Mignolaversity: This October, Hellboy Is in Love

We’ve seen “Hellboy in Hell” and “Hellboy in Mexico,” but this October we’ll see “Hellboy in Love.” That’s right, Hellboy fans, it’s finally happening — Anastasia Bransfield is coming to the comics. For those that don’t know, Anastasia, an archaeologist, was Hellboy’s girlfriend from 1979 to 1981 during his two-year sabbatical from the B.P.R.D. following a disastrous mission in China. Anastasia made her first appearance in the prose novel Hellboy: The Lost Army by Christopher Golden back in 1997, and she also showed up in Golden’s 2007 novel Hellboy: The Dragon Pool. Both stories are a part of the Hellboy canon, and yet Anastasia has never appeared in the comics (though she has been mentioned from time to time).

That all changes this October with “Hellboy in Love” #1, which tells the previously untold story of how Hellboy and Anastasia first met. The title reunites the team from “Hellboy: The Bones of Giants” with Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden writing, Matt Smith illustrating, Chris O’Halloran coloring, and Clem Robins lettering. The series will run for five issues, beginning with the two-part ‘Goblin Night.’

Christopher Golden (who has been teasing Mignolaversity readers about an Anastasia comic as far back as January 2018) is clearly thrilled to bring this character to the comics page. “It’s been twenty-five years since Dr. Anastasia Bransfield first appeared as Hellboy’s ex-girlfriend in my novel Hellboy: The Lost Army,” he says. “I’ve always thought one of the reasons Mike considered my three Hellboy novels as canon is because of that relationship. Over the years we talked many times about telling the stories of their adventures together, and the day has finally come.”

Artist Matt Smith also teased a little of what readers can expect from ‘Goblin Night’ while expressing his own excitement for the book. “It starts with a goblin train robbery in the English countryside. There’s also a punk show. These were the first words Christopher Golden told me about the story he and Mike put together, and that’s really all I needed to hear,” Smith says. “How could I not be stoked to draw this thing? I’m very grateful to be back with the same creative team as ‘Hellboy: The Bones of Giants.’”

“The last thing Hellboy expects when he meets Anastasia Bransfield is that he’s going to fall in love — or maybe the last thing is that she’s going to fall in love with him in the middle of a rollicking, terrifying adventure in the English countryside, chasing goblins and stealing cars and crashing a punk show in 1979,” adds Golden. “But the moment the bickering starts, you just know, and we send Hellboy off on what may be the happiest time of his life. It’s Romancing the Stone-style action, occult weirdness, and first love, with gorgeous Matt Smith art! We’re having so much fun!”

If you follow Matt Smith on Twitter (which I strongly suggest you do), then you know he likes to post warm-up sketches paired with a link to mood music. I get the feeling the story of “Hellboy in Love” will require some interesting tunes to work to. “I have plenty of good songs about goblins and occult mischief in my record collection,” Smith assures us. “There’s some great love songs in there too, of course. A lot of the best songs are those. I generally like to mix it up. Working on this series has been kind of like that — a meaningful glance here, burning eyes in the dark there. This all suits me perfectly, and I hope people dig the hell out of it as much as I do.”

Dark Horse Comics will be publishing “Hellboy in Love” #1 on October 12, 2022, just in time for Halloween. You can read the full announcement over on Forbes.