#Mike Mignola Launching ‘Giant Robot Hellboy’ (Exclusive)

We know what you’re thinking. You like Hellboy but think there’s something missing. Like, maybe a little…mecha.

Well, for those thinking exactly that, Hellboy creator Mike Mignola has heard your cries of woe and answered them.

Mignola has reunited with artist Duncan Fegredo for Giant Robot Hellboy, a three-issue mini-series that promises to be exactly what the title lays out, a Hellboy that is one giant mecha.

Mignola wrote the series while Fegredo, with whom the creator worked on Hellboy: Darkness Calls, Hellboy: The Wild Hunt, and Hellboy: The Storm and The Fury, is handling the art. The comic will mark Fegredo’s first interior work since 2019 as the artist has focused mostly on covers since then. Eisner Award-winning colorist Dave Stewart and longtime Hellboy Universe letterer Clem Robins are also on the book.

The first issue will drop from Dark Horse Comics in October, featuring a variant cover by Mignola and Stewart. The second issue will feature a variant cover by Shaolin Cowboy cartoonist Geof Darrow and issue No. 3 will feature a variant cover by monster-loving artist Art Adams.

GRH’s started almost as a lark, after Mignola doodled some sketches and posted them online. He was surprised by the strong reaction.

“Giant Robot Hellboy is my very obvious nod to all those Japanese giant monster movies…which I actually have no particular love for,” Mignola said in a statement. “What I do love is listening to Geof Darrow and Art Adams talks about those movies, so really, I guess this series was inspired by those guys.”

Mignola had been considering the concept for quite awhile.

“I had the idea for this one a long time ago but figured it was too silly to actually do,” continued Mignola. “Then the pandemic came along and I started to do all those sketches I would post online. I had never given a serious thought to what a giant robot Hellboy would look like but I knocked out a few sketches and I liked them. the thing started to seem like something that could actually be done. The thing started to seem like something that could actually be done.”

His pals Darrow and Adams were busy with other projects so he turned to Fegredo, although he was a little worried about how the artist would react to the idea.

“I had no idea how Duncan would respond. Too silly?” Mignola stated. “I didn’t know, but I figured I’d pitch it to him and if he said no that would be an end to it. The rest is history.”

Plot details are being kept vague but does seem to serve up all the usual Hellboy check boxes. In the all-new mini-series, Hellboy is kidnapped and hooked up to a massive mecha-Hellboy for a mission on a mysterious, faraway island, but the island might just put up a fight of its own.

Fegredo put it this way: “Hellboy awakes to an out-of-body experience and simultaneously has to deal with the usual fallout from mad scientists doing their thing whilst learning to walk again. Come to think of it, that pretty much describes my return to collaborating with Mike.”

Mignola has created a large and evolving epic for his Earth-bound demon, whose adventures began publishing in 1993. Through various series, mini-series and graphic novels, Hellboy is one of the long-running independent and creator-owned comics around. The character has been adapted into three movies, with Ron Perlman playing the role in two directed by Guillermo del Toro in 2004 and 2008, and David Harbour taking on the role in a 2019 version.

Check out the covers for issue no. 1 below.