Hellboy creator Mike Mignola is teaming with Warwick Johnson-Cadwell on an original graphic novel about vampires titled Mr. Higgins Comes Home.
“This one started when a mutual friend pointed out Warwick Johnson-Cadwell’s affection for sad werewolves. Then Warwick and I exchanges a few words about vampires and that was it,” Mignola said in a statement. “Mr. Higgins Comes Home is my very obvious nod to any number of old Hammer Dracula films and my all-time favorite vampire film, Roman Polanski’s The Fearless Vampire Killers.”
Per the press release, the story starts when “preparations begin at Castle Golga for the annual festival of the undead, as a pair of fearless vampire killers question a man hidden away in a monastery on the Baltic Sea. The mysterious Mr. Higgins wants nothing more than to avoid the scene of his wife’s death, and the truth about what happened to him in that castle. However, these heroic men, sworn to rid the world of the vampire scourge, inspire Higgins to venture out and to end the only suffering he really cares about–his own.” Unlike most Mignola projects, this one is stand alone and set outside the Hellboy/B.P.R.D. ‘Mignolaverse.’
Johnson-Cadwell is the artist of IDW’s Helena Crash, with writer Fabian Rangel Jr., and has also worked on Tank Girl, in animation design, and for newspapers like The Guardian and The Times.
“Working on a project with Mike Mignola is an amazing thing to be able to do,” said Johnson-Cadwell in a statement. “His art and storytelling is a massive influence and inspiration for me and chatting with him about werewolves, vampires and the like was very exciting. When Mr. Higgins Comes Home turned up in my email I was in awe. It’s a rollicking vampire romp right in the Hammer vein and it’s a pleasure to be slapping that crimson goop they used for blood all over it.”
Check out the cover below. Mr. Higgins Comes Home will be available from Dark Horse Comics at the end of October.
