Hellboy creator Mike Mignola will team with Mel The Chosen artist Rachele Aragno for a new series of projects, starting with Leonide The Vampyr: Miracle At The Crow’s Head this October.
They’ll be joined colorist Dave Stewart and letter Clem Robins for the one-shot, which sprang from an image Aragno posted online.
“Last October I was publishing daily sketches on social media. Mike Mignola had seen the first one, a portrait of a vampire girl, and he loved it,” said Aragno. “From there we started talking about the idea of a collaboration between us, and that my vampire portrait could be the basis of a story. When Mike sent me the outline, I went crazy with joy. It was perfect, and I was delighted to be able to draw and put those words on paper. Mignola has always been in the pantheon of my favorite authors, and I was honored to be able to work with him.”
Here’s the description from Dark Horse:
LEONIDE THE VAMPYR: MIRACLE AT THE CROW’S HEAD is the first in a series of planned collaborations between Mignola and Aragno. In this one-shot, a small coastal village is home to normal people living quiet and simple lives –– until a shipwreck brings a small coffin and its smaller occupant into their midst. And what begins as a miracle soon quickly takes a horrible turn.
“I pretty much fell in love with Rachele’s art the moment I saw it—especially these little drawings she was doing of a little vampire girl,” said Mignola. “They have the perfect balance of innocent charm and weird creepiness. Sometimes you just look at a character and you know their stories. That’s pretty much what happened here. Almost no effort went into it—I just looked into her spooky little eyes and the stories came spilling out.”
And here’s the variant cover by Mike Mignola:
Look for it in stores on Oct. 5.