Deck the claws with boughs of Hellboy

Mike Mignola and Matt Smith present a holiday story featuring Hellboy and a giant cat.

I’d never heard of Jólakötturinn, the “ferocious Yule Cat of Icelandic folklore,” who is said to lurk about “the snowy countryside during Christmas time and eats people who have not received any new clothes to wear before Christmas Eve.” Let’s hope Hellboy remembered to buy a new outfit, because he’ll be facing off with the Yule Cat in a new special this December.

It’s by Barbarian Lord creator Matt Smith, with colors by Chris O’Halloran and letters by Clem Robins, and of course the oversight of Hellboy creator Mike Mignola (whose birthday was yesterday! Happy belated birthday, Mike Mignola!)

“The land of fire and ice, trolls and necropants, Iceland is as natural a setting for a Hellboy story as any I could think of,” Smith said. “Set in 1990 and coming close to the events of the Hellboy: Bones of Giants, Hellboy likely hasn’t forgotten about the wrath of old Norse giants. But a giant, child-eating cat—that would be something new.”

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Love is quite literally Hell in the new miniseries ‘Hellboy in Love’

Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, Matt Smith, Chris O’Halloran and Clem Robins tell a story filled with love, ex-girlfriends, punk rock and goblin train robberies.

It’s all about the love in a new miniseries coming from the creative team of Hellboy: The Bones of Giants. Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, Matt Smith, Chris O’Halloran, and Clem Robins reunite for Hellboy in Love, a five-issue series that also reunites Hellboy with Dr. Anastasia Bransfield, his ex-girlfriend from the novel Hellboy: The Lost Army.

“It’s been 25 years since Dr. Anastasia Bransfield first appeared as Hellboy’s ex-girlfriend in my novel Hellboy: The Lost Army,” Golden, who wrote the novel, said. “I’ve always thought one of the reasons Mike considered my three Hellboy novels as canon is because of that relationship. Over the years we talked many times about telling the stories of their adventures together, and the day has finally come. It’s Romancing the Stone-style action, occult weirdness, and first love, with gorgeous Matt Smith art! We’re having so much fun!”

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Dark Horse will adapt ‘Hellboy: The Bones of Giants’ into comics

Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, Matt Smith and Chris O’Halloran will adapt the prose novel as a four-issue miniseries.

Dark Horse announced plans to release a comic book adaptation of the Hellboy prose novel Hellboy: The Bones of Giants. The four-issue miniseries kicks off in November and is by Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, Matt Smith and Chris O’Halloran.

Released in 2001, Hellboy: The Bones of Giants was written by Golden and featured illustrations from Mignola. It’s one of three Hellboy novels Golden has written over the last 20-plus years, as he also wrote first one, The Lost Army, as well as 2007’s The Dragon Pool.

“It’s a thrill to return to the world of Hellboy: The Bones of Giants,” Golden said. “I’ve been deeply in love with Norse mythology since first reading Dorothy Hosford’s Thunder of the Gods in the fifth grade. I might have been the only one to take it out of the St. Bridget’s School library that year, but I read it 15 times, so there wasn’t much opportunity for other kids to read it. When Mike first told me he had this image in his head of lightning flashing down from the sky to strike Mjollnir, where it lay in the grip of the corpse of Thor…well, that was like Christmas morning, getting to indulge my love of Norse myth and my love of Hellboy.”

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Dark Horse announces ‘Young Hellboy: The Hidden Land’

Mike Mignola, Tom Sniegoski, Craig Rousseau, Dave Stewart and Clem Robins team up for an untold tale from Hellboy’s past.

Dark Horse Comics will reveal an as-yet-untold adventure from Hellboy’s past in Young Hellboy: The Hidden Land. The four-issue miniseries will be co-written by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola and Tom Sniegoski, with art by Craig Rousseau, colorist Dave Stewart and letterer Clem Robins. Matt Smith will provide the covers.

“Awhile back (when you could still do such things) I was at a convention in Boston and ducked out for lunch with Tom Sniegoski,” said Mignola. “Years earlier we co-wrote a more-than-slightly insane novel together, Grim Death And Joe The Electrocuted Criminal, and I brought up the idea of the maybe slightly insane globetrotting adventures of a very young Hellboy. Tom’s eyes lit up, as I kind of knew they would. So there was half the battle won, but we would need a special kind of artist to bring Tom’s madman energy to the page—and artist Craig Rousseau just happens to be that artist. And Craig just happened to be at that same convention, and when I told him the idea his eyes lit up just the way Tom’s had. It was almost too easy, and I’m happy to say the results are everything I could have hoped for.”

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BOOM! Studios announces ‘Folklords’ by Kindt + Smith

New miniseries follows a young man whose “forbidden quest reveals the shocking truth about his world.”

Dept. H and Black Badge writer Matt Kindt is teaming up with Barbarian Lord creator Matt Smith for a new miniseries from BOOM! Studios. Folklords is about” a young man whose forbidden quest reveals the shocking truth about his world and turns everything he ever knew upside down.”

“Ideas usually sneak up on you. But this one came in a flash. As soon as my plucky editor, Eric, said the word ‘Folklords,’ I had an image of this teenage kid in a black suit and tie…walking through a small folk tale-style village full of gnomes, witches and trolls. It looked jarring, seeing that kid there. He was completely out of place. What’s this kid wearing a suit for? Is he living in a fairy tale? Why is he there?” Kindt said in a press release. “I’m not sure why the word triggered that image in my head but I didn’t question it. The question I did have? Who the heck are the Folklords? This kid…in this suit and tie…who doesn’t seem to belong? He’s going to find out.”

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Nominees announced for the British Fantasy Awards

‘2000AD,’ ‘Saga’ and the webcomic ‘Skal’ included on the shortlist of nominees in the comics category.

The British Fantasy Society has announced the nominees for the British Fantasy Awards, including the “Best Comic/Graphic Novel” category.

The nominees were decided by members of the society, with additional nominees added by the award’s jury to ensure “egregious omissions” made the list. Winners will be decided by jury and announced at FantasyCon 2017, which runs Sept. 29-Oct. 1.

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