Mike Mignola's Frankenstein Underground

The big Countdown to Halloween celebrations are underway and I’m just catching up now. My contribution this year will be mostly art — and I have some eye-popping treats coming up for you! — so it’s very appropriate to kick off with this sumptuous illustration by the great Mike Mignola.

The news hit earlier this week and you can read all the details in the MTV interview with Mignola about the Frankenstein Underground miniseries coming next Spring wherein our favorite Monster becomes part of Mike Mignola’s superlative comics universe.

Mignola’s very personal version of The Monster was first introduced in The House of the Living Dead one-shot, illustrated by Richard Corben. Now we’ll be getting the backstory and continuation of The Monster’s highly unusual adventures written — and with covers — by Mignola, and interior art by Ben Stenbeck. This one is definitely something to cheer and to watch for.

The annual Countdown to Halloween Event, hosted by John Rozum and Shawn Robare, brings together some 200 (!) bloggers to celebrate Pumpkin Season. 

Just click the Creature from the Black Lagoon badge on the menu, top right, and access the complete list of participants. It’s a joyful embarrassment of chilling riches!

Related:

Hellboy Meets Frankenstein

Lobster Johnson Meets Frankenstein

Mike Mignola’s World Horror Convention Poster

Mike Mignola’s Bride of Frankenstein

Mike Mignola’s Bride Poster

The Art of Frankenstein: Mike Mignola

Mike Mignola’s Bride of Frankenstein Poster Goes On Sale

Heads up! Mondo’s new Bride of Frankenstein poster by Mike Mignola goes on sale today, June 5, 2014. The time of release will be announced on Mondo’s Facebook page and Twitter. Print run is strictly limited to 325 copies, going for $50 apiece. I expect it will sell out in a very few minutes.

Hellboy creator Mignola has drawn several Frankenstein images evoking the Universal classics, as well as original pieces, all perfectly scrumptious. A number of these can be seen through the links below.

Release info from Mondo Posters

Related:

Hellboy Meets Frankenstein

Mike Mignola’s Bride of Frankenstein

World Horror Convention Poster

Lobster Johnson Meets Frankenstein

The Art of Frankenstein: Mike Mignola

Covers: The Frankenstein Dracula War

The Bride and the Betrothed

Lobster Johnson Meets Frankenstein

Mike Mignola’s lanky, bolt-studded Frankenstein Monster appears on an alternate cover for Lobster Johnson: Caput Mortuum. The illustration is one of the artist's “Year of Monsters” series matching Hellboy universe characters with classic monsters. 

Lobster Johnson is Mignola’s take on 30’s pulp heroes, a goggled, leather-jacketed vigilante battling mobsters and monsters, and branding their foreheads with his claw emblem. Though the character died in 1939, his ghost continues his crusade against supernatural evil.

Caput Mortuum, a one-shot comic book, is written by Mignola and John Arcudi — a team that consistently turns out some of the best horror comics published today — with art by Tonci Zonjic. Note that the Mignola covers for this are somewhat rare, as an alternate offering to the regular covers by Zonjic. The issue hits comic book shops this week.

A 3-page preview of Caput Mortuum.

The regular cover by Tonci Zonjic

Mike Mignola's World Horror Convention Poster

Always a thrill to find a new Frankenstein illustration by the great Mike Mignola. Here, under a dark crescent moon, a sawtooth Dracula and a flayed Monster pose amidst a rifled cemetery, a bat-haunted castle and a gearwork laboratory.

This image was produced for this year’s World Horror Convention, in Salt Lake City, March 29 to April 1, where Mignola is Artist Guest of Honor. A high quality poster print will be available, strictly limited to 100 copies and going for $100.

The World Horror Convention 2012
The Art of Mike Mignola

Related:
Hellboy Meets FrankensteinMike Mignola’s Bride of Frankenstein
Art of Frankenstein: Mike Mignola
The Covers of Frankenstein: The Frankenstein Dracula War
The Bride and the Betrothed

The Art of Frankenstein : Mike Mignola

Let’s kick off the New Year with a handful of images, appearing daily this week, of the Frankenstein Monster as drawn by top comic book talent. First up, the master, Mike Mignola, whose simple, raw sketch captures Karloff’s soulful Monster with a bold black shape and a few essential lines. Typical of Mignola’s work, it is a beautifully designed piece, at once elegant and austere.

Visit Mike Mignola’s website, and explore Dark Horse Comics’ Hellboy Zone.

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Monster and Bride, by Mike Mignola
Hellboy Meets Frankenstein
Mignola’s Bride of Frankenstein
Cover: The Frankenstein/Dracula War

The Art of Frankenstein: Mike Mignola

Brief encounter: Bride and Betrothed are united in a blast of electricity.

Artist Mike Mignola revisits a favorite subject in 1999, having previously illustrated a superb series of Bride of Frankenstein cards for Topp’s Universal Monsters Illustrated collector’s set of ‘94.

Bride and Beau never looked so good.

With a fond Happy Birthday to Mike Mignola!

Related:
Mike Mignola’s Bride of FrankensteinThe Covers of Frankenstein: The Frankenstein Dracula War No.1Hellboy Meets Frankenstein

Hellboy Meets Frankenstein

Hellboy turns wrestler and goes up against a battling Frankenstein Monster in House of the Living Dead, a graphic novel to coming in November.

If you only know the character from the films, fine as they are, you don’t know Hellboy. Mike Mignola’s comic books are much darker and more complex, evoking Lovecraft, Machen and Poe. Here, eerie Victorian ghost stories, ancient mythology and supernatural folk tales collide with Vernian technology, pulse-pounding pulp sensibilities and b-movie tropes.

The success of Hellboy has spawned a mini-universe of spinoff titles featuring imaginative characters such as the amphibian Abe Sapien and the Nazi-busting Lobster Johnson. Among these, B.P.R.D., about a team or paranormal investigators, is a singularly brilliant horror comic. I urge you to seek out the B.P.R.D. collections plotted by Mignola, with superlative scripts by John Arcudi and outstanding art by Guy Davis.

In recent years, Mignola has been concentrating on writing, reserving his elegant, much-copied but unequaled art for covers and leaving the insides to other artists. Such is the case with Hellboy: House of the Living Dead, with story and cover (above) by Mignola, and the rest entrusted to the great Richard Corben.

Mignola has stated that House of the Living Dead takes its thematic cue from the classic Universal Monster Rallies, House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula, where a parade of monsters take their turn in the spotlight. The story picks up from Hellboy in Mexico (or, A Drunken Blur), a one-shot comic from 2010 by Mignola and Corben in which Hellboy teamed up with a trio of monster-hunting luchadores. This time, Hellboy, in full Santo mode, goes head to head with a patchwork Frankenstein wrestler.

Hellboy: House of the Living Dead, published by Dark Horse, will hit stores on November 9.

An interview with Mike Mignola about House of the Living Dead, on Comic Book Resources.

Publisher’s page for Hellboy: House of the Living Dead.

Publisher’s page for Hellboy in Mexico, featuring sample pages.

Mike Mignola’s website.

Richard Corben’s website.

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Mike Mignola's Bride of Frankenstein
The Frankenstein Dracula War covers by Mike Mignola

Mike Mignola's Bride of Frankenstein

The Bride’s defiant hiss turns to screeching terror, her towering hairdo matching the flames around her, as the castle laboratory explodes, ignited by a spurned Mate-Never-To-Be. We belong dead!

The harrowing scene was captured by Mike Mignola for the Universal Monsters Illustrated collector’s card set published by Topps in 1994.

This excellent collection featured nine Universal classics illustrated by a who’s who of artists including Bill Sienkiewicz, Brian Stelfreeze, Al Williamson, Dave Dorman, Todd MacFarlane, John Byrne and Basil Gogos. Mark Chiarello illustrated Frankenstein and Mignola drew, magnificently, the ten Bride of Frankenstein cards.

Mike Mignola launched a personal website this month, beautifully designed, as expected. The art gallery features a sketch study of Frankenstein’s Monster as only Mignola could imagine, complete with bolted nipples.

Thanks to John Rozum for the heads up.

The Art of Mike Mignola website
The Hellboy Zone at Dark Horse Comics

Related:
Mignola’s covers for The Frankenstein Dracula War.

The Covers of Frankenstein: The Frankenstein Dracula War No.1

Two classic monsters strike poses on a Mike Mignola cover for The Frankenstein Dracula War No.1, published by Topps Comics in 1995.

The title, a three-issue miniseries, was inspired by the company’s recent comic book adaptations of two Francis Ford Coppola productions, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994). Focusing on public domain characters allowed Topps to exploit the monster franchise unburdened by licensing fees.

The story, devised by Roy Thomas with an assist by Jean-Marc Lofficier, has the Frankenstein Monster, a literate giant close to the original Mary Shelley concept, forced by the alchemist Count Saint-Germain to seek out Dracula and bring back the vampire’s heart. It’s a terse, curiously cruel tale. The inside art, penciled by Claude St-Aubin, is workmanlike, but the best thing about this series is the striking cover treatment, by Mike Mignola.

Mignola was then just getting started on his own creation, Hellboy, fated for success. As a cover artist, he was already a master, displaying a designer’s eye for dynamic compositions done in a distinctive, razor-sharp, chiaroscuro style. Notice the tension created by the wooden spikes and the generous use of blacks. 

Mignola’s details are always telling. His Frankenstein Monster, much more striking than the one portrayed within the book, wears a torn cape, a rope belt and a chain, indicative of his rough life. Falling leaves and accessory skulls provide a graveyard ambiance.

The second issue’s cover featured languorous vampire brides under a stark moon, one of them holding a nail-studded skull. Issue number 3 shows the monsters’ climactic confrontation, attended by a flock of bats and The Monster’s murdered friend, Irena.

You could fill a book with a collection of Mike Mignola’s brilliant comic book covers. In fact, I wish someone did!