For me, making up stories is a little like building furniture, but with twelfth-century tools and only the vaguest idea what I’m trying to build. There’s a lot of grunting and banging, a lot of hammering on square pegs to get them to fit into round holes. It’s fun and I love it, but, usually, it’s a lot of hard work.
— from Mike Mignola‘s afterword to BPRD: The Black Flame.
Yay Mike Mignola. I’ve been reading heaps of Hellboy and BPRD recently…
i’ve had a very enjoyable BPRD marathon in the last fortnight. i like these much more than the Hellboy comics which i have found to be variable, one-note and adolescent in comparison.
no, i’m not grumpy.
and i’ve been a fan of Guy Davis ever since Sandman Mystery Theatre – a wonderful grounding of superheroics through art, like with Michael Gaydos‘ work in Alias (the comic, not the tv show).
i do like Mignola’s artwork – an instant fan when he illustrated Howard Chaykin‘s Fafhrd and Gray Mouser adaptation – right through to his Hellboy comics. ‘s just the stories don’t really grab me.