Josh Reviews Mike Mignola: Drawing Monsters

Mike Mignola: Drawing Monsters is a new documentary focusing on comic book illustrator and writer Mike Mignola.  I have long worshipped Mr. Mignola’s work, and this documentary is a delight!  (Click here to watch it right now on Amazon Prime Video!)

Mr. Mignola is one of the greatest comic book artists of all time.  He did a lot of wonderful work early in his career for DC comics, most notably the covers for Batman: A Death in the Family (the infamous four-part storyline in the Batman comic books in the eighties that resulted in the death of Jason Todd, the second Robin), his “Elseworlds” story Gotham by Gaslight (which set Batman in 19th century London, on the trail of Jack the Ripper), and Jim Starlin’s Cosmic Odyssey mini-series.  But it was his character of Hellboy that shot Mr. Mignola to stardom.  I was there from the beginning; I purchased Hellboy’s first appearance in John Byrne’s Next Men #21 in 1993, and I bought the first issue of his first mini-series, Hellboy: Seed of Destruction in 1994.  And I believe I have bought every single Hellboy comic published over the past 30 years!  I love Hellboy.  I love the character — a “working Joe” fighting monsters, who happens to be a demon from Hell himself.  And I adore the ever-expanding Hellboy universe, a dense and dazzling array of characters and stories spanning centuries of Mr. Mignola’s alternate history of the world.  It’s my all-time favorite comic book universe.  (The last time I re-read the series from the start, about a decade ago, I started a series of articles reflecting back on the whole series.  Click here to start at the beginning and here for an archive of all my Hellboy posts.)  The Hellboy comics are overflowing with creativity and fun; monsters and folklore inspired by real legends and mythology from across the globe; humor and tragedy, rich and compelling characters and fun monster-smashing action.  These comics have everything I want in a comic book story.  Mr. Mignola is a true master of the comic book form.  His artwork is completely unique; gorgeous and stark.  No one draws quite like Mike Mignola.  He’s extraordinary.

This documentary, directed by Kevin Konrad Hanna and Jim Demonakos, explores Mr. Mignola’s life and work.  It’s a fun and entertaining documentary.  It covers a lot of ground, but it’s zippily edited so it moves along at a pleasingly rapid pace.  A wonderful array of interviews are supplemented by a glorious array of samples of Mr. Mignola’s beautiful artwork from throughout his career.  (There were several times I paused the doc just to gaze at the beautiful artwork on the screen.)  The doc comes from the Nacelle Company, overseen by Brian Volk-Weiss — who also are behind the excellent Icons Unearthed series I just reviewed on the site last week!)

The doc is centered by a wonderfully candid, in-depth series of interviews with Mr. Mignola himself.  I love the way they allowed him to tell his story in his own words.  Mr. Mignola’s comic books demonstrate that he’s a great storyteller, and he’s a wonderful narrator for much of this film.  It’s fascinating to hear Mike’s stories of his early days struggling to make a buck and scrambling for whatever work he could get at Marvel and DC; his early successes at DC comics; his move to Dark Horse (an “indie” comic book publisher) and his decision to put all his creative chips on his own character: Hellboy; and all the twists and turns that followed.  It’s also fun that we get to see a number of clips in the film of Mr. Mignola’s drawing in his studio.  I loved these glimpses into his process and his work space!

The doc is filled with a wonderful array of interview subjects talking about Mr. Mignola’s work.  It’s fun to hear from people like Patton Oswalt, Neil Gaiman, and Rebecca Sugar (creator of Steven Universe) about the power of Mr. Mignola’s art and stories.  I loved hearing from comic book talents like Dark Horse publisher Mike Richardson, Marvel & DC editor Mike Carlin, and Mr. Mignola’s pals — and comic book powerhouses themselves — Steve Purcell and Art Adams about their friendship with Mr. Mignola and their reflections on his work.  The doc gives a lot of space to Mr. Mignola’s two brothers Scott & Todd, and also his wife Christine, who share insight into his family and personal life, both when Mike was growing up and today.  (Spoiler alert: like so many creative people, Mr. Mignola seems to have had an emotionally distant father.)

The film spends a nice chunk of time talking about the first two Hellboy movies, and we get to hear at length from director Guillermo del Toro and stars Ron Perlman (who played Hellboy) and Doug Jones (who played Abe Sapien).  All three of them sing the praises of Mr. Mignola’s work — it’s particularly cool to listen to Mr. del Toro’s astute analysis of Mr. Mignola’s incredible artwork — and tell lots of fascinating stories of the making of those films.  (While the film doesn’t dwell on any conflicts, it’s also fascinating to hear both Mr. Mignola and Mr. del Toro describe how they drifted apart over the making of the second film, and how Mr. del Toro began to go his own way with the Hellboy character and how Mr. Mignola had to accept that the movie version of his characters weren’t quite “his” anymore.)  I do wish they’d gotten an interview with Selma Blair, who was so terrific in those films.

Time and again I was impressed by the level of detail woven into this doc.  For instance, as a hard-core Hellboy fan, I wondered if they were going to gloss over the fact that Mike didn’t write that first Hellboy comic book mini-series himself; he brought in an established writer, John Byrne, to do so.  But, nope, they covered that (though I wish they’d gotten an interview with Mr. Byrne).  (Mr. Byrne is one of my all-time favorite comic book writers, but there’s no question that Hellboy really came alive after that first mini-series when Mr. Mignola took over writing the series himself.)  I also loved the brief segment on the short animated adaptation of Mr. Mignola’s bizarre and wonderful comic-book one-shot The Amazing Screw-On Head!  Wow, I wasn’t expecting that to make it into the doc!  (The short cartoon is fun, and it features a terrific voice cast that includes Paul Giamatti, David Hyde Pierce, and Patton Oswalt, but it’s Mr. Mignola’s original comic book short story that’s the true masterpiece.  But I digress.)

Mike Mignola: Drawing Monsters is a wonderful salute to one of the all-time comic book greats.  It’s well-deserved.  I’ve been thinking for a few years now that I’m itching to go back and re-read the Hellboy saga from the beginning… and watching this film makes me more eager than ever to do so!  It’s also a great inspiration to go make some more comic books of my own…

(Click here to watch Mike Mignola: Drawing Monsters right now on Amazon Prime Video!)

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