Hellboy creator Mike Mignola has recruited the artistic talents of Jesse Lonergan (Hedra, Planet Paradise) for a new miniseries set in the Mignolaverse — Miss Truesdale and the Fall of Hyperborea. They’re joined by longtime Mignolaverse letterer Clem Robbins.
If you aren’t familiar with Lonergan, he turned a lot of heads with his unqiue approach to comics in Hedra and Planet Paradise, both of which are the type of comic that reminds you of what’s possible in the medium.
“I fell in love with Jesse’s stuff the moment I stumbled across it, but it took a long time for me to wrap my head around a way we could work together,” said Mignola. “His storytelling is so great but amazingly unique and I’m such a control freak when it comes to how to pace a story—I didn’t want to tie his hands with the way I structure things. But he is just so good… Eventually I came up with the idea for Miss Truesdale (an odd one, even for me) and just couldn’t think of anyone better to draw it. We met, we talked, and I think we settled on a way to collaborate. It meant writing a plot that was tight in some places and very, very loose in others. I had to trust Jesse to work his magic—and for me it’s hard to really trust an artist I’ve never worked with, even one as good as Jesse—but I did it and he did what he does and I couldn’t be happier with the results. I think this ends up being one of the most unique extensions of the Hellboy Universe, and after almost 30 years (and some very odd stories) that’s saying something.”
Here’s the description from Dark Horse:
In this four issue mini-series, one of the last followers of a failing Heliopic Brotherhood of Ra, the unassuming Miss Truesdale, finds herself on the receiving end of Brotherhood leader Tefnut Trionus’s final vision. Connecting her life in Victorian London to a young gladiator in ancient Hyperborea, Truesdale discovers she now has the chance to change the future by altering the bygone past.
“When Mike asked me if I would be interested in doing something in the Hellboy universe, it felt a little bit like a dream,” said Lonergan. “He’s one of the artists whose work I revisit the most, and there have been times when I’ve been working on something and asked myself, ‘How would Mignola do this?’ And then to get to do a story that introduces a new character, expands the lore, and has gladiators, Victorian spiritualists, and lizard people—it’s just been so much fun.”
Here’s a look at Mignola’s variant cover for the first issue:
I’m really looking forward to this. The four-issue miniseries kicks off at Dark Horse on May 17.