Saturday, September 10, 2005
Comic Art
Back to the Honorable Mention series we are going to look today at Mike Mignola. Mike is young in comparison to many of the artists I have featured here and he has had a career path that is unique compared to other guys we have looked at because of that. Most artists have to prove themselves for years and years before they get full creative control, but Mike's career has been ata time in the industry where he was able to go solo pretty early. He was a proven performer, but only had about 10 years in before he hit it dead nuts on in his solo effort.Mike started his career at Marvel ,inking and then drawing. As you can see from this picture and the next, he liked his heroes skinny.
Mike's art has always been distinctive and the evolution of his style has been interesting to watch. He has never been afraid to try things -- like his skinny heroes.
My personal favorite work of Mike's for the two major publishers was his Spectre miniseries. The series set this most fascinating character back into the comic fans consciousness after years of absence. He made the Spirit of Vengenance more spirit than vengance, very ethereal.It was also this series where I took notice of Mike as an artist for the first time, prior, at least in my world, he had been just another workman artist.
Mike was also the artist on one of the most important story arcs in the history of Batman -- the death of the second Robin, Jason Todd. I loved that story, but did not love Mike's art -- I honestly thought is distracted from the fantastic story.Regardless, that series was real feather in Mike's hat and it paved the way for his move to independence, which lead to his phenomenally successful solo effort --Hellboy. Hellboy is a demon conjured by the Nazi's, captured by the Allies as a "youth" and now used as a force to battle the dark forces on behalf of the nation.
Given the opportunity to design a character from scratch, Mike sems to have come up with a character that suits his style perfectly. Frabkly, Hellboy is indistinctive drawn by anyone else, but by Mike -- He is a perfect.
