How Did You Come Up With That?

First a note of clarification.  Currently, HELLBOY ANIMATED consists of two, direct-to-video movies.  It may become more than that, in fact it's likely it will, but that's what I'm talking about in this blog.  Details about the subject matter will come when certain contracts are signed so for the time being I'll continue to keep things general.  But there'll be surprises here and there.  Look for Liz and Abe sometime before Christmas.

However, I do want to go through the animation process and show how we try to put a Mignola twist on every step.  So how did I start with Hellboy?   Well, research of a sort.  Obviously there's the comics but to come up with multiple stories I needed more than that.  I have all sorts of books on strange places, the paranormal, exobiology, ghosts and monsters, etc.. It's not like I have a huge library because you quickly find that the same topics are repeated endlessly but I've looked to them for subject matter from Darkwing Duck to Team Atlantis.   But when an animated Hellboy became a possibility I consciously chose to "research" in a different way.  I went to the sources of Mike Mignola's inspiration; what did he read that led him to Hellboy?

Short answer: lots.   Mike doesn't have a library.  He has libraries.  His studio room is practically floor to ceiling books along every wall other than the one his drawing table leans against.  There's a room called "The Library" which has more books than the studio and then the excess spills over to bedrooms and closets.  Does this guy know about TV?  Anyway, he pours a lot into his brain that comes out his fingers as Hellboy.  However, there are some writers that really pointed the way.

Okay, the big one is the book on the right, Dracula by Bram Stoker.  That's my edition which includes all sorts of extra material.  This is the book that hit Mike like a bolt of lightning and made him think, "Yeah, this is what I want to do in my life."  I had never read it, thinking I knew it from the various movies.  Now you can put yourself to sleep reading Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde will never have the impact that it did on its original audience who didn't know the two men were the same guy but Dracula still works.  If you're any sort of fan of the supernatural, you owe yourself this.  Give yourself an early Christmas present.

Mike hit the used bookstores in his youth just as paperback publishers were releasing editions of the pulp masters.  Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard and all the Weird Tales writers got a second life in print.  That's probably where Mike saw his first Frazetta covers too that had such a big impact on his art.  People talk about Lovecraft's influence in  Hellboy but aside from the notion of an ancient alien race worshiped as gods and humans mutated by them, I don't see a lot of it.  I think the genre as a whole is what influenced him.  Mike cites William Hope Hodgson as a favorite.  I found these cool volumes from Nightshade Books that collect all of his work.  Hodgson wrote of strange adventures on the Sargasso Sea, a mass of seaweed the size of country where ships are trapped, their crew fighting for their lives against giant monsters and the pale amphibians that live beneath the growth. 

When we were thinking of a Hellboy series, these stories led to a Hellboy episode where the tramp steamer he was traveling on was similarly snared.  We not only had giant crabs and creepy amphibians but the ghosts of victims and a pirate-like Hellboy from the past.  That's when I knew things were on the right track because it was a looong way from the brain switching, incredible shrinking man, bring back the dinosaurs, stories that are continually rehashed in American animation.

Nightshade Books also puts out a series of the work of Manly Wade Wellman.  I got some of those but the real find was a paperback I found in a used bookshop in Arcata, California, a tiny town stuck in a sixties/early seventies time warp. Mike told me that those stories came closest to what he set out to do with Hellboy.  John roams the hills of rural America, singing for meals and lending a hand where he can.  His travels always seem to land him in the middle of supernatural struggles.   You definitely see echoes of him in the early Hellboy short stories before the series got caught up in the Right Hand of Doom, Hellboy's destiny and the apocalypse stuff.  Not that I don't love that stuff too.

I also got some books on folklore and one of them became the inspiration for the first movie.  Next post I'll talk about the process that the story goes through and how Mike is involved.

--Tad

Comments

[David Petersen]

Wonderful recomendations Tad! John the Ballaeer sounds Great! Fun stuff.

[David Server]

Cool update, nice to see what goes into the 'Hellboy Stew', so to speak. Also; Abe and Liz before Christmas? Suh-weet! Thanks, Tad!

[Matt]

This blog could be an amazing DVD extra for how the comic book was adapted to animation. Thanks Tad for making this an amazing experience before the launch of the movie/DVD.

[Shonokin]

Also a common part of Wellman's mythology is the use of St Dunstan (in the Judge Persuivant stories), which we've seen in some Hellboy, notably Box Full of Evil.
Thanks for keeping up with this blog Tad, it's very fun to see what is going into this production as it goes. -Shonokin

[Poe]

Heh--I've read all those books (Hodgson, Wellman, and so forth) after reading about them in interviews with Mignola.

The Hodgson is excellent. He's unjustly forgotten. The Wellman material is also interesting, though I didn't find it quite as compelling myself.

I have to say, though, that I reread Dracula recently, and it just...it just doesn't do it for me. It's achingly slow and, in case you don't remember from when you read it in fifth grade, Van Helsing is not so much an ass-kicking mofo (Van Helsing w/ Hugh Jackman) or borderline psychopath (Bram Stoker's Dracula) as he is a crazy old man who talks a lot. I mean, a LOT. He speechifies. He pontificates. And so forth.

But anyway, different strokes &c. I prefer Frankenstein myself, but that's a snoozer to plenty of people too.

[Tad]

Hodgson was my favorite discovery too. I think people may find Dracula slow because they know so much of the story, distorted or not.

We're talking some neat extras for the blog, many of them comic centric. There will also be a full website that this blog will be linked to.

[Henry]

Great stuff, Tad.

The narrative through
"correspondence" in Dracula is tough for a lot of people these days... We've gotten so used to digesting stories visually. The detached past tense tends to be, well... obtuse, maybe?

It's funny, I have all those Howard Conan paperbacks with the Frazetta covers. I wouldn't be where I'm sitting if it weren't for those covers. They lured me to fantasy \ horror \ sci-fi too.

Mike and I were talking one time about who influenced us and I mentioned my trinity -- Burroughs, Howard and Lovecraft. I asked which which books he read for most of his ideas...and he said, "I just read the back of the paperbacks." He explained they usually provide a paragraph of teasing description of all the good stuff inside. I realize Hellboy is like that... It's chalk full of all the good stuff. Only the good stuff.

[phil]

this is a great opportunity to get a look inside at the creative process...as much as i can't wait to see the final product, it is a thrill getting a peek into what the larval stages are like as they happen. very cool.

anyone know the name of the production house this is coming through, and if they'll be picking up any other projects between their hellboy efforts?

[phil]

ok, i'm an idiot...so IDT is the production company here...at any rate, its the second question i'm still curious about...

[Tad]

There is no "between" on the Hellboy projects. This weekend I'm already going over the second draft script of the second movie. The crew moves from the first to the second without a break. But do a Google treasure hunt for IDT horror and IDT superhero and you'll find SPAWN, STAN LEE, Rob Zombie's Superbeasto and more. The company seems to think there's a great market for sf/fantasy of all sorts.

[Royce Day]

If I could be so bold, I might recommend some additional reading for you. Kenneth Hite's excellent "Suppressed Transmission" collumns for Pyramid Online http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/login/ (warning: subscription site) are wonderful resources for various wierd conspiracies, odd histories, and strange events, and how to tie them together into almost *anything*. The collumms are availible in the Pyramid archives, and have also been collected into two print editions availible at Warehouse 23 http://www.warehouse23.com/item.html?id=SJG3005

[phil]

ahh, i gotcha. thanks tad. i'll take a gander at what google has to offer on IDT.

[Poe]

Tad, did IDT have anything to do with the revamped He-Man cartoon a couple years ago?

[Orrin]

I had a comic book when I was a kid that was clearly an adaptation of one of those Sargasso Sea stories. It had the giant crabs and whatnot in it, and it was completely awesome and hugely influential upon me. Unfortunately, I don't know where it went, though its probably still somewhere among the boxes and boxes of comics that I have back home.

I need to track down the original stories now that I know who wrote them. Where's a good place to start?

[samhain]

I've never read Hodgson, but I was *just* thinking about Wellman as a potential source for the series. The plots of the stories are not the compelling part. It's the music and the musical way the people talk that would translate so well to animation. That and the uniquely bizarre critters, from "The Desrick on Yandro" in particular. Rafe Enoch the giant would be cool as well.

Daniel Ross has a great Wellman website

http://www.manlywadewellman.com/

and a folk singer named Joe Betancourt has recorded a bunch of Wellman's songs

http://www.whitetreeaz.com/cd/whofears.htm

[taterpatch]

For some visual inspiration on Wellman-type settings, look up the photos of Shelby Lee Adams. More over-the-top than Walker Evans even. There's a good documentary about him.

THE TRUE MEANING OF PICTURES
ISBN 0767058100
ISBN/ISSN 767685956731
Shelby Lee Adams has been photographing the eastern Kentucky Appalachian mountain people for thirty years, and been both praised and derided for his portraits of impoverished Appalachian families. Accused of perpetuating stereotypes, Adams is said to exploit his subjects; this documentary explores the controversy. The director allows Adams, his critics and the subjects of his work to speak their minds.

Sorry so pushy. I'm excited. That picture from the Baen collection, with the succubus draped across Silver John, has been burning a hole in my mind-pockets for years.

[Dominic Shaw]

Hi Tad! I just heard about this today and had to come and find out more, it's great that you're keeping the fans informed. I do like the look of Hellboy so far, my only concerns are how much of Hellboy's world and how much of the mythos will translate across to the show, I mean will it be Hellboy does Ghostbusters? I have to admit that despite my best attempts to separate the film from the comics I still loathe it for the way it turned HB into some kind of Marvel superhero (amongst other things!). Anyway I wish you the best of luck!!

[Tad]

Just today I had a discussion of why Liz Sherman is not the Human Torch and that Abe Sapien is not Aquaman. There's a tendency, because of the superhero trappings of the characters, to expect them to do the same things that are seen in Teen Titans or Justice League, both great shows, both not Hellboy. Liz hates using her fire except in the smallest of ways because she can lose control because it feels so good to release it. Unless Abe is in water, he's just another agent, stronger and tougher than most but just an agent. Hellboy is something else entirely and I think the second movie begins to examine that.