Originally published at: We're finally getting a Hellboy game | Boing Boing
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It appears they at least attempted to approximate Mignola’s chiaroscuro, unlike the animated shows, so good job!
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The animated shows were (at the time) a bit stuck. The usual Mignola styling was wrapped up in the rights for Amazing Screw On Head. After Sci-Fi attempted to produce a series based on that.
But man did they try. After the networked declined the pilot, the executive who’d pursued the project had it aired and mounted a literal call in campaign to try an prove it was worth picking up.
It did not work. But what that pilot was awesome. Had Paul Giamati, David Hyde Pierce and Molly Shannon voicing characters IIRC.
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Yeah, that one nailed it pretty good:
Interesting the rights to the style were tied-up. I thought they just completely cheaped out with the Hellboy cartoons they look so generic.
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Yeah. I assume it’s Amazing Screw-On Head. Mignola and Del Toro said in an interview a contract quirk from a previous animated project meant his design style was a no go. And Screw-On Head was the only such project.
That too. Those were direct to DVD projects produced by Del Toro on his own dime. I think Sci-Fi ended up airing them at some point. But it was Del Toro and Mignola’s play at the direct market DVD thing that’d done well for DC and OK for Marvel. They also diverged from the comics in ways that were specific to Del Toro’s take. Things like a romance between Liz and Abe.
I wasn’t particularly fond of them.
Given the more recent Hellboy movie, which made a single good move in casting Harbor. I suspect Mignola might be a bit the problem here. I don’t know that he’s all that good at picking the right people to handle the license, or maybe he’s just very cautious about making sure he still owns it and it limits opportunities.
But after the Del Toro Hellboy films he dipped out from comics a bit for a while, with ambitions of working in Hollywood. And it didn’t amount to much beyond some concepting work. Given he spent the last decade mostly working as a fine art painter I’m not sure how interested he is in adaptations at this point. Or maybe in the first place?
There have been at least 3 video games already. One licensed from the first Hellboy movie, one a mobile game licensed from the second. And none of them are of any particular note. The very first PC game from 2000 is apparently god awful and almost unplayable.
Most of the adaptations of Mignola’s work ran through Del Toro, and from what I recall it was Del Toro who pursued and instigated it all. Now that he’s not involved, I’m not actually sure how into it Mignola actually is.
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Crap, I didn’t know they did an animated show!
I don’t collect comics per se anymore, but I have been picking up the Hellboy graphic novels and have most of the, and now have gotten some BPRD books as well. I have always loved Mignola’s work, starting with his adaptations of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser!!
And I kickstarted the RPG book and have been reading it.
The game has nailed the look of the books, assuming that is game play. I’m in!
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Oh man! Mignola’s Fafhrd and thr Gray Mouser books are amazing. Used to read through those about once a year. Need to dig them out for a read in the new year!
And for anyone who hasn’t watched the animated Amazing Screw On Head, OMG! Excellent adaptation of the comic. Check it out.
As for the game, will wait for the reviews. Hellboy adaptations are a very mixed bag.Fingers crossed!
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Yeah, I have those and the short DC series that Howard Chaykin did. (He did the scripting on the Mignola series.) I dressed up as Grey Mouser from those books for Halloween once!
But the Mignola series really nailed the whole atmosphere. Al Williamson’s great inks!
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I’m still a little shocked they never picked it up. IIRC Sci-Fi had wanted to take a run at the adult animation thing and compete with Adult Swim. But there was a leadership change and the plan got sacked. Screw-On Head had some one to champion it, but they just couldn’t get the network on board.
I played the Hellboy game from 2000, and it was just a junky Doom-clone with badly pixelated Hellboy monsters.
However, the package did come with a Hellboy mouse, which was pretty cool (though it lacked a scroll bar, making it unusable as a modern mouse).
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I remembered it being a little more Walmart budget shelf Tomb Raider clone.
I would like to see that mouse though.
I didn’t even know those were a thing. I’ll have to hunt them out; I fuckin’ love me some Fritz Leiber.
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