The San Diego Comic-con panel on Hellboy Animated was a huge success. In a thousand seat room we had standing room only and probably qualified for a couple of fire violations. The response to the five minute opening sequence of Hellboy Sword of Storms seemed overwhelmingly positive.
If you want to see the entire panel, including the first sequence, you can download it by clicking the link I included in the post, "See It For Yourself."
But I still get comments here, and in email, asking me if I've seen the computer animated Hellboy test or The Amazing Screw-on Head pilot. Guys, I probably saw them way before you. In fact I KNOW I saw The Amazing Screw-on Head before you unless you're on the crew, or a close friend of someone working on it. Do I regret not being able to style Hellboy like that? No. Quite the contrary. So here are my thoughts for the record:
The show was nowhere near as quirky as the comic. It imposed structure and character relationships that edged it toward the normal. However every change was arguably necessary to create an ongoing series. Was it funny? Yes. I enjoyed the title sequence that revealed the secret history of SoH. The hookah bit was genius. I enjoyed plenty of the new stuff but did not like the parts that suggested the breaking of the fourth wall (camera move when SoH shouts at Emperor Zombie as he flies off with his woman). If I hadn't read the comic, I most likely would've rolled on the floor, laughing. I enjoy Brian Fuller's other shows, Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls and I suspect the writing will only get better and wackier. Go to SciFi and vote for the show - then go out and buy the DVD of Wonderfalls, you won't be sorry.
Did the pilot "perfectly capture the look of Mignola?" Absolutely not. Sorry, I've spent a lot of time studying Mike's artwork and all I see are all the scenes where they got it wrong. Being this anal about it surprises me; I'm pefectly willing to accept organic webshooters and killing off every other Xman for a movie. I guess I'm too close to his work. Lots of stuff looked ugly to me. The original character designs were much stronger than what you see in the pilot. The overseas crew must've been rushed (that crew is busy working on another Mignola project right now - this one) or they were over extended with other work. Using black shadows on characters is a tricky job. I don't know that you can really make it work on a TV budget. But the fact that this production reads as Mignola to so many fans, even avid collectors of Mignola art, means they came pretty close. Can't please everyone (boy, do I know that!)
What Might Have Been
I'll never know just what we would've ended up with if we were allowed to imitate Mike's work. There were unproduced episodes of the Team Atlantis show where my character designer, Greg Guler, got closer and closer but it was more the Ironwolf Mignola which looked pretty sweet. Glen Murakami (Teen Titans) worked on designs for the show. I never got to see them but he was zeroing in on a simplified Mignola look. I'm sure we would've tried, then discarded, black shadows on characters... precisely because our stories require more atmosphere than a Screw-on Head farce. The shadows on the characters have to relate to the shadows on the background or the characters won't fit.
Even when I wanted the characters to look as close to Mike's work as possible, I knew I didn't want the backgrounds to look like the comic. It looks great on the page but cheap on the screen. Think of your favorite animated features. I bet they have fully rendered backgrounds. Even Samurai Jack, a brilliantly art directed series which has less rendering, used all sorts of subtle color choices. My early thoughts were to try Mike's color wash technique that he used on his book covers, Bones of Giants and Odd Jobs. Disney's Atlantis tried to limit color and rendering for a more graphic look and while I liked many of the backgrounds, they didn't carry the atmosphere and mood that they could've.
So that's the kind of thinking that goes into creative decisions. It's not as simple as "It's a Mignola project so it should look like Mignola." In trying to capture the feel that you get from a Mignola story, it led us away from his art style. Not that we had a choice. -- Tad
