Hellboy Animated

Bad Guys

They're up to something.

Something bad.

Does it take more than that to make an interesting villain?  Arguably, no.  A lot of the fun of Hellboy: Sword of Storms is the variety of antagonists.  Vampire heads, the Spider Lady and the turtle-shelled kappa all wanted to do Hellboy harm.  Yeah, they were working for other villains, but within their episodes they mostly wanted Hellboy dead.  Did they have personalities?  Sure... well, not certain about the kappa, but the rest were mostly given a unique feel by the actors who played them.

In Hellboy: Blood and Iron  Erzsebet, the Blood Countess, is after youth and revenge against Professor Broom.  Her viciousness and her back story make her more interesting than the monsters of the previous movie.  She's not working for someone else, she is her own master.   Definitely a step up, I think.  The more formidable the adversary, the bigger challenge to our heroes.  It is her nature that makes the movie so much darker in tone than the first.

The villains of  Hellboy: The Phantom Claw often take the center stage.  You only see Kronen and Ilsa in a flashback to Hellboy's summoning but Rasputin, Von Klempt, Kriegaffes, Roderick Zinco and a Frankenstein monster army all have major parts to play.  Beyond giving each a personality that an actor can embroider, each has a different agenda and some of those are in conflict.

Before I go on, I guess I have to point out that this discussion of story may include minor spoilers but nothing that isn't already printed in the Hellboy books.

Rasputin is the charismatic manipulator, we see how he seduces and deceives people into doing his will.  He is the zealot with a grand vision who demands that people put aside everything for his goal.  If your wealth will help the cause, he'll take it - or rather convince you to donate it.  If your family is a distraction, they will be removed.  Rasputin is an interesting antagonist because he believes he is doing the greater good, bringing paradise to Earth.  The fact that it requires scouring the present planet of all life doesn't seem to bother him.  He is also an intelligent villain who is thinking well beyond the others.

Von Klempt is the put upon villain.  He has his own plan, to create an army of dead guys - you see them in Conqueror Worm.  To him, connecting dead body parts to robots makes sense.  As Mike Mignola told me, "At least you can rob banks with them," which, I suppose, is as good a gauge as any to determine the practicality of any villain's plan.  There's an amusing side to Von Klempt's situation - whenever he gets close to pulling off his plan, Rasputin shows up and turns his resources toward his "end the world to birth a new one" obsession.  I hope that he'll provide some laughs but he is by no means a comic relief character.

Roderick Zinco is a billionaire who joined a secret society, THE WOTANIC CIRCLE, in order to gain access to the equipment that brought Hellboy into the world, equipment that promises a limitless source of energy.  Zinco's journey to Hell through the picture is the classic cautionary horror story of "be careful what you wish for."  He is the canvas upon which Rasputin's evil is traced.

Kriegaffe, the "war ape," is muscle but his relationship with Von Klempt might make you a touch sympathetic, even while he's using a zombie body as a club to beat you.

These bad buys should give The Phantom Claw a completely different feel from the first two movies.  They are also part of the reason that Liz and Abe won't be along.  We need the time to make them richer and paint a more detailed picture of their relationship to Hellboy.  And how their stories are bound to Hellboy's origin... and destiny.  --Tad

Ebb and Flow

Kevin Hopps, screenwriter of Hellboy: Blood and Iron, once worked for a story editor who had taken over a series under trying circumstances.  Although he might not have agreed with the change, he approached his new boss with a positive attitude, "I enjoy working for a variety a editors because I learn their different ways of writing.  Now I can learn your way of writing."

"You mean 'the right way' of writing," replied the editor with no hint of humor.

I've got no use for people like that.  When it comes to creativity, there are a million ways to approach a task.  That's why Kevin will still buy "How to Write" type books even though he's had a very successful career writing for television - he's always looking to learn something new or get a fresh insight on a technique he already knows.  Kevin is currently working with Greg Weisman on the new Spider-man series.  I bring up his story to underline my attitude in writing this blog.

This blog is about my way of doing things, seasoned with info on Mike Mignola's way of doing things or  Guillermo del Toro's or maybe someone on my crew.  Even more specifically, it's my way of approaching and dealing with the creative and pragmatic issues of, Hellboy: The Phantom Claw.

I'm heading into the action climax of the script.  Because animation requires the writer to direct on the page, I can't simply say, "they fight."  That's possible in a feature film where the writer is a guy with a story sketch pad and 4 x 8 foot bulletin boards to fill, but in anything like television production you have to give the overworked storyboard artist something to start with.  And you can't write, "Hellboy hits the monster.  The monster hits him back."  You have to break the action down into detail.

"Hellboy hits the monster with his big right hand which ripples the octopus-like mass of its body.  Hellboy smiles.  "How did that fee--" BAM! A tentacle smacks him out of the shot.  Hellboy smacks up against the wall, chipping the granite.  He lands in a heap at the bottom.  "Crap."

That's about a sentence of description for every "shot", which is every time the camera is put in a different position... even though there's no set and we're just pretending there's a camera moving around.  Then you have to describe how you want the camera to view the action - CLOSE, WIDE, OTS HELLBOY ON MONSTER (over Hellboy's shoulder, looking at the monster).  My scripts are VERY detailed but that's because I'm usually the producer or director too.  The script are my specific notes to the storyboard artist but every writer has to suggest basics.  But the overall fight should tell a story with suspense, a build, a surprise, maybe some humor, and an end.  That's the ebb and flow of the title of this post.

Oh, and I suppose there are minor spoilers here unless Mike throws the whole sequence out and assuming we get to produce this movie.  Did you buy your copy of Hellboy: Sword of Storms yet?

I start with deciding the basic action - Kate and a little boy are being swarmed with zombie-like creatures, animated cadavers that are Frankenstein-like creations of dead flesh and robot parts. (For brevity's sake, I call them zombies.)  Kate keeps them at bay with a wrench but there are too many of them.  They are saved by the sudden appearance of Lobster Johnson.   That much Mike and I worked out when we wrote the story, even down to the detail of the wrench which is an important prop in a later scene.

I don't have a copy of my next step which is when I think about the overall flow and brainstorm specific details and gags.  Sometimes it's not even on lined paper.  It's just half sentence descriptions or lines of dialogue like, "We have to find Hellboy," which is more specific to the moment and to what Kate is thinking than the more generic, and obvious, "We have to get out of here."  It's like written doodling.  I'm seeing bits of the movie in my head.  I liked the visual of Kate swinging one of those huge wrenches that are the size of baseball bats, the sort of thing that can do serious zombie damage.  Finally I decide I'm just procrastinating and I put down the thoughts in a more orderly way like you see above.

I could go right to the computer at this point but I'm still keeping it loose.  You can see I might doodle something to clarify it in my head.  It aids in my describing it.  It occurred to me at this stage to make the reveal of the big wrench more of a moment.  Kate is using a small wrench, spots something OS.  She tosses the wrench at the closest zombie, hard enough to knock its head around and piss it off.  It turns back and sees she has the huge wrench ready.  Note I've already noted the camera angle -- if she swings it right at camera then it's from the zombie's POV.  The doodle is more detailed than usual which means I was thinking about details of the moment -- or procrastinating.  I added a little color here to help show what's going on.

I don't always do it but sometimes I take it one more step before switching to computer especially if I'm going to be distracted as I work.  In this case I have a production to run during the day so the script is always on my screen but I rarely have a long run on it.  Anyway, one of the most important things in writing action is to make it unique to that sequence.  This will get harder and harder in future scripts as we struggle to keep Hellboy's monster bashing fresh.  So in this case, I kept coming back to the wrench.  It's Kate's only weapon but it's damn heavy.  She can't wield it for too long.  Her exhaustion is great for building the feeling of hopelessness before the save by Lobster Johnson.  Wrenches are metal - great conductors of electricity - so I thought she could throw the wrench at a zombie, it catches it, which distracts it while she's arranging for its electrocution.  Free associating, I realized the zombie could use the wrench against her.  I let the electrocuted zombie get in one last swing.  Should he be dead?  What's logical or realistic is always juggled with what is cool and thrilling.  Go watch the desert chase in Raiders of the Lost Ark.  And speaking of Indiana Jones, remember the opening cave sequence in Raiders where the stone door is coming down and Indy reaches back to get his hat?  I remembered that I needed Kate to have the wrench in a later scene which led to a slight gag - Lobster rescues them, they run out then Kate risks danger again to grab the wrench.

Now I type.  This shows you the format and the detail.  I have to add description for both the storyboard artist AND the actor.  The actors work off a full script so Peri Gilpin will be able to read that Kate is dumbfounded when she sees Lobster Johnson.  Is he alive?  Is he a replacement?  Am I hallucinating?  The poor girl is confused which is dangerous when zombies are after you.

Whoa.  That was a long one.  But it's a glimpse into my working process.  I might skip the legal pad steps completely if the treatment is detailed and there's less action, but it's a crutch to get me focused.  Next time, who knows?  Watch Hellboy: Blood and Iron this weekend!  Check the listings of Cartoon Network.

The Pulps and The Lobster

Mike Mignola loves the writing of "the Pulps."  There was a time when reading was the main source of entertainment for people.  That started shifting when the cutting edge media of radio took over the ears and hearts of the world.

Mike and I aren't so old as to remember them the first time around.  I first heard about them around the edges of comic fandom while Mike plunged into the reprint editions of the seventies.  You've heard of Doc Savage, The Shadow and The Green Hornet, no doubt (if not, start Googling!) but the one who had the biggest influence on Mike's own pulp creation was The Spider.

He was created as an answer to The Shadow but was more ruthless and much crazier the the more popular caped avenger.  He had a cigarette lighter with a secret bottom that would affix a small, scarlet spider sticker to the foreheads of the men he killed.

A sticker?

Really?

The Lobster is much scarier than that.  You'll learn much more about him in a coming Dark Horse Comics mini-series written by Mike Mignola.  There'll be a new definition of "action-packed" by the time you get through reading it.  To the left and right are two covers from the mini-series.

In The Phantom Claw you'll see Lobster Johnson about the same way he was portrayed in The Conqueror Worm.  I know a lot more about the character but Mike, quite rightly, wants to tell that story himself. 

But I'll tell you what he is not.  He is not a simplistic do-gooder with a chiseled jaw and a sparkling smile.  He does not "quip."  He is not the Lone Ranger in goggles.  He is as dark and quirky a character as you have ever seen crawl from the mind of Mike Mignola.

And that can be very quirky indeed.

Next up: I glimpse into my writing process when dealing with animated action.  Meanwhile, don't forget Hellboy: Blood and Iron this weekend!  Watch for a new trailer online.

--Tad

The Phantom Claw

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I was going to wait until the production has a green light but the script for the next Hellboy Animated is headed into the climax and I wanted to talk about the specifics of the creative process in something close to "real time."  So ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, let's begin the story of The Phantom Claw.

After Sword of Storms was underway, Mike and I got together to talk about the second movie.  We thought we'd cover Hellboy's origin and tie it to activities that were underway in the same location today.  What if someone uncovered all the WW2 equipment and the spirit of Rasputin guided them toward recreating the process that brought Hellboy to Earth?  I don't think we wrote a full treatment but it was a very long, extended premise and all the key points were in there.

Generally, we were left on our own to create these movies but Lloyd Levin, one of the producers of Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy movie, called up Mike.  His point was that we were telling the same story as the movie.  "The fans have read the origin in the comics and saw a variation of it in the movie.  The animated films should be about expanding the franchise."  My knee jerk reaction was that it wasn't the same story at all except for the origin.  It was nothing like the movie.  But Mike pointed out that a large chunk of it was and that it started the same way as the live action movie.  He said we should stick our necks out and do something original.

That led to Hellboy Blood and Iron.  We started with an original then brought in Hecate and once we had Hecate, that gave us other players from the comic.  So although it began as completely new stuff, we pulled heavily from the second Hellboy trade paperback, Wake the Devil.   Judge for yourself on March 17 on Cartoon Network -- for those of you who can get it.

I think it was around the time Mike visited the studio and saw all the artwork, that he finally believed we were making the animated movies.  From time to time we would talk about future stories.  He pointed out that since there would be a bigger gap between movie two and three that one and two so we needed something to bring the fans back.  "Let's give them Lobster Johnson."  Of course, discussion subsided because we had a couple of movies to produce.  At that point he decided that he better get off his butt and write his Lobster Johnson stories.  Visit the Dark Horse website for more on that!

When it came time to talk seriously about the third movie, three elements resurfaced:  Lobster Johnson, Hellboy's origin, and classic Universal Monster movies.  If Sword of Storms was the folklore side of Hellboy, Blood and Iron the vampire/Hammer Films side then The Phantom Claw is the mad scientist/weird technology aspect of Hellboy stories.  This film will be completely different than the first two.

Finally, a few general notes then I have to get back to the script.   Abe and Liz are not along on this adventure.   Professor Broom only sends Hellboy and Kate Corrigan to investigate the castle where Hellboy was summoned to Earth.  No one has been back there since the War, kept out by a secret society working behind the scenes.  (Yes, the animated version has a different origin locale than the feature which is different from the comic).  Lobster Johnson will appear in various forms but the movie is not about him.  The closest comic to his role is Conqueror Worm and a variation of the scene that you see above will be in the movie.  There will be glimpses of Ilsa, Leopold and Kronen in the flashbacks to Hellboy's origin but they'll be closest to their comic counterparts.  Rasputin is the major villain although we'll introduce another who Mike is so excited about that he's threatened to design the guy himself.  Cool.

Next post, we'll talk Lobster.  You think you know him and who should play him but you don't know The Lobster!

--Tad