Does Mike Mignola require an introduction? The cartoonist is best known as the creator of Hellboy, a character brought to the screen by Guillermo del Toro in two films. He co-writes B.P.R.D. an ongoing series from Dark Horse Comics in addition to the occasional miniseries like Witchfinder, Lobster Johnson, Abe Sapien and others. Mignola co-wrote the novel Baltimore with Michael Golden.
Hellboy continues on two tracks. Short comics and miniseries are released by regularity drawn by Mignola himself, Richard Corben and other artists telling stories of Hellboy wandering the earth and investigating the supernatural. Meanwhile in the current The Storm and The Fury written by Mignola and illustrated by Duncan Fegredo, Hellboys life as the beast of the apocalypse and his destiny come to a head. When that miniseries ends, Mignola will return as the regular artist of the book in its new status quo.
His newest book is The Amazing Screw-on Head and Other Curious Objects. It collects the short comic The Amazing Screw-on Head, which was turned into a half hour cartoon for the Scifi Network, and Mignolas favorite comic of his, The Magician and the Snake, which was written by his then seven year old daughter Katie. We spoke with him by phone about the new book.
ALEX DUEBEN: Dark Horse sent me a copy of the book and I really loved it.
MIKE MIGNOLA: Well thats a good start to this. As opposed to, Ive seen it and what were you thinking? [laughs]
AD: [laughs] I read The Amazing Screw-on Head when it first came out, but other than that and The Magician and the Snake, are all the stories in the book new?
MM: The one story I had done before, Abu Gung and the Beanstalk, there was a version of that that I was never happy with so Ive completely redrawn it. But yeah, other than that, its all new.
AD: After The Amazing Screw-on Head came out everyone was wondering when wed see more of the character and the world and youve avoided that.
MM: Ive said a trillion times, as Im sure youve read, the reason I never wanted to do more is because unlike almost everything else Ive done, I felt like I did everything I wanted to do with the character. I got it right the first time. He was never a character who was built, for me, to have more stories. Some characters take on a life of their own. He didnt. He just existed for that number of pages. Originally there was supposed to be a feature at the end of that original story that was his origin. I realized I had no interest in what his origin was, which is why we ended up with this goofy thing of three old women and a monkey. The origin that I had come up with for him wasnt that interesting. It was okay. It would have been fun to draw, but it was kind of making more of this character than he really was.
AD: Here theyre all stories set in the same world
MM: Sort of. It takes place in a non-world. That was one of the biggest problems when they approached me about doing The Amazing Screw-on Head cartoon way back when. They couldnt let go of the idea that it must take place while Abraham Lincoln was President. I kept saying, no, it doesnt take place any time. Its entirely my made up goofy world where it all kind of looks sort of late 19th Century Victorian, but theres no real geography. Its my little toy world. Its not meant to be a real world.
AD: So instead of more Screw-on head, you have a lot of odd interconnected stories sort of connected and its fun to see how they connect.
MM: That was part of the fun. Once we started talking about doing this book and I knew the stories I was going to do, I was looking for a way to connect the stories without really making it too logical. Because I love The Magician and the Snake, I reference The Magician and the Snake visually here. Im going to establish this particular place and go into one panel of Screw-on head, pull this building out and put it here, so this story takes place inside this building that we saw in one panel of The Amazing Screw-on Head. It became a game of connecting these things together without a story thread that connects them together.
AD: How did the idea for the book start? Was it originally just to collect short pieces?
MM: The problem with collecting was that there was only thirty-five pages of material. All I had that I wanted published was The Amazing Screw-on Head and The Magician and the Snake. The Abu Gung and the Beanstalk story, like I said, wasnt very good. It was always going to be a weird book. I knew the title of the book was going to be The Amazing Screw-on Head and Other Curious Objects, but I didnt have the other curious objects. So I did start making up these stories with the sense that I would wrap them around The Amazing Screw-on Head.
AD: The character of Gung the Magnificent, the main character of Abu Gung and the Beanstalk appeared in that one line in Screw-on Head. I think of him as this Robert E. Howard character.
MM: I had done the story Abu Gung and the Beanstalk first. The original version of that story. I had the name Gung banging around and I just liked the name Gung, so I used it again in Screw-on Head. Again, there was no logic. I just thought it was a fun name. When I redid Abu Gung and the Beanstalk for this book I added this Victorian framing device to the story alluding to the character growing up to become Gung the Magnificent. That was one small concession to tying into the Screw-on Head world, but I dont have more stories about that character either.
This really is a book about dead end characters. I did, when I did the original Abu Gung and Beanstalk think, I want to come up with more stories about this character because he was fun to draw. Again, everything felt forced. I find certain characters like Hellboy, I make up the character and stories just keep coming. Other characters, if the stories dont keep coming, I can manufacture a story but its not going to have whatever that first story had. My feeling is, if I did it right, lets just do something else. And the beauty of a book like this, because I knew I had Screw-on Head in there and I knew that was strong, it gave me the freedom to do really odd things because they didnt have to carry the book.
AD: Do you enjoy these odd one-off tales. Hellboy and BPRD are both in the midst of these years long story arcs. Do you enjoy these kinds of short stories?
MM: Well theres benefits to both. Its actually really easy to keep adding to a big ongoing storyline because you dont have a beginning and an end. These things I think are trickier to do, but they are really fun. They are really satisfying. I love to do self contained stories. So much of what Im doing all fits into this Hellboy continuity, it was really fun to do stories that couldnt fit into that world at all.
AD: You write a lot, mostly in this Hellboy/BPRD world. Do you get many odd ideas like these that dont fit anywhere?
MM: You know, I dont. If I because I think right now Im programmed to make up stories because the Hellboy machine is so big, Im programmed to make up Hellboy stories. I was doing this Victorian occult detective character and I made the decision that I didnt want to keep making up stories about that guy because we have too many books going on. If I were still doing that character, as Im reading things and hearing things, part of my brain would be thinking new stories about that character. If I was doing another volume of The Amazing Screw-on Head, part of my brain would be trying to come up with more short stuff like this. Usually I need to have something on the horizon Im making stuff up for.
AD: So no more Witchfinder comics for the time being?
MM: Theres a second volume which John Arcudi wrote, but right now weve got so many books going on, Im just spread too thin. I want to get back to drawing comics. Every book I make up, even if Im not drawing it, seems like I have to draw the cover or I have to co-write it. I want to put all my energies back into drawing comics, so Im kind of putting a lid on some of these things right now.
AD: Are you going to be doing more work with Duncan Fegredo after the current Hellboy story, "The Storm and The Fury," ends?
MM: Ive told Duncan the doors open for him to do whatever he wants to do. He wont be continuing as the major artist of Hellboy. Theres always a place for people to do shorter Hellboy stories, like what Richard Corbens been doing. Basically if Duncan wants to do a story thats set in 1975 that takes place in New Guinea, well do that. But where The Storm and The Fury ends, I will be picking up that Hellboy and continuing that storyline.
AD: And were back to where it was, with you writing and drawing the book.
MM: Yeah. Well, it wont be where it was. It ends in a pretty weird place, but yeah, I will be doing the main ongoing storyline. It doesnt mean Ill be doing it eight issues a year, but the current continuity of Hellboy will be done by me.
AD: the way you phrase that, current continuity. so much of Hellboys tales are set in the past
MM: We talked about short stories. Theyre self contained stories and theyre not burdened with, Im the King of England, Im the beast of the apocalypse. Theyre fun to write because Hellboy was just a guy. The story is about Hellboy doing something and its not about who Hellboy is and its really fortunately the way this thing was structured theres forty some odd years of Hellboy wandering around the world and its a big world so theres no end of stories to do with Hellboy when he was just a regular guy.
AD: I dont want to know any spoilers because thats no fun, but does the new status quo set up chance to tell smaller folklore tales?
MM: There is that element. Again I cant say anything really about what Im doing because I also cant tell what happens, but The Storm and The Fury has really shaped up to be not just the climax of the three books that Duncan and I have done, but its the climax of everything thats been done with Hellboy since I started the comic. Were looking at a major restart when I come back to the book.
AD: Will that be next year?
MM: Um. Its a little early to say. That would be my goal. Its possible that it will end up being 2012 when my book actually comes out. I think The Fury is supposed to come out next year. As soon as I can get them out Ill be getting them out.
AD: Fair enough. You mentioned youre involved in lots of books. BPRD seems to going along nicely. Youre one of the writers. How involved are you in the book?
MM: Most of the time these days my involvement is phone conversations. John [Arcudi] and I talk about where were going. We come up with the broad strokes of where things will go. Im very involved in all that stuff, but the day in day out, the personalities of the characters, thats where John really elevates that book into something else. Im steering it from afar and John is on the ground really doing the character stuff. Im the broad strokes guy. Ill come up with specific bits, but more and more, these characters are his characters. Its my world, but theyre his characters.
AD: And the book has the great Guy Davis on art.
MM: Hes the greatest. With BPRD weve wrapped up what weve been doing. With "The King of Fear," that ends this first cycle of stories and now were in a different place as far as the condition of the world. Its exciting because were making changes as Ive done with Hellboy that can never be unmade. Its not like the Marvel or DC universes where you blow up a city and then the next time we see that city its all rebuilt and everythings fine. If we blow up a city, its probably going to stay a big hole. Were going to be making bigger and bigger changes to the world, so thats exciting to really have this blank canvas to remake things.
AD: Along those lines, are we going to see more books about the BPRD from 1940s?
MM: Weve planned BPRD: 1948 and I think thats as far as were going to go with that. John Arcudi will be writing BPRD: 1948 and we havent settled on an artist for that book, although were talking to some people. I wanted John to do that so he could make whatever connections he wanted to make between that BPRD and the structure of the ongoing BPRD. I wanted to give him a chance to put his stamp on the past since hes dealing with the current BPRD.
AD: You talked about cutting back the number of books youre working on, does that mean less of Abe Sapien or Lobster Johnson books?
MM: Lobster Johnson were trying to get it up and running. Its just we want Guy to do Lobster Johnson and were just trying to find a place where Guy has enough room in his schedule to do it. John Arcudi has written a Lobster Johnson series that is sitting on Guys desk its just a matter of Guy finding the time to do it.
AD: So what else do you have going on
MM: Dont I have enough?
AD: well its a standard question to ask towards end because no matter how much ground weve covered, its always, well actually...
MM: Well actually I do. I am doing another novel with Chris Golden who co-wrote Baltimore with me. Were another project that was originally conceived as a comic that Im never going to get around to doing as a comic so were doing that as a novel. Similar to the Baltimore novel itll be massively illustrated and co-written by Chris and I. I dont know when the hell Im going to do because I seem to have my hands full but yeah my main goal is just to back off the writing as much as a I can and get back to the drawing table.
AD: I would be remiss if i didnt ask about Hellboy 3
MM: I was wondering if we were going to get through this without asking that.
AD: Well if I was talking with Guillermo del Toro, I would ask him
MM: I would think if Hellboy 3 were high on his list of things to do, I think he would have called me by now. But I havent heard from him since he got off the Hobbit. Itd be great if it happened, but again, I never thought they were going to make the first two, so Im sitting here going well, Im not holding my breath. Itd be great but theres point to me spending any time thinking about it because its entirely up to other people whether that happens or not.
AD: How quickly do you draw?
MM: Not quickly at all. Im not fast. I can actually draw kinda fast, but I erase everything I draw nine or ten times. Im amazingly picky. Im my harshest critic. Im amazed actually that Screw-on Head went as smoothly as it did because Ive become such a perfectionist. Good enough isnt a phrase Im real comfortable with because there have been a lot of horrible stuff in the past. As I do less and less drawing, I want it to really be great every time I do it. I was really nervous to do the Screw-on Head stuff because I thought heres new stories that are going to wrap around two of my favorite things Ive ever done. Is it going to be a nightmare where every panel Im second guessing and changing stuff and drawing pages and throwing pages out and redoing things? I did the cover twice, which is not bad for me. Ive done books where Ive done the cover five different times. For the most part, the stories went really smoothly and I had nothing but fun doing them. But no Im not terribly fast.
AD: "The Magician and the Snake," which you did with daughter.
MM: Still my favorite thing Ive done.
AD: How did this story start out?
MM: An editor at Dark Horse had called and asked if I would do a story for an anthology, a six page story, and all she said was, if you could do something that isnt Hellboy thatd be great. I said sure, it would be great to do something that wasnt Hellboy. I had no idea what I was going to do. I went and picked up my daughter from school and she started telling me about this picture she drew at school, about a snake on a rooftop being furious at these floating objects and I said, what the hell are you talking about? [laughs] She told me the story behind that picture and I can point out the place on Seventh avenue in New York where she was when she told me that story and where I said well I dont know what the hell that thing is but thats better than anything I was going to do as a story for that anthology.
The story had that Little Prince quality to it, where its so odd it must be symbolic of something, and there were actually two or three directions I could see going with the story. Not changing her story but just saying when I write it, I can lean it this way this way or this way. I was spending a lot of time away from home at the time so I think it was post-9/11, so there was a gloom and sadness about things. It became this story about not spending enough time with your family and enjoy the time youve got together. That was the spin I put on it in the script, but the actual plot of the story is exactly what she told me. I added the monkey at the beginning. I would have made it a victorian era stage magician, but she art directed that part. She was seven. Hes got to have a pointed hat with stars on it. And she was right, it works better that way. It was just one of those things it took no time to draw. It took no time to write and I just sat back when I was done and said, wow, I dont know that I could do that again. It helps that its only six pages, but it just worked perfect for me.
I tell you, it does make your life a lot simpler when youve got something like that. When you do a story like that once, even if you only do it once, and just sit back and go, even if I dont do anything else, I did that one and that might be as good as it ever gets. Again one of the motivators for getting this Screw-on Head book done was this story which is my favorite has just been in this little odd anthology that very few people have seen. I wanted to make sure this thing got back into print and of course it was originally published in black and white. My daughter has been very insistent over the years that the snake is green and she wants the thing in color.
AD: Has she seen and approved the colored version?
MM: Yes, she approved the colored version.
AD: Shes now waiting on her royalties.
MM: Yeah I think shes sensing that shes gotten skunked once or twice on foreign reprint money. We did discuss her credit on the book. She relinquished having her name on the cover of the book. She gave in on that, but yes, she will be expecting book royalties.
AD: Well, she was listed first in the story credits.
MM: That hasnt been amended. I was like, can I just have my name by myself on the cover? She gave in on that.
Hellboy continues on two tracks. Short comics and miniseries are released by regularity drawn by Mignola himself, Richard Corben and other artists telling stories of Hellboy wandering the earth and investigating the supernatural. Meanwhile in the current The Storm and The Fury written by Mignola and illustrated by Duncan Fegredo, Hellboys life as the beast of the apocalypse and his destiny come to a head. When that miniseries ends, Mignola will return as the regular artist of the book in its new status quo.
His newest book is The Amazing Screw-on Head and Other Curious Objects. It collects the short comic The Amazing Screw-on Head, which was turned into a half hour cartoon for the Scifi Network, and Mignolas favorite comic of his, The Magician and the Snake, which was written by his then seven year old daughter Katie. We spoke with him by phone about the new book.
ALEX DUEBEN: Dark Horse sent me a copy of the book and I really loved it.
MIKE MIGNOLA: Well thats a good start to this. As opposed to, Ive seen it and what were you thinking? [laughs]
AD: [laughs] I read The Amazing Screw-on Head when it first came out, but other than that and The Magician and the Snake, are all the stories in the book new?
MM: The one story I had done before, Abu Gung and the Beanstalk, there was a version of that that I was never happy with so Ive completely redrawn it. But yeah, other than that, its all new.
AD: After The Amazing Screw-on Head came out everyone was wondering when wed see more of the character and the world and youve avoided that.
MM: Ive said a trillion times, as Im sure youve read, the reason I never wanted to do more is because unlike almost everything else Ive done, I felt like I did everything I wanted to do with the character. I got it right the first time. He was never a character who was built, for me, to have more stories. Some characters take on a life of their own. He didnt. He just existed for that number of pages. Originally there was supposed to be a feature at the end of that original story that was his origin. I realized I had no interest in what his origin was, which is why we ended up with this goofy thing of three old women and a monkey. The origin that I had come up with for him wasnt that interesting. It was okay. It would have been fun to draw, but it was kind of making more of this character than he really was.
AD: Here theyre all stories set in the same world
MM: Sort of. It takes place in a non-world. That was one of the biggest problems when they approached me about doing The Amazing Screw-on Head cartoon way back when. They couldnt let go of the idea that it must take place while Abraham Lincoln was President. I kept saying, no, it doesnt take place any time. Its entirely my made up goofy world where it all kind of looks sort of late 19th Century Victorian, but theres no real geography. Its my little toy world. Its not meant to be a real world.
AD: So instead of more Screw-on head, you have a lot of odd interconnected stories sort of connected and its fun to see how they connect.
MM: That was part of the fun. Once we started talking about doing this book and I knew the stories I was going to do, I was looking for a way to connect the stories without really making it too logical. Because I love The Magician and the Snake, I reference The Magician and the Snake visually here. Im going to establish this particular place and go into one panel of Screw-on head, pull this building out and put it here, so this story takes place inside this building that we saw in one panel of The Amazing Screw-on Head. It became a game of connecting these things together without a story thread that connects them together.
AD: How did the idea for the book start? Was it originally just to collect short pieces?
MM: The problem with collecting was that there was only thirty-five pages of material. All I had that I wanted published was The Amazing Screw-on Head and The Magician and the Snake. The Abu Gung and the Beanstalk story, like I said, wasnt very good. It was always going to be a weird book. I knew the title of the book was going to be The Amazing Screw-on Head and Other Curious Objects, but I didnt have the other curious objects. So I did start making up these stories with the sense that I would wrap them around The Amazing Screw-on Head.
AD: The character of Gung the Magnificent, the main character of Abu Gung and the Beanstalk appeared in that one line in Screw-on Head. I think of him as this Robert E. Howard character.
MM: I had done the story Abu Gung and the Beanstalk first. The original version of that story. I had the name Gung banging around and I just liked the name Gung, so I used it again in Screw-on Head. Again, there was no logic. I just thought it was a fun name. When I redid Abu Gung and the Beanstalk for this book I added this Victorian framing device to the story alluding to the character growing up to become Gung the Magnificent. That was one small concession to tying into the Screw-on Head world, but I dont have more stories about that character either.
This really is a book about dead end characters. I did, when I did the original Abu Gung and Beanstalk think, I want to come up with more stories about this character because he was fun to draw. Again, everything felt forced. I find certain characters like Hellboy, I make up the character and stories just keep coming. Other characters, if the stories dont keep coming, I can manufacture a story but its not going to have whatever that first story had. My feeling is, if I did it right, lets just do something else. And the beauty of a book like this, because I knew I had Screw-on Head in there and I knew that was strong, it gave me the freedom to do really odd things because they didnt have to carry the book.
AD: Do you enjoy these odd one-off tales. Hellboy and BPRD are both in the midst of these years long story arcs. Do you enjoy these kinds of short stories?
MM: Well theres benefits to both. Its actually really easy to keep adding to a big ongoing storyline because you dont have a beginning and an end. These things I think are trickier to do, but they are really fun. They are really satisfying. I love to do self contained stories. So much of what Im doing all fits into this Hellboy continuity, it was really fun to do stories that couldnt fit into that world at all.
AD: You write a lot, mostly in this Hellboy/BPRD world. Do you get many odd ideas like these that dont fit anywhere?
MM: You know, I dont. If I because I think right now Im programmed to make up stories because the Hellboy machine is so big, Im programmed to make up Hellboy stories. I was doing this Victorian occult detective character and I made the decision that I didnt want to keep making up stories about that guy because we have too many books going on. If I were still doing that character, as Im reading things and hearing things, part of my brain would be thinking new stories about that character. If I was doing another volume of The Amazing Screw-on Head, part of my brain would be trying to come up with more short stuff like this. Usually I need to have something on the horizon Im making stuff up for.
AD: So no more Witchfinder comics for the time being?
MM: Theres a second volume which John Arcudi wrote, but right now weve got so many books going on, Im just spread too thin. I want to get back to drawing comics. Every book I make up, even if Im not drawing it, seems like I have to draw the cover or I have to co-write it. I want to put all my energies back into drawing comics, so Im kind of putting a lid on some of these things right now.
AD: Are you going to be doing more work with Duncan Fegredo after the current Hellboy story, "The Storm and The Fury," ends?
MM: Ive told Duncan the doors open for him to do whatever he wants to do. He wont be continuing as the major artist of Hellboy. Theres always a place for people to do shorter Hellboy stories, like what Richard Corbens been doing. Basically if Duncan wants to do a story thats set in 1975 that takes place in New Guinea, well do that. But where The Storm and The Fury ends, I will be picking up that Hellboy and continuing that storyline.
AD: And were back to where it was, with you writing and drawing the book.
MM: Yeah. Well, it wont be where it was. It ends in a pretty weird place, but yeah, I will be doing the main ongoing storyline. It doesnt mean Ill be doing it eight issues a year, but the current continuity of Hellboy will be done by me.
AD: the way you phrase that, current continuity. so much of Hellboys tales are set in the past
MM: We talked about short stories. Theyre self contained stories and theyre not burdened with, Im the King of England, Im the beast of the apocalypse. Theyre fun to write because Hellboy was just a guy. The story is about Hellboy doing something and its not about who Hellboy is and its really fortunately the way this thing was structured theres forty some odd years of Hellboy wandering around the world and its a big world so theres no end of stories to do with Hellboy when he was just a regular guy.
AD: I dont want to know any spoilers because thats no fun, but does the new status quo set up chance to tell smaller folklore tales?
MM: There is that element. Again I cant say anything really about what Im doing because I also cant tell what happens, but The Storm and The Fury has really shaped up to be not just the climax of the three books that Duncan and I have done, but its the climax of everything thats been done with Hellboy since I started the comic. Were looking at a major restart when I come back to the book.
AD: Will that be next year?
MM: Um. Its a little early to say. That would be my goal. Its possible that it will end up being 2012 when my book actually comes out. I think The Fury is supposed to come out next year. As soon as I can get them out Ill be getting them out.
AD: Fair enough. You mentioned youre involved in lots of books. BPRD seems to going along nicely. Youre one of the writers. How involved are you in the book?
MM: Most of the time these days my involvement is phone conversations. John [Arcudi] and I talk about where were going. We come up with the broad strokes of where things will go. Im very involved in all that stuff, but the day in day out, the personalities of the characters, thats where John really elevates that book into something else. Im steering it from afar and John is on the ground really doing the character stuff. Im the broad strokes guy. Ill come up with specific bits, but more and more, these characters are his characters. Its my world, but theyre his characters.
AD: And the book has the great Guy Davis on art.
MM: Hes the greatest. With BPRD weve wrapped up what weve been doing. With "The King of Fear," that ends this first cycle of stories and now were in a different place as far as the condition of the world. Its exciting because were making changes as Ive done with Hellboy that can never be unmade. Its not like the Marvel or DC universes where you blow up a city and then the next time we see that city its all rebuilt and everythings fine. If we blow up a city, its probably going to stay a big hole. Were going to be making bigger and bigger changes to the world, so thats exciting to really have this blank canvas to remake things.
AD: Along those lines, are we going to see more books about the BPRD from 1940s?
MM: Weve planned BPRD: 1948 and I think thats as far as were going to go with that. John Arcudi will be writing BPRD: 1948 and we havent settled on an artist for that book, although were talking to some people. I wanted John to do that so he could make whatever connections he wanted to make between that BPRD and the structure of the ongoing BPRD. I wanted to give him a chance to put his stamp on the past since hes dealing with the current BPRD.
AD: You talked about cutting back the number of books youre working on, does that mean less of Abe Sapien or Lobster Johnson books?
MM: Lobster Johnson were trying to get it up and running. Its just we want Guy to do Lobster Johnson and were just trying to find a place where Guy has enough room in his schedule to do it. John Arcudi has written a Lobster Johnson series that is sitting on Guys desk its just a matter of Guy finding the time to do it.
AD: So what else do you have going on
MM: Dont I have enough?
AD: well its a standard question to ask towards end because no matter how much ground weve covered, its always, well actually...
MM: Well actually I do. I am doing another novel with Chris Golden who co-wrote Baltimore with me. Were another project that was originally conceived as a comic that Im never going to get around to doing as a comic so were doing that as a novel. Similar to the Baltimore novel itll be massively illustrated and co-written by Chris and I. I dont know when the hell Im going to do because I seem to have my hands full but yeah my main goal is just to back off the writing as much as a I can and get back to the drawing table.
AD: I would be remiss if i didnt ask about Hellboy 3
MM: I was wondering if we were going to get through this without asking that.
AD: Well if I was talking with Guillermo del Toro, I would ask him
MM: I would think if Hellboy 3 were high on his list of things to do, I think he would have called me by now. But I havent heard from him since he got off the Hobbit. Itd be great if it happened, but again, I never thought they were going to make the first two, so Im sitting here going well, Im not holding my breath. Itd be great but theres point to me spending any time thinking about it because its entirely up to other people whether that happens or not.
AD: How quickly do you draw?
MM: Not quickly at all. Im not fast. I can actually draw kinda fast, but I erase everything I draw nine or ten times. Im amazingly picky. Im my harshest critic. Im amazed actually that Screw-on Head went as smoothly as it did because Ive become such a perfectionist. Good enough isnt a phrase Im real comfortable with because there have been a lot of horrible stuff in the past. As I do less and less drawing, I want it to really be great every time I do it. I was really nervous to do the Screw-on Head stuff because I thought heres new stories that are going to wrap around two of my favorite things Ive ever done. Is it going to be a nightmare where every panel Im second guessing and changing stuff and drawing pages and throwing pages out and redoing things? I did the cover twice, which is not bad for me. Ive done books where Ive done the cover five different times. For the most part, the stories went really smoothly and I had nothing but fun doing them. But no Im not terribly fast.
AD: "The Magician and the Snake," which you did with daughter.
MM: Still my favorite thing Ive done.
AD: How did this story start out?
MM: An editor at Dark Horse had called and asked if I would do a story for an anthology, a six page story, and all she said was, if you could do something that isnt Hellboy thatd be great. I said sure, it would be great to do something that wasnt Hellboy. I had no idea what I was going to do. I went and picked up my daughter from school and she started telling me about this picture she drew at school, about a snake on a rooftop being furious at these floating objects and I said, what the hell are you talking about? [laughs] She told me the story behind that picture and I can point out the place on Seventh avenue in New York where she was when she told me that story and where I said well I dont know what the hell that thing is but thats better than anything I was going to do as a story for that anthology.
The story had that Little Prince quality to it, where its so odd it must be symbolic of something, and there were actually two or three directions I could see going with the story. Not changing her story but just saying when I write it, I can lean it this way this way or this way. I was spending a lot of time away from home at the time so I think it was post-9/11, so there was a gloom and sadness about things. It became this story about not spending enough time with your family and enjoy the time youve got together. That was the spin I put on it in the script, but the actual plot of the story is exactly what she told me. I added the monkey at the beginning. I would have made it a victorian era stage magician, but she art directed that part. She was seven. Hes got to have a pointed hat with stars on it. And she was right, it works better that way. It was just one of those things it took no time to draw. It took no time to write and I just sat back when I was done and said, wow, I dont know that I could do that again. It helps that its only six pages, but it just worked perfect for me.
I tell you, it does make your life a lot simpler when youve got something like that. When you do a story like that once, even if you only do it once, and just sit back and go, even if I dont do anything else, I did that one and that might be as good as it ever gets. Again one of the motivators for getting this Screw-on Head book done was this story which is my favorite has just been in this little odd anthology that very few people have seen. I wanted to make sure this thing got back into print and of course it was originally published in black and white. My daughter has been very insistent over the years that the snake is green and she wants the thing in color.
AD: Has she seen and approved the colored version?
MM: Yes, she approved the colored version.
AD: Shes now waiting on her royalties.
MM: Yeah I think shes sensing that shes gotten skunked once or twice on foreign reprint money. We did discuss her credit on the book. She relinquished having her name on the cover of the book. She gave in on that, but yes, she will be expecting book royalties.
AD: Well, she was listed first in the story credits.
MM: That hasnt been amended. I was like, can I just have my name by myself on the cover? She gave in on that.