Hellboy II: The Art Of The Movie (book review).
I’ve been sitting on my copy of ‘Hellboy II: The Art Of The Movie’ for sometime and finding time to read it problematic until now and, writing up the indica, noting the film came out 15 years ago. My, time has flown and I’m already extending my timeline to read all my backlog of personally bought books.
From the introduction, director/writer Guillermo del Toro points out that his original plot for his second ‘Hellboy’ film changed drastically, then the original film company went bankrupt and touting it around for another studio also meant many reductions for budget before getting Universal to bankroll it.
Regardless of whether I liked the final film or not, I am a sucker for film production books. This one is a little odder than usual in that the art from Mike Mignola, Wayne Barlow, Francisco Ruiz Velasco and Stephen Scott, with other artists showing their work along the way and is surrounded by the film script.
You’ll have to decide how to read the book. Do you read the script first and then go over the art or read do the lot in one go and make the character connections. I tend to the latter because it puts the scenes and character designs in context. Mignola principally comes up with the character design with Barlow and Velasco refining it for practicability. One of the designs, specifically Wink in del Toro’s notes, shows how the actor inside is allowed to breath. Mignola comments that he lets others worry about such things to allow himself the freedom to imagine.
A lot of the designs gets full page depictions and you certainly get more illustrations than usual and a splatter of photographs showing the final depiction on screen.
Copies are still out there and I suspect the art will appeal to you.
GF Willmetts
June 2022
(pub: Dark Horse Books, 2008. 223 page illustrated softcover. Price: I bought a few years back but you should be able to get a good price. ISBN: 978-1-59307-964-2)
check out website: www.darkhorse.com