I kept away from Mike Mignola's vast Hellboy stories until the release of the Hellboy motion picture in 2004 by director Guillermo del Toro. The advertising for the film intrigued me and, then as now, I felt compelled to support any film which had been adapted from a comic book. I went to see the film with my friend Craig and had a really good time; the characters were easy to care for, the plot was easy to grasp and the humour tickled me in the right places. It was the first Guillermo del Toro film I'd ever seen and although I've found much of his work off-putting - gorgeous to look at but a bit too disturbing to be immersive - Hellboy left me with a very good impression of his work.
In 2004 I made various attempts to read Hellboy. I read the first volume of his stories, Seed of Destruction. I read the first volume of BPRD by John Arcudi & Guy Davis. But I'm afraid I never made it very far into the series; from time to time I would see a new Hellboy universe comic on the stands and, taken by the artwork of talents such as John Severin or John Paul Leon, I would try it out. However, I could not make myself care about the world of Hellboy; I found most of the characters to be very thinly-written and off-putting. Unlike their film counterparts, I did not care what happened to them and the goals of their enemies were often very vague.
And then, along came a Hellboy comic which I really liked: the 2008 one-shot BPRD: The Ectoplasmic Man by John Arcudi and Ben Stenbeck. It told the origin of BPRD member Johann Kraus, a character I had been interested in from the start. For the first time, I made a strong emotional attachment to a Hellboy comic, because Arcudi's treatment of Kraus was steeped in emotion. That same year Kraus appeared in del Toro's sequel film Hellboy II: The Golden Army, but, regrettably, he was portrayed by Seth MacFarlane and played principally for laughs.
When word of the new Hellboy film began circulating, I was wary. Del Toro's version of Hellboy was and is my favourite interpretation of the character and learning that he and actor Ron Perlman would not be back dimmed my interest in the film. This was heightened when Mignola stated the new film would be truer to the characters from his comics. Well, great for Mignola, I'm sure, but again, Mignola's version of his cast are not my favourite versions. There was a sense of bad blood between Mignola & del Toro's crew, what with actor Jeffrey Tambor lashing out at Mignola on Twitter. Mignola breaking from del Toro in favour of director Neil Marshall also felt questionable; I mean, giving up an Academy Award-winner in favour of the guy who made Doomsday and a bunch of TV episodes?
But, whatever - I had decided pretty early on that the new Hellboy didn't interest me. I'm only speaking up now because of what I've learned since then - that John Arcudi had been dropped from the Hellboy comics by Mignola and, although the new movie would be employing several of his co-creations, he was apparently shut out of the project, along with Guy Davis. Arcudi has been very modest about this on Twitter, encouraging his fans to keep their cool over this, but this now this film has struck upon one of my most sensitive pet peeves - the treatment of comic book professionals. From where I sit, the picture being painted is of Mignola as a very ungenerous collaborator, a guy who once hired John Byrne to script his comics for him because he lacked confidence in his abilities, now severing ties with the people who helped make his property a success.
All of which is to say: shame on you, Mike Mignola.
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