Mike Mignola: ‘Hellboy’ Creator Says His Hell Is ‘Very Cozy’

Mike Mignola, the creator of the Hellboy comic book character who would go on to be expertly portrayed by Ron Perlman in the Guillermo del Toro film of the same name, appeared at the Long Beach Comic Con yesterday in California.

While at the convention, Mike Mignola said he very well could spend the rest of his career with Hellboy, according to Hero Complex.

“I find the hell that I’ve created very, very cozy. I don’t want to leave it. If you could look inside my head, this is the world that’s in there. It’s entirely made out of the things I like. I just want to draw that world. The trouble is, that world’s really big, so it’s going to take a really long time to draw it.”

The mild-mannered Mignola worked for Marvel Comics in the early 1980’s, inking on Daredevil and Power Man and Iron Fist and later on titles such as The Incredible Hulk, Alpha Flight and a Rocket Raccoon limited series. In the late 1980’s, Mike made the switch to DC Comics, drawing the Phantom Stranger and World of Krypton limited series. Mignola drew covers for several Batman titles, including Batman: A Death in the Family and Dark Knight, Dark City. Writer Brian Augustyn and Mignola did the Gotham by Gaslight one-shot in 1989, and through the early 1990s, Mignola worked on covers and backup features for titles at both DC and Marvel Comics.

Finally, in 1994, Mignola stopped doing work-for-hire illustration and released his creator-owned comic through Dark Horse called Hellboy: Seed of Destruction. The comic was a hit, and a hellacious legend was born.

Mike Mignola appeared at the “Hellboy in Hell: 20 Years of Hellboy” panel at the Long Beach Comic Con yesterday.

Though Mignola’s creation has maintained a presence in comics for twenty years, Mignola was asked by a fan how he might end Hellboy, (as in the character and not necessarily the series).

“The trick when you have an endpoint is, when do you do it? Do you do it and say, ‘I’m done’? I can’t imagine ever not doing Hellboy. I can’t imagine ever not doing that world. At the same time, if you’ve got a big finale, you want to do it before you’re too old and shaky. So we will do that endpoint, and I’ve come up with a way to do that endpoint without it being the end of the book.”

Though Mike Mignola and the star of the Hellboy films, Ron Perlman, have both voiced their desire for a third Hellboy film, according to Entertainment Weekly, the director of the first two, Guillermo del Toro, has said that a third film probably wouldn’t get the funding to get made.

images via DelToro Con and Lushrain