Welcome to Mignolaversity, Multiversity Comics’ home for all things Mike Mignola, and there are a lot of books in the latest solicitations from Dark Horse Comics. We are in for a veritable deluge.
THE HOUSE OF LOST HORIZONS:
A SARAH JEWELL MYSTERY #3 (of 5)
Written by Mike Mignola and Chris Roberson
Illustrated by Leila del Duca
Colored by Michelle Madsen
Lettered by Clem RobinsOn sale July 14, 2021
FC, 32 pages
$3.99
MiniseriesTwo bodies down . . . how many more to go? A raging storm keeps the group of occult collectors trapped on the island, but some of them appear to be more restless than others. Sarah and Marie-Therése divide and conquer, following the two prime suspects down two different, but equally perilous, paths to danger!
Mark Tweedale: I’m continually intrigued by this one. And Then There Were None is one of my favorite Agatha Christie novels, which likewise had all the characters stuck on an island with a killer on the loose. The idea of mixing that sort of story with the Hellboy Universe sounds magnificent. Also, I have to say, that’s an excellent cover from Christopher Mitten.
LADY BALTIMORE: THE WITCH QUEENS #5 (of 5)
Written by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden
Illustrated by Bridgit Connell
Colored by Michelle Madsen
Lettered by Clem RobinsOn sale July 21, 2021
FC, 32 pages
$3.99
MiniseriesThe Hexencorps trap has been sprung on Sofia Baltimore and her party. But as they try to make their desperate escape from a remote village, they may have more in their favor than any of them realized!
Mark: I was going to lament the end of the first “Lady Baltimore” miniseries, but I know we’re going to be seeing her again (hopefully soon), and any sadness was immediately gone from my mind when I saw Joe Golem on the cover. JOE GOLEM! This opens up the door to explore an entirely different period of his life. After all, we’ve seen him hunting witches across Europe, and those memories haunt him when he awakes in 1955 and spends the next twenty years as an occult detective not really knowing who or what he was. Though I guess if a horde of witches join forces with the Nazis, a witch-hunting golem can hardly be expected to sleep through that.
Christopher Golden: Hey Mark! You seem a little excited. I’m glad to see it. Yes, you’re correct. We know where the Golem was when Mr. Church came into possession of him in the early 1950s, and we assumed that he was dormant for centuries between the flashbacks in the “Joe Golem: Occult Detective” series and his reawakening in Mr. Church’s study. . . but not so. Here we see him in 1938, as World War II gets under way. But how, exactly, does that happen? It’s a big part of our plot, and you’ll have to read on to find the answer.
Mark: I look forward to it. Actually, it’s a good thing you popped by, because I wanted to talk about this next item:
HELLBOY AND THE B.P.R.D.: THE SECRET OF CHESBRO HOUSE #1 (of 2)
Continued belowWritten by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden
Illustrated by Shawn McManus
Colored by Dave Stewart
Lettered by Clem RobinsOn sale July 7, 2021
FC, 32 pages
$3.99
MiniseriesHellboy works with a psychic to clear a haunted mansion for auction. But the ghosts in residence aren’t quite ready to go gentle into that good night, and the answer may lie in a connection with the living world . . .
Hellboy creator Mike Mignola teams with longtime collaborator Christopher Golden and artist extraordinaire Shawn McManus to bring you a brand-new frightful delight from the world of Hellboy!
• First of a new two-part story.
Mark: You’ve had a long history with Hellboy. You wrote the first prose novel with the character in 1997 and have since gone on to write two more and curate four collections of short stories. You’ve even written for the comics with the first “B.P.R.D.” miniseries, ‘Hollow Earth.’ What’s your journey with Hellboy been like over the past twenty-four years since Hellboy: The Lost Army came out?
Christopher: I guess you could say my relationship with Hellboy has been constantly evolving ever since I first interviewed Mike for Flux Magazine #2 in 1995. That interview began our friendship and led to the Hellboy novel The Lost Army. It’s sort of strange to have heard so many versions of Hellboy’s story that never came to pass, particularly his ending. It’s like there are all these parallel realities that came out of Mike’s head along the way. It’s been a fascinating process to follow along as a reader as he mapped out the version he really wanted to tell. We’ve worked together on various “Hellboy” projects for twenty-five years, so it’s difficult to sum it all up with anything succinct. I’d written those first two novels and I’d been pestering him forever about spinning off the B.P.R.D., telling him that Abe and Liz and the rest were strong enough characters and the fans were dedicated enough to make the idea possible. Dark Horse was hesitant, unsure if the market would support it, but they finally agreed. Tom Sniegoski and I ended up writing that first “B.P.R.D.” miniseries almost by default, I think, because Mike and I had talked about the spinoff so much that he would have felt badly handing it off to someone else. We had a fantastic time writing that.
I stayed on the prose side of things, editing the anthologies and I also put together the deal between Mike and Pocket Books that led to the Hellboy and Lobster Johnson novels that were published there, and then the others that were published afterward by Dark Horse. I functioned as editorial coordinator on that whole run, and I love all of those books. I’d do things differently now, of course, but that’s another conversation. When “Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.” became a series and the years were being laid out, Mike and I would occasionally discuss various Hellboy stories I would eventually write. Later he brought me in to do a draft during the development of the recent Hellboy film and I worked with him to create a version of that script that was more in line with what he wished the movie would be. Then in recent years we started talking more about the comics. We had a couple of phone calls and then several talks about the whole future of Hellboy as a comics franchise while at FanExpo Boston together. All of those conversations led directly to Tom Sniegoski and Craig Rousseau doing “Young Hellboy,” and to. . . a lot of other things I can’t talk about yet, or Dark Horse will be very unhappy with me. Tom and Mike and I have all known each other a long time and I think our love and enthusiasm for Mike’s creations gave him a fresh jolt of enthusiasm, and a bunch of things came together that weekend. You’ve only seen some of the results of that. It all comes down to Mike, of course. At the end of the day, his imagination is the key. If he lets us play with his toys and we can get him excited about some of the things we want to do, then we all get to have fun. All of the stuff that came from those conversations came down to just having fun.
Mark: You and Mike Mignola have been collaborating for a long time now on the Outerverse, a universe spanning both prose and comics—yet “Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: The Secret of Chesbro House” is your first time doing an actual “Hellboy” comic. Why was now the right time to make the leap from the prose side of the Hellboy Universe to the comics side?
Christopher: Weirdly, “The Secret of Chesbro House” was not something that came from that FanExpo Boston weekend. It came up later, during another phone call we had. Mike had a story he wanted to tell, an homage to some favorite haunted house movies, “The Haunting” and “The Legend of Hell House.” That’s one of my sweet spots, too, and we started talking about how it would work. He had nearly the whole plot worked out, so I take very little credit. It’s about bringing that plot to life, executing it in a way that shows up on the page as close to the way it was in his head as possible. As for why now is the right time, it’s just a natural outgrowth of conversations we’ve been having for many years. I’m honored to be working on this book and on this character I’ve loved since he first stepped onto the page.
Continued belowMark: Joining you on ‘The Secret of Chesbro House’ is artist Shawn McManus. Knowing his work on Bill Willingham’s “Fables,” I’m curious if this was written specifically for McManus. How’d this project come together?
Christopher: I’m a huge fan of Shawn’s, and Mike wanted to work with him, so it was a simple thing. Wait until you see the interior pages from this thing. They’re absolutely beautiful, so weird and creepy. As for how it came together beyond that, I think that’s more an editorial question, although my guess is that when Mignola says he has a two-issue haunted house Hellboy story that Shawn McManus is going to draw, how it comes together is that you just say “yes.”
Mark: Indeed. So, now that you’ve made the leap to the Hellboy comics, can we expect more from you in the future?
Christopher: Yep.
Mark: Awesome.
FALCONSPEARE
— HARDCOVER ORIGINAL GRAPHIC NOVEL —
with colors by Dave Stewart
Written and illustrated by Warwick Johnson-Cadwell
Lettered by Clem RobinsOn sale September 29, 2021
Full color, 56 pages
$17.99
Hardcover, 7″ x 10″Jump into an eerie Victorian-style mystery with an off-kilter, charming twist in the next knockout collaboration from Mike Mignola and Warwick Johnson-Cadwell! Monster hunters extraordinaire Professor Meinhardt, Mr. Knox, and Ms. Van Sloan have teamed up to slay spooks and investigate the uncanny before, but now they’ll tackle a question that’s haunted them for years: What happened to their friend and vampire slayer extraordinaire, James Falconspeare?
Rendered in Johnson-Cadwell’s signature loose, expressive style, and with gorgeous cover from Mignola and colorist Dave Stewart, this hardcover will be a treat for fans of Mr. Higgins Comes Home and Our Encounters with Evil as well as folks new to the world Johnson-Cadwell and Mignola have created.
Mark: I’ve spoken at length about this one already. Needless to say, I’m very excited for it. Plus, it’s really rather nice to keep getting a new volume of “The Adventures of Professor J.T. Meinhardt and His Assistant Mr. Knox” every two years. It’s a tradition I hope to enjoy for some time.
YOUNG HELLBOY: THE HIDDEN LAND
— HARDCOVER COLLECTION —
Written by Mike Mignola and Thomas Sniegoski
Illustrated by Craig Rousseau
Colored by Dave Stewart
Lettered by Clem RobinsOn sale September 15, 2021
FC, 120 pages
$24.99
Hardcover, 7″ x 10″Stranded on a strange island after a mishap on their way to a South American dig site, Hellboy and Professor Bruttenholm are confronted by all manner of monsters on land, sea, and sky! A stranger who rescues them turns out to be one of Hellboy’s heroes, but they still aren’t as safe as they think they are! An old evil that the island protects is about to reawaken, drawing Hellboy and his new allies into a desperate battle! Collects issues #1–#4 of the miniseries.
“A loving tribute to the pulp adventure stories of the 1930s.” —FORBES
Mark: If you’ve been following our reviews here on Mignolaversity, then you already know why you pick this one up. Rather curiously, this is a hardcover collection, not the usual trade paperback, so it should fit nicely next to the hardcover “Hellboy” OGNs.
HELLBOY
— OMNIBUS BOXED SET —
Written by Mike Mignola and John Byrne
Illustrated by Mike Mignola, Duncan Fegredo, Gary Gianni, and Richard Corben
Colored by Dave Stewart, James Sinclair, and Mark Chiarello
Lettered by Pat Brosseau and Clem RobinsOn sale September 29, 2021
FC, 1600 pages
$99.96
Hardcover slipcase, 7″ x 10″Previously available only as individual volumes, all four Hellboy series omnibuses (Seed of Destruction; Strange Places; The Wild Hunt; and Hellboy in Hell) are available together in a specially designed collection!
Featuring an exclusive box with new art by Mike Mignola, expertly colored by Dave Stewart, this set is a marvel both inside and out.
Four Hellboy omnibus collections in a special slipcase featuring new art by Mignola!
Mark: I love this slipcase art, but since I have the library editions I will not be picking this one up. I am, however, picking up the print Dark Horse Direct is doing of the box art. That said, it would make a damn good gift for new fans.
