00 - Mignola, Mike - Hellboy Interior Art

Before you settle in, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you click the button that says "switch view to alphabetically by title". This will put all the pages in chronological order. Okay now my rambling comments/praise will make sense... Mignola's early Hellboy art is full of lush black shadows, mix of moody architecture, sardonic wit, amazing characters and best of all, some of the most amazing art I have seen in a really long time! On "Hellboy: Seed of Destruction", Mike was uncomfortable writing this by himself and thought that the name recognition of John Byrne might help sales. But according to John, Mike had such strong ideas that he practically wrote it all and John just polished the dialog. Mike was also afraid that this would be his only chance to do his own characters and after this, he would be stuck doing other people's characters and plots. So he wanted to go out with a bang and threw everything he loved into this story. You have to love modest artists! Mike Mignola's third series, "Hellboy: Wake the Devil" was where he really relaxed and let the art flow without a lot of the photo-referencing and tight linework that you see in the first two Hellboy series. And the results are beautiful. The art is definately one of the high points of the entire Hellboy series. he kept all his moody shadows and textures while letting the noodlier details disappear. Beautiful stuff!! After "Hellboy: Wake the Devil", Mignola started to shift away from the photo realistic details. You can see the evolution of his art, culminating in "Hellboy: Conquorer Worm". Mignola really starts focusing on the deconstruction of his shapes and the way things connect and flow into each other. As you look at these pages, notice how each face is made up of a mosaic of shapes. yet instead of getting simple and childish, they somehow seem to tap into the deeper sence of "being". Mike seems to get past the veneer of surface and digs right down to the essence of what he draws. Amazing stuff!!