 Boy, Oh Boy
Mike Mignola is one of the hardest-working comic-book creators around. And he owes it all to one character. By Bryan Reesman
Mike Mignola is one of the most distinct and recognizable comic-book artists/writers today. Starting his career in 1983, the Eisner Award–winning creator of Hellboy cut his teeth illustrating famous series like Wolverine for Marvel Comics, and Batman and The Phantom Stranger for DC Comics. By 1994, he had plunged into the world of his original creation, which he writes and draws in a gothic, expressionistic style.
Mignola’s amiable but glib monster creation — a demonic creature that has a giant fist and which was summoned for nefarious purposes by Rasputin for the Nazis but now serves the U.S. government, fighting for the greater good — is where his fame and fortune lies.
Hellboy has been turned into a movie directed by Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth) and into an animated series (Sword of Storms and Blood and Iron are in stores now, and The Phantom Claw is in development), and its spin-offs include the BPRD, Weird Tales, and Hellboy Junior comics series, as well as the novel The God Machine, which Mignola created with Thomas E. Sniegoski. You also may have seen the animated adaptation of Mignola’s quirky and hilarious The Amazing Screw-On Head on the Sci Fi Channel recently (think cyberpunk in 1862, with vampires, zombies, and Abraham Lincoln), for which he was a consultant.
With 10 years of Hellboy stories already plotted out and with new live-action and animated movies coming, we wager that Mignola never sleeps.
What’s in store for the second live-action movie, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army? It’s a much better story. It has the benefit of not having to do with the origins, because all that stuff got taken care of in the first picture. Guillermo and I sat down and came up with the story together, so he was not kind of saddled with adapting my material, and I think it’s very close to the spirit of Pan’s Labyrinth, dealing with that kind of subject matter. Hellboy 2 continues the story of Hellboy and Liz Sherman, but it’s much more folklore oriented than the first film. Also, the scale is twice as big as the first film!
Some liberties were taken in adapting the graphic novel’s dramatic arc for the first movie, but I can understand why those changes were made. Guillermo, for whatever reason, really glommed on to Hellboy and really took that character very personally. I think it turned into a vehicle for a lot of his themes, so the whole father/son relationship, which I did very little with in the comic, and the love interest were clearly Toro themes that he attached to my character, and they fit really well. It just made it a slightly different character.
Many of us have grown up with superheroes, and now those heroes are receiving their own live-action adaptations. The special effects have gotten slick enough to be able to present a lot of these characters on-screen, but do you think they are living up to the original stories? Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t. We’re dealing right now with a generation of filmmakers, many of whom grew up reading comics, who view comics as a viable thing for serious films. Whereas it wasn’t that many years ago when if somebody was doing a comic-book film, there was always a tongue-in-cheek camp quality to it. Now you have guys who view it as serious literature.
It used to be that every article about comics led with, “Wham! Pow! Comics aren’t just for kids anymore.” They would talk about how much an old comic sold for. Again, we have directors who are of the generation that grew up reading comics and grew up reading The Dark Knight and Watchmen, so they grew up in an entirely different atmosphere of comics. We also now have journalists who are of that same age and who want to write a serious article about Frank Miller or Alan Moore. This other generation is changing the perception of comics.
Is there a particular story you would like to adapt for comics? There are a lot of old fairy tales and folktales that I include and will continue to include as Hellboy stories. I would like to someday take one or two old horror stories and turn them into my own interpretation.
What did you think of the first animated Hellboy film, directed by Tad Stones? I thought it was great. Again, you wish you had a lot more money and a lot more time, but I thought that Tad did a really good job.
What’s in store for the third animated installment, Hellboy: The Phantom Claw? Part of The Phantom Claw is a retelling of Hellboy’s origin. It will be slightly different than the movie and the comic-book version and will involve Lobster Johnson.
Do you think BPRD [Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense] will be adapted into animated form? I think that if we continue to do animated Hellboy films, we will see more of the BPRD there, but I don’t think there’s an interest in the stand-alone.
How hard is it going to be to work on movies and the comic book simultaneously? Unfortunately, I’m primarily writing now, and not drawing. I’m writing or cowriting five different comics at the moment. I’ve cowritten a Hellboy novel, and I’m working on the animated films and on the live-action films, so I’m spread pretty thin. But I enjoy the writing. I’ve got a lot of stories that I want to do, but if I had to draw them myself, they would never get done, so writing has liberated me a lot.
There will be a new Hellboy series, which is an extremely long, involved Hellboy story. I think, well, it’s not going to be 100 percent me, but either we get it done a little bit differently by a different artist, or we don’t get it at all. And I’d rather have it out there in some form than not see it ever. I plotted a graphic novel that was going to be 300 or 400 pages, and I realized that I’d never get it done. Eventually, I went to a writer friend of mine, and we did it as a novel. It’s a radically different form than it was intended to be, but it exists.
Perhaps you need to clone yourself. I’ve got these two great artists I would like to clone five or six times. There’s Guy Davis, who’s been doing BPRD and can draw anything, and Duncan Fegredo, who is drawing Hellboy. I’m working with some really great artists right now, but Duncan is doing such a fantastic job on Hellboy: Darkness Calls.
Once the fans get used to the idea that I’m not drawing it and relax and look at what Duncan’s doing, within a few years, they won’t want me back. My stuff is so simplistic, and Duncan’s work is so rich and his character acting is so fantastic. I will always be the creator of Hellboy, but Duncan has really picked it up and run with it in a beautiful direction.
I’ve got a scene in the new Hellboy miniseries where there’s an entire army of skeletons fighting Hellboy. When I made up the story, that scene was in there. But had I drawn it, I either would have changed it or it would have been a bunch of little black lumps with spears sticking out. But Duncan drew 45 running skeletons. He’s delivered everything the audience could possibly want, so I couldn’t be happier.
 Grande Expectations: A Year in the Life of Starbucks’ Stock
By Karen Blumenthal
(Crown Business, $25)
As a veteran Wall Street Journal reporter, Karen Blumenthal probably understands the stock market better than most people do. So she decided to do what most first-rate journalists do: research a topic from the bottom up and then publish what they’ve learned. To make the result palatable, Blumenthal explains the macroeconomics of the market by focusing on the microeconomic — the ups and downs of one company’s stock. And, in this case, that company is Starbucks.
Blumenthal organizes Grande Expectations — not surprisingly, and certainly effectively — by month. The February chapter, for example, focuses on Starbucks’ annual meeting for investors. May is devoted to an explanation of why Starbucks executives purchased some of the company’s own stock on the open market (known as buybacks). November examines the thinking of a stock-market analyst who helps her clients decide whether to sell or to purchase Starbucks shares. But the book is really two sagas in one: There’s a clearly explained, well-written account of stock-market vagaries, plus there’s an examination of Starbucks’ founding and growth. Blumenthal skillfully weaves together the two narrative lines so that they complement rather than clash with each other.
The account is mostly favorable to Starbucks; Blumenthal’s reporting determined that the company is pretty much the good corporate citizen its image portrays it as. But the book does not constitute an unedited love letter. The author occasionally demonstrates skepticism about the company. After recounting the introduction of bottled water selling for the high price of $1.80 at Starbucks outlets, Blumenthal quotes a company executive using financial jargon to justify that price. Then, parenthetically, Blumenthal says, “My translation: Everything at Starbucks costs more.”
Grande Expectations is also no valentine for the stock market. Blumenthal removes some of the mystery, but she wants her readers to know that rationality won’t always reign: “One day seemingly good news can send a stock plunging; the next day bad news can send it climbing again.” — Steve Weinberg
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The Music Man
Alan Menken brought Broadway to Disney’s animated films. Now he’s bringing Disney back to Broadway — among other things. By Bryan Reesman
Composer Alan Menken is living the fairy-tale existence of many of his musical subjects. An eight-time Oscar-winning composer with numerous film credits and multiplatinum soundtracks under his belt, he has become ubiquitous with the second golden age of Disney animation, which he helped kick-start by collaborating with the late lyricist Howard Ashman on music for the breakthrough triumvirate of The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin. By bringing Broadway sensibilities to animated Disney films (he and Ashman composed the Off Broadway hit Little Shop of Horrors), Menken not only reinvigorated the films, he also inspired the company to stage them on the Great White Way and in theaters around the globe. That clever move reaped big bucks for the studio and has created an even stronger brand for the selected titles.
Just because he’s made a huge mark, however, does not mean he’s resting on his laurels. Having done a number of other Disney films since then, Menken is currently juggling no fewer than four projects: the semianimated, Roger Rabbit–style musical film Enchanted, due out in November; the ’70s-flavored, bound-for-Broadway musical rendition of the Whoopi Goldberg movie Sister Act; his gospel musical Leap of Faith, to be directed by Taylor Hackford; and the upcoming Broadway staging of The Little Mermaid, which will feature many new songs and which is currently undergoing its test run at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. When he had time to come up for air, the congenial, loquacious Menken spoke about his fun but frenzied life.
How do you keep from burning out? I think I’ve already gotten past it. I don’t know what burnout would look like. If burnout is coming into my house, nearly falling over sideways, and saying I can’t talk to another person, and then falling asleep on the couch — then I’m burned out. But somehow, the next morning I get up and go, “Okay, what do I have to do today?” And I will say honestly that my songs and music are not suffering. I think this is the best work I’ve ever done in my career, so I’m hanging in there.
How are they going to stage The Little Mermaid on Broadway? You know, I have no idea how they’re going to do it. They’ve described it to me, and I’ve seen the set and understand the plans, but I’ve got to see it to believe it. If it works, it’s going to be spectacular and really unusual. And if it doesn’t … whew!
With Broadway shows being more than two hours long, you’re writing a lot of new material, especially as the original movie is only 80 minutes long. The shorter, the better for the animated. And, by the way, the shorter, the better on Broadway too. Nobody wants to sit through a three-hour musical. I don’t care if it’s Les Mis or anything.
Everything’s getting epic these days. It is, but people still appreciate the 90-minute musical, like Little Shop of Horrors. We’re trying to cut down Sister Act into a lean, mean, entertainment machine. And, by the way, we’ve gotten wonderful reviews out of town. Sister Act is a very funny and tight musical. In every case, you really have to emphasize tightness.
Didn’t you work with Alice Cooper on a stage project? Alice Cooper and I started working years ago on a theatrical-concert idea that was the seven deadly sins according to Alice Cooper. It was called Alice’s Deadly Seven. It was a concept of Rob Roth, who directed the stage version of Beauty and the Beast and of Aida. He and I have a Busby Berkeley project that has been pitched for years as a big Las Vegas–style production, and it may happen in the next couple of years. Rob brought Alice and me together.
We got in a room and started working on this material. Alice wrote the lyrics, and I wrote the music. I did the demos, and we both sang parts of these. He would take my demos, and a couple of times, he came back with the demos he had done with members of Guns N’ Roses. It just never went any further. I think Alice is waiting until the record label he’s working with is ready to really do this right. This is one of those old-fashioned, big, fat concept albums. One of these days, if we stay healthy and live long enough, we’ll do it.
You went to my alma mater, NYU, which bought up much of the East Village, especially along 14th Street, where the Palladium club used to be. I saw the Stones there. They were promoting “Satisfaction.” That was their big single. It was almost like an R&B show. [Sings the riff] They would finish the song, Mick would go offstage, and the remaining Stones would still be onstage [playing]. Mick would towel off and then come back on. It was pretty amazing.
Are your daughters following in your path as an artist? My younger daughter, Nora, graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy, which is up in the wilds of Michigan. It is a wonderful art school and one of the best in the country. She is about to go to college to study musical theater. My older daughter would be graduating [from college] now, but she’s taking a leave of absence to pursue a career as a singer-songwriter and is doing really well. Her professional name is Anna Rose, and she performs in clubs in Los Angeles. She has a band situation out there, and she’s putting together a band here in New York. She’s hitting it on all cylinders.
Is there a dream project you’d like to do someday? I suppose one of my dream projects is to put all my songs together in a concert or a package. Maybe I could go out and perform them myself. I’m very happy with where my career has ended up, but if there’s anything that I’d want to do now, I suppose it would be to find a way to bring my songs under the same umbrella with my performances of them. I just don’t know if anyone really wants to see a 58-year-old guy rock out.
Another thing I might want to do is work in a more operatic medium, where it’s more purely artistic, where I’m not writing so much to a directly commercially based medium. Something that I’m more able to fully conceive as I want it and have it performed and appreciated on its own merits and not put out there as something that has to earn $100 million at the box office.
That’s always a challenge. It is. But I don’t lie awake at night thinking about what I want to do. At the moment, what I want to do is get to my house in the Caribbean and have a rum and put on some suntan lotion for extended periods. But I’m going to have to wait a good deal of time before that can happen.
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 Sequel Smackdown
While a few sequels have already kicked off the summer blockbuster season in style (Shrek the Third, Spider-Man 3, Ocean’s Thirteen), there are plenty more where they came from. The following quartet are set to hit theaters in the next month. Which one will come out on top? By Zac Crain
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Starring: Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis
The DownLow Lowdown: I’ll confess, I didn’t see the first one in the theater. I didn’t see it on DVD either. But when it finally landed on one of the 15 or so HBO channels, well, I couldn’t pass it up. Guess what! It wasn’t as bad as I had feared. But it also wasn’t that great. The point of that story? I’ll watch just about anything on HBO (read: The Day after Tomorrow, The Dukes of Hazzard). So I can’t say that I’m looking forward to the second installment. In this crowded summer market, I’m not sure how many others will be either.
Odds: 20–1
Evan Almighty
Starring: Steve Carell, Lauren Graham, Morgan Freeman
The DownLow Lowdown: This Jim Carrey–less follow-up to Bruce Almighty finds Carell’s Evan Baxter giving up his newscasting gig for a political career in Washington, D.C. Since he also happens to be married to the lovely and sassy character played by Graham, he’s in the proverbial catbird seat. Until, of course, God (Freeman) shows up and gives Evan another job: building an ark and rounding up all the animals, two by two. Yes, like Noah. Bruce Almighty made a nice pile of cash, and Carell is certainly on a hot streak (The Office, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Little Miss Sunshine), so go ahead and put this down for $100 million-plus.
Odds: 3–1
Live Free or Die Hard
Starring: Bruce Willis, Justin Long, Maggie Q
The DownLow Lowdown: Late last night, I found myself watching Willis’s early-’90s action dud The Last Boy Scout (yes, on HBO — how did you know?) and wondering why his career didn’t completely flame out around that time, since he made a string of widely derided by-the-numbers smash-’em-up flicks. Then I remembered how awesome the Die Hard trilogy was and stopped caring. Was there a need for a fourth film? Probably not. Do I care what it’s about? Not really. (For the record, it’s about cyberterrorism or something, which makes sense, I guess, given that Justin “Mac” Long costars.) Am I super fired up to go see it? Oh yes. But who will join me?
Odds: 6–1
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson
The DownLow Lowdown: What? You’re one of the five people who didn’t read the book? Everyone who hasn’t died yet is back, and there’s a bunch of business involving magic, Muggles, and so on. Oh, and relative unknown David Yates directs. That you might not have known.
Odds: Vegas has taken it off the board.
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