If Hellboy is the all-American, indestructible demon with the Right Hand of Doom, then Dylan Dog is his handsome, eccentric, phobic (and horny) European cousin, with a penchant for the clarinet.

And then he goes on to explain why it matters that Hellboy is packed with references to 1920s and 30s pulp fiction, while Dylan Dog is jammed with movie references. If you're craving some solid literary criticism, or just want to get ready for the Dylan Dog movie, check this one out. [via Pop Matters]

Despite the show's new home in the Indigo Ballroom of the Hilton San Diego Bayfront — right next door to the San Diego Convention Center, meaning a short walk for those attending SDCC — there was a sense of familiarity to this year's ceremony, from the hosts and presenters (Bill Morrison, Jane Wiedlin and Reno 911's Tom Lennon and Ben Garant all returned from last year) to some of the winners (James Jean and Dave Stewart must be getting bored of winning by now, surely). Thankfully, this year's ceremony was devoid of last year's sponsor-friendly celebrity moments, however, and several lost categories brought the evening in at a shorter time than last year's epic event (Although the ceremony still clocked in at three hours).

Surprises of the night included superhero books sweeping Best Continuing Series and Best New Series (with Matt Fraction, collecting Invincible Iron Man's award for the latter, dedicating it to Stéphane Peru, the series' colorist who died last year, and reminding the audience to donate to the Hero Initiative, which helps with healthcare costs for comic creators in need) and the success of Dark Horse's Hellboy franchise, which took five awards throughout the evening.

The award winners in full:
Best Continuing Series
All Star Superman by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, published by DC Comics
Best New Series
The Invincible Iron Man by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larocca, published by Marvel Comics
Best Limited Series
Hellboy: The Crooked Man by Mike Mignola and Richard Corben, published by Dark Horse Comics
Best Publication for KidsTiny Titans by Art Baltazar and Franco, published by DC Comics
Best Publication for Teens/Tweens
Coraline by P. Craig Russell, adapted from the novel by Neil Gaiman, published by HarperCollins Children's Books
Best Webcomic
Finder by Carla Speed McNeil
Best Humor Publication
Herbie Archives by Richard E. Hughes and Ogden Whitney, published by Dark Horse Comics
Best Reality-Based Work
What It Is by Lynda Barry, published by Drawn & Quarterly
Best Graphic Album - New
Swallow Me Whole by Nate Powell, published by Top Shelf Comix
Best Graphic Album - Reprint
Hellboy Library Edition Vols. 1 & 2 by Mike Mignola, published by Dark Horse Comics
Best Archival Collection/Project - Strips
Little Nemo In Slumberland: Many More Splendid Sundays by Winsor McCay, published by Sunday Press Books
Best Archival Collection/Project - Comic Books
Creepy Archives by various, published by Dark Horse Comics
Best US Edition of International Material
The Last Muskateer by Jason, published by Fantagraphics
Best US Edition of International Material, Japan
Dororo by Osamu Tezuka, published by Vertical
Best Anthology
Comic Book Tattoo: Narrative Art Inspired By The Lyrics And Music of Tori Amos edited by Rantz Hoseley, published by Image Comics
Best Short Story
"Murder He Wrote," by Ian Boothby, Nina Matsumoto and Andrew Pepoy, from The Simpsons' Treehouse Of Terror #14, published by Bongo Comics
Best Writer
Bill Willingham for Fables and House of Mystery, published by Vertigo/DC Comics
Best Writer/Artist
Chris Ware for Acme Novelty Library, published by Acme
Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team
Guy Davis for BPRD, published by Dark Horse Comics
Best Painter/Multimedia Artist
Jill Thompson for Magic Trixie and Magic Trixie Sleeps Over, published by Harper Collins Children's Books
Best Cover Artist
James Jean for Fables, published by DC Comics, and The Umbrella Academy, published by Dark Horse Comics
Best Coloring
Dave Stewart for Abe Sapien: The Drowning, BPRD, The Goon, Hellboy, Solomon Kane and The Umbrella Academy, published by Dark Horse, and for Body Bags, published by Image Comics and Captain America: White, published by Marvel Comics
Best Lettering
Chris Ware for Acme Novelty Library #19, published by Acme
The Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award
Eleanor Davis for Stinky, published by Toon Books
The Bill Finger Excellence In Comics Writing Award
John Broome and Frank Jacobs
The Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award
Denis Kitchen
Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism
Comic Book Resources, produced by Jonah Weiland
Best Comics-Related Book
Kirby: King of Comics by Mark Evanier, published by Abrams
Best Production Design
Hellboy Library Editions, designed by Cary Grazzini and Mike Mignola
Hall Of Fame
Harold Gray, Graham Ingels (Judge's Choices), Matt Baker, Reed Crandall, Russ Heath and Jerry Iger
The Will Eisner Spirit of Retailing Award
Tate's Comics + Toys, Lauderhill, FL

The Hollywood Reporter's Risky Business blog noted that the studio is developing Rick Remender's Dark Horse comic as part of the overall development deal with the Oregon-based publisher set up following the two companies' partnership on Hellboy II: The Golden Army last year. Fear Agent was created in 2005 by Remender and artist Tony Moore as a series that its author describes as "a mix of our favorite three EC genres, Horror, Sci-Fi and War" that focuses on Heath Huston, one of Earth's last Fear Agents - men and women trained to defend the planet from alien attacks, and his none-too-glamorous attempts to live up to that legacy despite himself.

Will Dark Horse's 'Fear Agent' ride into theaters? [THR Risky Business]

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen:

Michael Bay, Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox had a press conference in South Korea, and here's the whole thing. [TLAMB]

Deadpool:

Ryan Reynolds has a promise for you about his Deadpool solo film:

He's going to be the Merc with the Mouth, [we're going to give] all those answers that everyone wants. He's going to have the scarred-up face, he's going to be in the suit - and, it's going to be incredible.

Right now, he says they're just working out what the spine of the story will be, including what antagonists Wade will face, and whehter there will be flashbacks or flash-forwards or what. [MTV]

The Hobbit:

Not sure how much we're covering this franchise, but in any case Guillermo del Toro says the plan is no longer to adapt this book into two movies plus a "bridge" movie. Instead, the new plan is simply to adapt the book into two movies, adding in some subplot material. What subplots, you ask?

There is a whole other chapter, so to speak, which is the comings and going of Gandalf which are dealt with, people that know the lore know that Gandalf was delayed with a crisis… with a character that is very shady called the Necromancer that proves to be Sauron.

Also, he says Andy Serkis, Ian McKellen and Hugo Weaving are back in their roles from the earlier films. And he says he's definitely still directing Frankenstein, with Doug Jones playing the monster. But he says Blade IV and Hellboy III will probably never happen, and he's only producing Jekyll and Hyde, not directing. [Slashfilm]

Zombieland:

Here are the first official photos from this zombie comedy, which has the following storyline:

Jesse Eisenberg plays Columbus, a teenage who has made a habit of running from what scares him. Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) doesn't have fears. If he did, he'd kick their ever-living ass. In a world overrun by zombies, these two are perfectly evolved survivors. But now, they're about to stare down the most terrifying prospect of all: each other. The film also stars Emma Stone (Superbad) and Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine).

More pics at the link. [AICN]

Moon:

It's not just that the duplicate Sam meets on the Moon is a clone — the "original" Sam is a clone too, says director Duncan Jones. After he's injured in an accident, the robot Gerty activates an "energetic and irritable" copy of him. The older Sam is burned out and ready to go home, the newly activated Sam is still the guy who was eager to escape his wife and go to the Moon. They bicker and fight, until they realize that the mining company views both of them as disposable. [Wired]

Lost:

Shannon probably won't be back next season, but Charlie might turn up, you never know. And Rebecca Mader says she's eager to come back and play Charlotte for one or two episodes. [E! Online]

Torchwood:

The new five-part miniseries "Children Of Earth" pushes the Torchwood storyline forward, but leaves the door open for a fourth season, says Eve Myles. It starts with the gang still grieving their lost comrades, but then they have to put that aside and face a new threat, in a bigger storyline than the show's had before. It ends up with the team's relationships to each other, and to the world, greatly transformed. [Wired]

Battlestar Galactica:

Did we already show you this teaser for this fall's TV movie, "The Plan"? Just in case, here it is. There's more coming on Friday night, during Primeval.

Dollhouse:

So why will season two be better than season one? Joss Whedon explains:

We really understand the show now. We understand what works, and what didn't work so well or what we weren't so thrilled about. We don't have the onus of trying to be a big hit sitting on our shoulders. We can just be ourselves. And so the stories we're breaking are pure, and exciting, and everybody's on-board in the room, and it's never flowed better.

As for what will happen, he says the stories will expand on the second half of season one, and a lot of the plots are driven by wanting to have the most fun with these actors, and seeing all the stuff Eliza Dushku can become. Plus expanding the mythology of the Dollhouse. As for Alpha, the season won't pick up right away with "We've got to find Alpha!" Rather, the character will be used sparingly. As for Echo, here's her storyline in the new season:

Echo wants to find not just Caroline, but what's going on behind everything. She doesn't have all of the skills. [Laughs] But she does have this weird super power of becoming a different person all the time, so she might start using that more specifically to find out who Caroline was and what happened to her and why this place exists.

And surprise: Echo's past imprints may not be as wiped out as the Dollhouse would like to believe. [EW]

Supernatural:

Jensen Ackles says the Winchesters won't be calling the shots in the war between Heaven and Hell, but they may play a pivotal role. To some extent, the Winchesters will just be caught in the middle, but they will lend whatever help they can to Castiel and the other angels. And Ackles says Sam's demon blood addiction will remain a problem next season:

The demon stuff is still coursing through his veins, and he's got that to deal with. The season finale ended with the big, giant realization that he was being duped into becoming what he didn't want to be. So now he's got to deal with that and try to get back to neutral

Also, he says that a sixth season of the show isn't really all that likely. All he and Padalecki meant, when they talked about season six at that convention in England, is that they're signed up for six seasons. So if it happens, they have to be part of it. [E! Online]

Virtuality:

Ronald D. Moore talks more about the strands that run through this TV movie, airing June 26:

I think some of the fundamental questions on the show go to things like "What is real? What is not real in this story? What is manipulation? What is not manipulation?" If we went to series we would continue to explore that, and we'd play different characters starting to unravel different mysteries. What are they telling them from Earth, and is that true? Are they just being paranoid? Is somebody aboard manipulating their messages, the virtual reality? There are a lot of mysteries and certain interesting things that were set up that we would continue to play if the show went to series.

[Sci Fi Wire]

True Blood:

Sam Trammell and Rutina Wesley talk season two on a morning talk show:

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown.

Talking to MTV, the incredibly busy del Toro said that it'll be some time before we see a third Hellboy movie:

We’re three, four years away from anything happening—so I don’t think anyone is, you know, in a big hurry.

However, he did reveal that he'll happily step aside for another director helming a BPRD movie, focusing on the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense that (spoilers) Hellboy, Liz and Abe all quit at the end of The Golden Army. Whether or not Universal Studios think there's enough profit in a spin-off from the franchise without del Toro's involvement is open to question - they had to be convinced to make Hellboy II, after all - but I'd love to see what a BPRD movie could be like... as long as we get some Ben Daimio out of the whole deal.

‘Hellboy 3′ Three Or Four Years Away, Says Guillermo Del Toro [MTV Splash Page]

Let's go through the non-teen girl books first, shall we? Marvel are trying to empty your wallet by releasing two new X-Men series (X-Men: Noir, which recreates the characters in a 1920s setting, and X-Infernus, a sequel to "Inferno," the 1980s storyline; there's also a hardcover collection of the second half of Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men making it to stores as well), as well as the first issue of Ender's Shadow: Battle School, ground-level retro series Marvels: Eye Of The Camera and a hardcover collection of the first half-year of Matt Fraction's great Invincible Iron Man. Almost as fun is Project Superpowers, a hardcover collection of Dynamite Entertainment's wonderful, freaky and none-more-odd superhero revival series, in which big business makes zombies out of soldiers and only superhero buddhists from the '40s can save us. Or something.

Non-superhero, but more movie-friendly, books can be found in Hellboy: The Wild Hunt - a new series for Mike Mignola's demonic demon hunter - and The Spirit, a collection of Will Eisner's original stories that inspired (but not enough) Frank Miller's upcoming movie.

But even those books pale before DC's big launch for the week, Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures In The 8th Grade; a new series that aims to bring the Maid of Steel back to school and back to being something that non-emotionally stunted adult males can enjoy again. As much as I'm all for the reclamation of Supergirl by her original audience, mind you, it's not the best book you'll see this week. That honor falls to The War at Ellsmere, the new book by Faith Erin Hicks, which goes a little something like this:

Jun is the newest scholarship student at the prestigious Ellsmere girls' boarding school - but to a lot of the privileged rich girls, "scholarship student" is just a code for "charity case." Fortunately, Jun has an ally in the quirky Cassie, who swears the stories about the fierce creature that lives in the forest outside of the school are true. Between queen bees and mythical beasts, Jun has quite the school year ahead of her.

You can find a preview here, but as someone who loved Hicks' previous book, Zombies Calling, I can happily recommend this one.

Even if you're not the type of person who's willing to read about schoolgirls fighting crime and monsters, there's plenty more where that came from reaching stores tomorrow; check here, if you don't believe me. And if you are that type of person, you should probably head to your local comic store to take care of that particular jones. Just don't ask for "the book about the young girls in uniforms."

ToyCyte calls our attention to the amazing papercraft design for this gun, which isn't just cool-looking but is apparently functional. It even includes papercraft bullets. Just visit the Way Nifty blog and check out their 14 pages of patterns - you can print them out, cut them out, and start folding your way into supernatural badassery. Perfect for a weekend indoors, hiding from the winter cold.

Samaritan Gun Papercraft [Way Nifty via ToyCyte]

Mignola admitted with a laugh that he hadn't actually seen the DVD extras on Hellboy 2 yet, but that he's excited about them. "There's a big documentary in it that I'm curious to see," he said. "I think I'm in it!"

We discussed the difference between Mignola's Hellboy, he of the comic books, and Del Toro's Hellboy in the movies. While Mignola gave Del Toro a lot of advice about how to treat Hellboy in the first flick, Del Toro pretty much took over the character in Hellboy 2 and he really became quite different from our beloved comic book Hellboy. For one thing, movie Hellboy is shacking up with firegirl Liz and having a lot of marital strife.

Mignola said:

My character is much more of a gruff old guy and the one in the film is a kid — he has a lack of maturity. There's a lot of "I like the girl and she doesn't like me." You see that with Abe Sapien too. In the comic all that stuff happened off camera. Hellboy's been around and had relationships and now he's a gruff guy dealing with bigger issues. One of the things Hollywood always needs is a girl. They look at that as where the story arc's gotta be. You're trying for as broad an audience as possible, and you need to humanize the characters. So the first thing you think is there's gotta be a love interest. I'm sure the studio would have suggested that [for Hellboy 2] if Del Toro hadn't suggested it.

While Del Toro controls the movie Hellboy, Mignola maintains control of the entire Hellboy universe in the comic books from Dark Horse. There's the central Hellboy comic, which he writes and often illustrates. And then there are spinoff books like BPRD (about the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense where Hellboy works), Abe Sapien (the solo adventures of Hellboy's fishy friend), and Lobster Johnson (a terrific, crazy sendup of 30s action adventure stories).

Mignola gives us some hints about what's coming up in the Hellboyverse:

We're starting Lobster Johnson at year one, building up to gigantic frenzy that will alter the world. For Hellboy, we're in the middle of a 4-book arc that will alter that character. I'm running the show, so I can say that this character isn't intended to last for a hundred years so he can sell underwear for some company. He's going to change and it's not going to be just a change of costume. We can cut off a leg and it will stay gone.

Plus, there's good news for those of us who adore Mignola's non-Hellboy stuff:

I'm starting a Victorian occult detective series set in the Hellboy world. There are also some non-Hellboy stories I've been talking about doing. Maybe companions to The Amazing Screw-On Head.

By writing his Victorian detective story, and returning to Screw-On Head, which takes place during the Lincoln Administration in America, Mignola is returning to historical territory he wants to explore more.
He said:

I love the nineteenth century. I love it visually, and as I'm writing the Victorian occult detective book – I can't draw it, I don't have the time - but as I write it it's just made of scenes I wish I could draw. That's part of the future of Hellboy that I envision – we may see some of that [Victoriana].

Finally, we asked Mignola what he thought of the new adolescent angst vampire movie Twilight. He said:

My daughter is very excited about it, but I'd rather not watch it. Twilight is too much the real world, it's not my kind of vampire. I prefer an old-school vampire. I co-wrote an old-shcool vampire novel with Christopher Golden [called Baltimore, or The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire], and we've been struggling with a screen adaptation of it. We're trying to make an old school vampire movie. But the problem is that if nobody's made one in the last five years – nobody wants to make one.

The movie is slated to come out in 2010, with David "Dark Knight" Goyer as director. Here's hoping they can keep it old-school.

Let's get the new stuff out of the way, first; Dark Horse and DC are both celebrating Hallowe'en a little bit early, with a new Hellboy novel (The All-Seeing Eye) and a new adaptation of The Evil Dead from the Oregon publisher, and a special DC Universe: Hallowe'en 08 oneshot from the Gotham City purveyor. DC's also putting out Final Crisis: Submit, a one-off tie-in to their ongoing Final Crisis series - which has a much-delayed fourth issue out this week, as well.

In terms of new material from Marvel, you're pretty much stuck with Wolverine: Manifest Destiny, which sees the short hairy one with the claws fight super-powered ninjas in San Francisco (and I only wish that I was joking about that), or Ghost Rider: Danny Ketch, a new series about the Ghost Rider that wasn't the one that Nicolas Cage played in that ill-fated movie.

But, really, this week is all about the reprints. Marvel have the most run-of-the-mill of the week, although for every X-Force: Angels And Demons, you also get an Elektra By Frank Miller Omnibus or Sky Doll hardcover. They're also putting out a hardcover of Longshot, the wonderfully neurotic miniseries about a fake boy in a fake decade by Ann Nocenti, who later found her niche as the editor of High Times. It's genuinely worth checking out. DC have two must-have collections this week: a new edition of Paul Pope's wonderful Heavy Liquid and a new collection of Will Eisner's The Spirit strips called Femme Fatales that will both tie in with, and embarrass in terms of quality, the Frank Miller movie at the end of the year. There's also the first in a series of six Y: The Last Man hardcover collections, for those who missed out on the series the first two times.

Weirdly enough, though, the most unexpected release to hit stores tomorrow is a blast from my past and enough of an oddity to make the curious and strong of stomach amongst you shell out the $30-odd necessary to try out The Complete Ace Trucking Co. Volume 1, a lengthy and entirely unusual collection of 2000AD's misguided attempt to try and jump on the CB radio craze of 1980s Britain by creating an unfunny sitcom about space truckers. Who talk in CB lingo. Really, there's no way to do it justice by trying to explain it. Just buy it and see for yourself.

The complete list of this week's new comic releases will give you even more ways for you to spend your money, but only the Comic Shop Locator Service will tell you where said money should be spent. Your humble narrator, of course, simply tells you which of the new releases you should be craving.

Counting down...

5. Arian Camilleri's Shudderblind website mostly consists of his efforts in portraiture photography. His series of photos featuring a miniature skeleton is captivating. They're both comic and tragic, making the little guy the Hamlet of the miniature form. Standing, lying down or in a pile of ash, the skeletal hero is almost too human to bear. There's something about the loneliness of the skeleton's plight that's more hopeless-feeling than three of the four Saw sequels.

4. Erik Deutscher's Animal Instinct Studios uses Star Wars and other scifi elements to create sprawling scenes with insane amounts of detail. His talent for photography brings the whole thing to life. Check out this awsome fight between a bunch of stormtroopers and rebels in a forest setting:

3. This diorama, built to advertise Halo 3, stands 12 feet tall and is peopled with 8 to 19-inch hand-crafted figures. Sure, it was made for a marketing campaign, but hey, that was one hell of a campaign. And any scene that ranges 12 feet high has to be enough to grab your attention.

2. Lego miniaturist Andrew Lee is doing plenty of exciting work with the materials you played with as a child, featuring robots made out of Lego and mechas that are worth taking a long look at. He did some of his best work with the machinery from The Matrix, putting more consistency into his designs than the Wachowskis did into the last two films.

1. Unlike most of our other miniaturists, Greg Easton's talents are less on the technical side, and more on the conceptual tip. Based in Cranston, Rhode Island, Easton has a talent for using off-the-shelf figurines to create something captivating and amusing, as in this Hellboy series.

The current craze for Vampires was probably kick-started by the success of last year's movie version of cult comic 30 Days of Night, which did for bloodsuckers what 28 Days Later did for the undead years before. That movie may have snuck in on the back of the comic book craze (starting, as it did, as a 2002 comic by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith), but it also heralded today's new lust for blood: While HBO's True Blood may not be entirely winning us over, the channel is happy enough with the ratings - or perhaps just the zeitgiest-surfing qualities of the show - to order a second season. And why not? Once the David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve made sucking blood weirdly sexy twenty years ago.
Maybe that explains why both Cloverfield director Matt Reeves and Hellboy's Guillermo Del Toro are turning to Nosferatu's children for their next projects (Reeves will be directing a remake of cult Swedish vampire movie Lat den ratte komma in, while Del Toro has just signed a deal to co-write a trilogy of vampire novels). We thought that it might've been pirates, or maybe ninjas, but no - it really is Vampires that are the new superheroes, who were the new zombies. Give it a year, and we'll all be bored of the sight of blood.

Release of the week (if you exclude Oni Press' brilliant, worth-30-bucks, and totally non-SF Local hardcover) is probably Dark Horse's first two trade paperback collections of Astro Boy. These give new fans a very cheap ($14.95 for 400+ pages each) chance to experience Osamu Tezuka's wonderful series for themselves, in advance of the upcoming movie version. Almost equally recommended is the final issue of DC's All Star Superman series, wherein Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly demonstrate the eternal power of the Man of Steel even after killing him off last issue.

Dark Horse also offers Abe Sapien Volume 1: The Drowning for fans of Hellboy's merman best buddy, and DC are going for the topicality vote with the first issue of DCU: Decisions, in which we get to find out whether Batman is really a Republican or not once and for all, because... well, God knows why, really. If you're looking for a better way to spend your DC-bound dollars, consider the worth of Superman: Kryptonite, a new hardcover collecting a story by The New Frontier's Darwyn Cooke and Heroes's Tim Sale about Superman's first run-in with the glowing green stuff.

Over at the House of Ideas, they're pretty much taking the week off, unless you're looking for stories about kid supergroup Power Pack (They have both their Skulls vs series and a digest collection of Day One out this week). Jeff Parker and Paul Tobin's fun retro mini The Age Of The Sentry debuts, and the Silver Surfer gets an unfortunately somber, humorless send-off in the paperback version of Silver Surfer: Requiem. Much more fun can be found in Red5 Comics' Abyss, which releases its first collection this week.

If you're hit by the desire to see what else is going to be hitting your store shelves this week, you should head here, before checking out the Comic Shop Locator Service to locate your local comic store. Just remember to style your hair in an appropriately pointed direction before going in, just to honor everyone's favorite atomic pinocchio.

After listing Del Toro's multitude of future projects (like Frankenstein and Slaughterhouse Five, never mind that whole The Hobbit thing), the end of the Variety article reads:

Meanwhile, del Toro is awaiting word on whether U[niversal] will embrace a follow-up to "Hellboy 2: The Golden Army." The big-budget film opened in the heat of summer and fell short of blockbuster status in the U.S. but has performed well overseas.

"I think they’ll decide when the last euro hits the piggybank," del Toro said. "We laid the groundwork to have a magnificent third act. I’d like to return to an action franchise with 60-year-old actor Ron Perlman, because he’ll be scratching at that age when I get to it."

Langley said the studio is interested and may work with del Toro to add a TV series and online segments to broaden the following before making the series finale.

The "Langley" in question isn't the CIA headquarters made famous by shows like Chuck and Alias - although it would be great if they were the people in charge of future Hellboy decisions - but Universal's President of Production, Donna Langley. This isn't the first time that she's spoken in support of the Mignola/Del Toro franchise, but it is the first time she's suggested that it may extend to television. Could this be the next Buffy The Vampire Slayer in waiting? Only time - and the movie's foreign box office - will tell.

Guillermo Del Toro booked thru 2017 [Variety, via Blog@Newsarama]

In an interview with MTV, Mignola talked about his concern that the character could be killed off before he's had a chance to say goodbye:

“The problem is, what del Toro’s talked about to me is that ‘Hellboy III’ would be the end of Hellboy,” Mignola said. “And here’s where we have the big conflict. My version of Hellboy in the comics is a finite story, but it’s going to take me 15 years to get to the ending. If he makes Hellboy III and it’s the death of Hellboy, I’m left doing the comic going, ‘But I’m not done yet.’

15 years might seem like a stretch, but Mignola does have some time to get to the end of Big Red before the movie version meets his end. Del Toro is working on the epic undertaking that is The Hobbit (which is still in pre-pre-production), and it would probably be at least four years until del Toro can even think about another Hellboy. So there's plenty of time for Hellboy's kids and eventual demise to play out in Mignola's pages. The prolonged work on The Hobbit might even give everyone enough time to change their minds and keep everyone's favorite blue-collar demon hunter alive.

We think that Mignola deserves to have the final say in how Big Red goes (having, you know, created him), and I'm sure del Toro will take that into consideration on the third film. Let's hope studio pressure doesn't step in and ruin the great balance between these two minds. But what if the studio doesdecides to kill of Hellboy because it would make for a fitting ending to a trilogy?

"That will be between me, del Toro, and my therapist,” Mignola laughed. “I’m still raising Hellboy. I’m not done with the character yet.”

Could ‘Hellboy III’ Mean The Death Of Hellboy? We Ask Creator Mike Mignola [MTV Splash Page]

Thursday afternoon, EW's Nisha Goplan introduced Jim Lee, John Cassaday, Matt Fraction, Mike Mignola, Robert Kirkman, Colleen Doran and Grant Morrison to an eager audience, and then shut up and let them do the talking. The short version of the event would go something like this: Comics can do anything, comic creators should be less afraid to try to do anything and everything they want, and Mike Mignola really can't stop himself swearing accidentally. But why give you a short version when we can let the panelists talk for themselves?

On Movies' Influence On Comics:

Kirkman: I don't think [movies] will change the content, I don't think it should change the content. Hollywood comes to us because of our content.

Morrison: I think we should write comic books that are more like comic books.

Mignola: The plus side is, I think some things are getting published... because they might see potential in it somewhere else...

Morrison: Hollywood's got a lot of rules, it's very formulaic. Comics should break those rules.

Mignola: It's sad to see people changing their structure to fit [the Hollywood rule]... Let's do the comic and see someone else turn it into a film.

Lee: I think it's the opposite, I see a lot of movies and TV shows like Lost following the comics form.

Morrison: Death to Hollywood!

Mike Mignola On The Pluses And Minuses On The Hellboy Movies:

You try your best to convince yourself that you're doing the best thing, and then you spend the rest of your life explaining yourself that, no, Hellboy doesn't have a girlfriend... You live in the shadow of the movie. But you make your peace with it. Or don't license the character.

On The Future Of Print Comics:

Fraction: As long as there's print, there'll be comics. We're a cheap, easy, nasty, swarthy medium. We'll be the last to go... I've yet to see an iPhone that can beat a comic.

Cassaday: I can't stare at my computer screen for very long.

Morrison: You can't take your computer in the bath,

Kirkman: Yes you can!

Morrison: This man knows more than me.

Kirkman: Do you mean bathroom or bath?

Morrison: I mean bath, being immersed, I mean, water is the best element.

Kirkman: We'll talk later.

Mignola: We sure sound like visionaries, don't we?

Grant Morrison On The Need For Superheroes:

I think superheroes are more relevant now than they've ever been before. Superheroes have become this desperate attempt to imagine the future for ourselves. Superheroes and Star Trek. They represent something that isn't a cowboy for the West to be. I don't know if we'll ever reach it, because we have a lot of good bombs.

On working on personal projects against corporate creations:

Fraction: A lot of guys like me, their own stuff doesn't pay the bills. It doesn't even buy lunch. If you write the X-Men, it's okay, bills are paid.

Mignola: Find some time in between commercial projects and try something. I firmly believed that, after I'd done the first Hellboy, I'd go back and do another Batman book. But when you try that thing, you should really make sure that it's something you love so that if it's successful, you're stuck doing the thing you love.

Doran: Too many people treat their entire project as an audition for the rest of their career.

Robert Kirkman On Killing Characters:

I never think of this stuff, or else I wouldn't do it. I just write things and think, yeah, I think this guy's gonna die now. The main character in Walking Dead gets his hand cut off, and I didn't think about it. I remember thinking, I should think about what this will mean. Oh, he can't button his shirt, this'll be easy. And then, ten years later, I was like, oh crap. I shouldn't have cut that guy's hand off.

On Why They Create Comics:

Kirkman: I do it so my wife doesn't think if I'm a failure. I can't do anything else.
Fraction: I've never run across anything that you can't do in comics. No-one ever says that you can't afford to blow up New York. We can blow up New York and rebuild it twice if we want.
Lee: I always figured that if I was ever arrested, I could be the big guy's art bitch. I'm being completely serious.

On Why Colleen Doran Got Into Comics:

Doran: I had a crush on Aquaman.

Morrison: What was it about him?

Doran: He was wet.

On Who Today's Visionaries Think We Should Watch Out For:

Fraction: Jason Aaron.

Doran: Derek McCullogh.

Kirkman: Jonathan Hickman.

Mignola: It's not that I don't think that anyone's good, I tend to not remember anyone's names.

Morrison: I want to see an entire generation of crazy 17 year-olds doing this stuff.

So by now, I'm sure that you've all rushed out to see Hellboy II: The Golden Army and become enamored with Guillermo Del Toro's imagery (if not his writing). But you may have left the theater wondering, what's the story with Hellboy anyway? That's where we come in. Under the jump, a brief history of Hellboy in comics and the real world.

Depending on who you listen to - us or the "real" world - Hellboy is either a demon summoned to Earth by Nazis towards the end of World War II, or the creation of comic artist Mike Mignola, drawing upon the twin influences of H.P. Lovecraft and Jack Kirby. Either way, when he first appeared in a special preview comic published for 1993's San Diego Comic-Con (co-written at the time by X-Men and Fantastic Four artist John Byrne; Byrne also co-wrote the first series, 1994's Seed of Destruction, before leaving the character to Mignola), he was already fighting demons and working for the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD), a covert agency (but, unlike the movie version, not a Government agency) keeping the world safe from all manner of beasts and monsters most people don't know about.

The various Hellboy mini-series - Seed of Destruction, Wake The Devil, The Right Hand of Doom (a title taken from a Robert E. Howard story, and just one of the stories centering on the prophecies about Hellboy's role in the end of the world), Box of Evil and Conqueror Worm - were successful enough for Mignola to spin other comics off exploring the Hellboy Universe without its eponymous hero; to date, there have been BPRD, Abe Sapien and Lobster Johnston series, each of which became more important when Mignola decided to switch up Hellboy's status quo in 2002.

Concerned that Hellboy's personal mythology - that, as "Anung un Rama," he was destined to be responsible for an oncoming apocalypse whether a willing participant or otherwise (explained at the climax from the first movie, which pulls plot points from the first three mini-series) - was overwhelming both the character and the stories, Mignola finished Conqueror Worm by having Hellboy resign from BPRD and try to find out more about his origins - something that, according to Mignola, will bring him back to his creative origins:

Hellboy is going in a radically different direction... [T]he character of Hellboy is changing so radically now that—well, I shouldn’t say that his character is changing so much—in that, he’s becoming more involved in the folklore world and because he is in that folklore world, he has less to do, day in and day out, with human affairs all the time. He’s pretty much slipping off the face of the Earth... Hellboy doesn’t really know that much more about ‘where he’s from’ but I think the big change is that he’s stopped the denial; he’s no longer denying what he is—his head isn’t in the sand anymore. He’s not really actively pursuing questions like ‘where do I come from’ but he’s more open to seeing what’s going to happen. Darkness Calls starts Hellboy onto a path where he is literally walking to a crossroads and kind of standing their saying, “Okay, which way do I go?” Once he puts himself in that position—forces kind of take over and he begins this whole new cycle of his life which will go through English and Russian folklore; it’s going to be unlike anything I’ve done in Hellboy so far.

Around this time, Mignola also made the decision to stop drawing the Hellboy series - something done as much through necessity as choice, to hear him describe the reasons:

I’ve gotten slower as I’ve gotten older. I’ve gotten a lot more obsessive about my design—I ran into a lot of trouble with the last two mini-series because I had become so obsessive and I was re-drawing pages; plus, with all the things going on, trying to run the other comics, dealing with the films and stuff like that—it became very clear that I wouldn’t be able to do a Hellboy story of any length and I wanted to do this gigantic arc of a Hellboy story.

It became a question of “do I do this with another artist” or “is this story just never going to get told”—it literally never would’ve gotten done. There was no way I could do a story this size and I didn’t want to compromise; I didn’t want to do a smaller story. I wanted to do this story the way it needed to be done.

The new "regular" artist for the character (Other artists will come and go as needed; Richard Corben and P. Craig Russell have both worked on the character since Mignola left the artist chair) is Englishman Duncan Fegredo (whose earlier work includes the wonderful Enigma for DC Comics), who was relatively happy to be asked:

So Scott [Allie, Hellboy editor] called, said “…Hellboy” and I freaked out a little… quite a lot actually.

Fegredo's first series was Darkness Calls, the start of Mignola's English/Russian folklore sequence which is expected to last four series and answer, once and for all, what Hellboy's place on Earth really is. Possibly.

Me, I think it's enough just to be a giant red joe with a massive right hand, big gun and pretty good sense of humor about all of this stuff.

I don't want to overemphasize the monster-as-minority allegory too much, because there's a lot about The Golden Army that's pure bash-em-up fun. The latest threat to the human world is a prince of the elves, who wants to reboot an ancient mechanical army of golden soldiers who will obey the command of anybody wearing this special golden hat. The army has a Lord of the Rings gone steampunk feeling, which is quite simply terrific from a concept design standpoint (and also makes sense when you consider director del Toro's next project will be two Hobbit movies). If you want cool monsters and awesome fights, del Toro is there for you. The creator of Pan's Labyrinth, he knows his non-CGI stuff and brings bizarre beauty to scenes set in a monster-clogged Goblin's Market (located under a bridge in Brooklyn), and a lush gravity to the decaying kingdom of the elves.

Like Mignola, who wrote the Hellboy comic books that inspired these films, del Toro gravitates to stories where monsters are sympathetic and heroic characters. This is an interesting twist on the monster tale, which usually focuses on an evil, ugly creature (like Cloverfield or Freddy) that humans must destroy. Still, there has always been a thriving counter-genre about good monsters, including Swamp Thing, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Clive Barker's magnificent and underrated movie Nightbreed. One might argue that Frankenstein is really the first sympathetic monster, though for contemporary audiences a more relevant reference point is X-Men, a comic about heroic mutant outcasts. Stan Lee debuted X-Men in the 1960s, an era of social liberalism in the US and Europe, and X-Men has (generally) remained a book with a liberal message about tolerating those who seem different and embracing your own mutations.

There is a lot of X-Men in Golden Army, which pits a Magneto-like monster separatist (the Prince) against the Xavier-esque integrationists of the BPRD (Hellboy and girlfriend Liz just want to be regular people who fight crime, get married, and have babies). When Hellboy fights a nature elemental who is crushing Brooklyn, the Prince warns him that he shouldn't fight for the humans, who will never accept him. "You have more in common with us than them," the Prince says, warning Hellboy that if he kills the elemental he is destroying the "last of its kind." After pausing to consider the extermination of an ancient race, Hellboy shrugs and blows the giant plant away.

Hellboy is constantly trying to "come out," as he puts it to his colleagues. Like the evil elf prince, he wants to stop making a secret of his life and mission. Instead of trying to crush the humans with a mechanical army, however, he tries to use the power of PR to promote a little interspecies understanding. He's constantly posing for pictures and showing off in front of large crowds, and eventually, this behavior gets him and the allegedly secret BPRD in trouble. There is a public backlash against the BPRD's lax attitude to "interspecies relations," as well as against Hellboy himself because he looks so ugly and monstrous that nobody can buy that he's the good guy.

While this is a vaguely funny idea, and underscores how ordinary and human Hellboy really is, del Toro has a tendency to get mired down in the humanizing part of his tale and forget that we really want to see monsters being, well, monstrous. There's a tedious and annoying subplot about how Hellboy and Liz are having relationship problems, and Liz is pregnant but doesn't want to tell Hellboy, and Hellboy gets drunk and acts like a jerk, and blah blah blah. There are even fights over toothbrushes and "needing space" — it's as if about 15 minutes of a Mad About You sitcom plot made its ugly way into an otherwise defiantly cool movie about kickass demons.

I think these kind of "we're a married couple just like you" moments are what drags this otherwise entertaining movie down. Turning Hellboy, Liz, and even Abe Sapien into domestic squabblers defangs them. They aren't humanized so much as homogenized. I like the idea of a monstrous hero, but only if he can remain essentially monstrous. Things start to feel like a movie of the week about accepting our gay neighbors when it turns out that Hellboy might be a demon on the outside but he's basically good old Archie Bunker within.

Luckily, del Toro seems incapable of completely pinioning his monsters, even when he wants to. The character of Johann Strauss, an ectoplasmic guy who lives in a strange steampunk diving bell suit, is a case in point. Here's a guy whose life is so far beyond human experience that one simply cannot imagine him settling down to do anything other than fighting mechanical armies and forming perverse relationships with undead tooth fairies. Similarly, Abe Sapien remains emphatically freakish, as does the hidden world of monsters lurking right beneath the streets in New York City. Defiantly unassimilated, these monsters flout convention and could care less about conforming to our human ways.

We can identify with them, but we never forget that they are monsters, fundamentally different from us. If there is any upside to the slightly clumsy minority rights allegory we get in this flick, it's the possibility of representing a truly difficult concept: that of the group who cannot be assimilated, but whose members are nevertheless our allies and heroes. And that is, finally, why I adore Mignola and del Toro's monsters. We identify with them, but cannot tame them, cannot make them ours.

Bottom Line: Yes, Golden Army is a rip-roaring good time, and I dug it, though it's draggy in places. You'll love it if you love monsters, but sometimes the allegorical subplot will feel like it's bopping you on the nose unnecessarily.

Mignola’s dark, flat style, which Alan Moore has called "German expressionism meets Jack Kirby," gains its unique power from the use of shadow to define space in each panel. Through these varying shades of darkness color reaches the viewer as if from the bottom of a well. The contrast or frame created by the shadow his use of color unexpectedly rich and deep. What should be murky is sharp. What should be opaque instead illuminates. The flatness is itself deceptive, in that Mignola manages a kind of layering effect that renders both the characters and their actions three-dimensional. All of these effects ran counter—and still to some extent run counter—to traditional wisdom in creating comics.

If Hellboy has become iconic since then it is in part because of this unique quality to the art and in part because Mignola’s imagination in the storylines has been a match for his artistic talent. While the stories work as adventures, and Hellboy himself entertains with his wisecracks, Mignola often mines very strange territory indeed—mixing myths of world creation and destruction with more localized stories of witches and demons into the fabric of a modern world. Using such varied material has allowed him to refine and add nuance to his art.

Now that Hellboy has reached the big screen, Mignola has teamed up with another great visual stylist: Guillermo del Toro, whose vision in movies like Pan’s Labyrinth brings another great tradition—Mexican surrealism—into Hellboy’s world. The result is a unique hybrid vision from two highly imaginative creators.

With Hellboy 2 opening in theaters, we talked briefly to a hyper-busy Mignola about his work...

What science fiction and science fiction artists have influenced your work?
The writing of H.P. Lovecraft and Michael Moorcock...the art of Frank Frazetta and Jack Kirby were my biggest and earliest influences.

What’s your relationship to technology and the modern world? Are there elements you try to put into your work?
I am able to send and get email. I do not love technology. My stories are very low tech...in the entire run of Hellboy I think I've only drawn three cars and none of them were moving!

What projects have been most personal to you, and what are you most proud of?
The Amazing Screw-On Head and the short story The Magician and the Snake.

What are you currently working on?
I'm writing 2 different Hellboy series, The Crooked Man for Richard Corben and The Wild Hunt for Duncan Fregredo and I am writing and drawing In The Chapel of Moloch. I'm also co-ploting the BPRD comics and a few other things!

Many thanks to Mignola and Dark Horse Comics for letting io9 to run a gallery with this feature.

http://www.hellboy.com/

Let's get the bigger publishers out of the way first: With the exception of a preview of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's next project, Captain America: White, Marvel pretty much lets this week slide to focus on the latest issue of Secret Invasion and a hardcover collection for Joss Whedon's (disappointing, let's be honest) Runaways story. DC, on the other hand, just seem to be letting it slide altogether, with the exception of Final Crisis: Requiem, a one-shot memorializing the dearly-departed Martian Manhunter. Instead, turn your attention to Dark Horse Comics, which is happy to fill the gap with their new Hellboy spin-off, BPRD: The Warning and equally new Indiana Jones series, Indiana Jones And The Tomb Of The Gods.

Perhaps, however, you'd rather read about robots in disguise who don't go around raping each other; if that's the case, then you should definitely pick up the first issue of Transformers: All Hail Megatron, the "What if the Decepticons took over the Earth?" series that we've told you about already and happen to be waiting for with baited breath. Watching Megatron rule our planet with a literal iron fist seem too much of a downer? Then there's also Transformers Movie Prequel: Saga Of The Allspark premiering this week, giving you all the backstory about the deus ex machina that Michael Bay didn't quite manage to get around to.

For the books of the week, however, you have to go to Image Comics and Ben 10 co-creator Joe Kelly. Not only does his new series I Kill Giants launch on Thursday (featuring Barbara Thorson, a fifth-grader who either has a very, very active imagination or really does kill giants, pixies and other mythical creatures in her spare time), but his children's book Captain Stoneheart And The Truth Fairy also gets a fine re-release. Stoneheart, which started life as an issue of the Elephantmen series, bills itself as "a grim tale of broken bones and broken hearts," but really it's just a beautifully-written, wonderfully-illustrated (by X-Men and Amazing Spider-Man artist Chris Bachalo) children's story... albeit one that you can now get in a deluxe package including the original script, uncolored pencil artwork and CD of the audio version of the story. You can see a trailer for the book here.

As is really honestly always the case, you can find the complete list of everything hitting stores here and then go and buy whatever you want at the store closest to you, a fact that you can work out by going here. Just make sure that your stack has a hippo or robot somewhere in there. Preferably both.Hel

I guess we should start with the only comic featuring the 70-year-old Man of Steel, huh? That would be Superman: Last Son, a hardcover collection of the much-delayed storyline that brought Richard Donner to comics - he co-writes the book alongside Geoff Johns - as well as returned General Zod and the Phantom Zone to current DC continuity. I could tell you more about the story, like the fact that Superman adopts a son, but I know that all you'll really care about is that there's a special 3-D section midway through the book. That Phantom Zone is trippy, man.

Elsewhere in the DC line this week, Superman's oldest rival Captain Marvel gets a new series, with the first issue of kid-targeted Billy Batson And The Magic of Shazam. Less friendly for little tykes, the Dark Knight tie-ins start properly with the first issue of The Joker's Asylum, which makes Heath Ledger's alter-ego into your host as he narrates stories about the other inmates over at Arkham Asylum. Or maybe you want even darker still, with Hellblazer: The Fear Machine collecting some of the earliest stories of magician, former punk and all-round bastard John Constantine from the 1980s, when it was cool to turn yuppies into demons.

More nostalgia comes in the form of the imported Doctor Who: The World Shapers, which brings together the little-seen mid-80s run of Grant Morrison on the British Who comic. On the one hand, yes, it's the Colin Baker Doctor, but on the other, rare Morrison... It's a tough one. Equally tough is Star Trek: Mirror Images, a new mini-series that explores one of the greatest Star Trek concepts ever, the Mirror Universe. IDW's Trek comics have been somewhat hit and miss, so the potential for disappointment here is, sadly, great. But it is the Mirror Universe. I mean, goateed Spock...what could go wrong?

If you're looking for things that will make you much less conflicted, I can heartily recommend the following three books: Boom!'s Station is a murder mystery set on the international space station right as things start to go wrong and it looks like everyone might end up dead. If you liked Greg Rucka's Whiteout, chances are you'll enjoy it. Mike Mignola gets slightly ahead of the movie curve this week with a new Hellboy series, The Crooked Man, illustrated by comics legend Richard Corben. So expect the same great writing and slightly off-putting stumpy figures (I kid because... well, because I can, really. But you'll know what I mean when you pick it up).

Pick of the week, however, is easily Buffy The Vampire Slayer #16, which sees Joss Whedon return as writer, as well as the return of his futuristic slayer, Fray. For everyone who hasn't read the Fray series and wonders why this is a big deal, all I have to say is this: Imagine Faith, but from the far future, and with an even worse attitude. I foresee carnage and futuristic cursing that you can get away with in comics, as well as quite a few battles over that weird scythe that both of them think they own.

As is the case every single week, you can see the complete list of everything hitting comic stores this week here, and find out where your local comic book store is by clicking here. Do it because Clark Kent would want you to.