy: Being Human,” all the stories that spun off from the original “Hellboy in Mexico” one-shot, and ‘The Midnight Circus’ and ‘Into the Silent Sea’… almost enough for a new volume, but not quite.
But this year we got “Young Hellboy: The Hidden Land.” We got “Hellboy: The Bones of Giants.” And I’m betting there’s more cooking. Suddenly, a “Hellboy – Volume 7” library edition feels very possible. (Hell, a “Koshchei the Deathless” library edition collecting “How Koshchei Became Deathless,” “Baba Yaga’s Feast,” “Koshchei the Deathless,” “Sir Edward Grey: Acheron,” and “Koshchei the Deathless in Hell,” would make for a magnificent library edition too.)
Don’t get me wrong, I love that the “Hellboy” omnibus editions exist, but the paperback format is not for me, and the stripped back sketchbook section hurts, especially for ‘The Midnight Circus’ and ‘Into the Silent Sea,’ which deserve the larger page size and absolutely enormous sketchbook sections. I would love for a sketchbook section that includes every single one of Fegredo’s inkwash pages uncolored.
Continued belowAnd even just thinking about the small pleasures of the library editions, I like reading Mike Mignola’s afterwords. In this case, a new library edition would be collecting the last of Richard Corben’s stories, and I would love to read Mignola’s thoughts on working with him, celebrating what made their collaborations special. There’s a meditative quality to the library editions, and given the material that remains uncollected, they are the kinds of stories I’d like to rediscover in this format.
Surprises
I’m not talking about plot twists and things of that sort. I’m talking about reading “Sir Edward Grey: Acheron” and turning the page to discover that we’ll be getting “Koshchei the Deathless in Hell” in 2022. I’m talking about a miniseries like “The Sword of Hyperborea,” which will explore time periods and characters of the Hellboy Universe we’ve never seen before. I’m talking about Hellboy, Professor Bruttenholm, and Uncle Simon chatting in a pub about the Silver Lantern Club for a full miniseries.
Fans can sometimes think we know what’s best for our fandoms, but for all the things I’ve listed above that I’d like to see, what’s most tantalizing to me is the thing that I don’t even know about yet—the thing that a year from now I’ll be raving about, writing reviews far beyond an appropriate length, because I’m just so excited that this thing exists. That’s how we got “Sledgehammer 44,” “Frankenstein Underground,” “The Sarah Jewell Mysteries,” and so many other titles.
So, my number one item on my Mignolaversity wishlist is the thing that I don’t even know about yet.
