Scott Allie doing an AMA on Reddit to wrap up 13 Days of Hellboy

[middenway]

Details here.

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The AMA should begin in three and a half hours...

[LobsterJohnson]

That was pretty cool. Lots of good questions. Thanks to Scott Allie for having the AMA.

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Here's the link for those that want to read it.

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Here's a recap of the Mignolaverse related questions...

DrownedJellyfish: Just yesterday you told that Laurence Campbell is doing the covers on Hell on Earth until the end. Does this mean that you actually have an end in sight? Not that I expect you to reveal it, but is there a number in your mind on how many issues or arcs is left?
ScottAllie: Of Hell on Earth, yes. I could tell you what issue number will be the last, but I'm not ready yet. That is not the end of the 'verse, though.

Phandz: Will we see Anders again anytime soon?
ScottAllie: Anders, last seen in B.P.R.D. Vampire, will reappear when we can get the Twins to come back and do more with him. Anders is mostly reserved for them, the way Ashley Strode is reserved for Cameron Stewart, three of the great geniuses of the comics medium!

Twinkydog: Hi Scott, will there be another Lobster Johnson book next year? The last one was awesome!
ScottAllie: We have multiple Lobster Johnson projects in the works. It's our goal and priority to keep Lobster Johnson focused with Tonci, because no one living could do a better job with that character. But in order to keep Lobster Johnson on the shelf a little faster than Tonci can comply, we'll have some more things in the vein of Satan Smells a Rat coming along...
Twinkydog: Cool! Tonci's art is great, but I really enjoy the one-shots too.

crawlerette: Hi Scott! I have a question regarding Liz's return to the B.P.R.D.; it seems there hasn't been a lot of reaction or information to her about recent events. The death of Hellboy (who she seemed to think was coming back alive), Abe's change (which she saw in the photo in King of Fear), the death of Ben Daimio, or her friendship with Fenix despite the fact that it's open knowledge that she tried to murder Liz's friend Abe. I've really been hoping to see some sort of reaction to any of these but it seems to be getting passed over like she doesn't know at all.
Is this gonna be addressed in future issues?
Just wanna throw in a side note too that I've been reading for over 10 years now and have no intention of stopping. Thanks so much for your work along with the work of everyone involved in the Mignola'verse
ScottAllie: Your question about Liz is the sort of question we often get on Buffy. In my opinion, it's not always dramatically satisfying to see the characters react to things that the readers have known about for a while. Sometimes you can really do that—I've tried to do something with it with Abe learning about Hellboy's death, and not accepting it. But mostly I think the story needs to keep moving along and we assume the characters learned off-panel what the readers and the other characters already knew. Your note about her having foreseen Abe's transformation in that photo is a good one, though. That's something to address down the road.
felecbr: I have been assuming characters learned things about each other off-panel, like Liz about Abe's transformation and disappearance. Though it makes sense to move the story along, it sometimes feels like there is something lacking when we don't see their reactions. The connections between all these characters have always been so significant in these comics, it sticks out when they no longer even acknowledge each other when they're not both in the same place physically. Those strong connections built up throughout Plague of Frogs feel a lot weaker... but maybe that's the point?
crawlerette: I can understand that. I was mostly really hoping for some reaction cause the friendship between the big three -- Liz, Abe, and HB -- has been one of my long-standing favorite things about the series and seeing how they affected one another emotionally and morally, so I hope we can see more things like the most recent issue where they talk about each other!
ScottAllie: I agree. Don't rule it out as still to come.

PercivalJBonertonIV: That giant monster in last month's B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth looked an awful lot like Abe, and then in last week's Abe Sapien #17, there was that half page splash of Abe as a giant monster destroying buildings. I'm just curious if the readers are supposed to be making a connection between these points, because Abe and the monster look just different enough that it could be only a coincidence. (Though I should say that I would be all about Abe going super kaiju somewhere down the line...)
If the response to that is too "top secret, keep reading" of an answer, then could you shed some light on the general process of developing new stories for this massive "mignolaverse"? I can't even begin to imagine how challenging and stressful it must be to keep adding new wrinkles to an overall plot spanning two decades; making sure everything fits with the older stuff and basically future-proofing every new step.
Thanks for hosting this Q&A, and I'm looking forward to everything you guys will be putting out over the next several months!
ScottAllie: Mike always has a pretty good idea of where it's all going. Mike is always steering the big picture—and often a lot of the small picture, but some of that he gives John and me and some of the other guys some room. But Mike don't keep secrets from me and John, so we're all in synch about the big movements of the world, and making sure the right correspondences are coming up. The recent Witchfinder series, which I think ends Wednesday, was an interesting exercise. The point of getting Kim on board was to let him do his own thing. But when his story sort of veered toward some familiar territory—in a good way, because he was maybe more of a fan of Mike's work than we totally realized—we had to steer him and Maura more than we initially wanted to. Kim and Maura didn't have time to become absolute experts on the Mignolaverse, though they knew it very well; and they didn't have time to learn the ins and outs of the secret **** that only Mike and John and I know. So when they got in to this Innsmmouth-like fish-people stuff, we realized we needed to guide it in a way to make sure that if it got too close to Mike's bigger mythology stuff, it got close in the right way. Anyway, to answer your question, Witchfinder was one of those instances where we had to really think about how to manage the massive Mignolaverse, with a couple of writers who couldn't be expected to know it all inside and out.
PercivalJBonertonIV: Thanks so much for your answers! You guys are seriously the best thing about comics
ScottAllie: Abe really does not want you making those connections, but I guess the writers and artists probably do. It's certainly not exactly a coincidence, but it has something in part to do with the Lovecraftian influences on the Mignolaverse—that is, there's going to be a certain fishy/froggy aspect to the world because of Lovecraft's influence, but maybe also for other reasons...

alise-gluskova: Hey, Scott! I'm happy to see that there are coming out more Mignolaverse titles. I'm very excited for Frankenstein Underground, personally. Is there ever a worry about the amount of how many titles there is in this comicbook universe? And happened to Vaughn and why is he in the state he is?
ScottAllie: Yeah, we definitely are concerned about having too many books coming out at once. We limit it to four pamphlet comics and one trade, though sometimes it peeks just over that. Originally Frankenstein Underground was going to be a trilogy, but in writing it Mike realized it really needed to be one volume, and that's led him to do a lot with it. With Vaughn, he was killed in Abe Sapien #3, and the necromancer Strobl brought him back to life to try to learn something from him about Abe and Liz. He was surprised Vaughn didn't know much, and keeps him around as a servant, as Vaughn humanity slowly slips away...
alise-gluskova: That's really sad situation from Vaughn, but at least he don't feel cold... I guess.

cabose7: Is McWhirter from the Oannes Society going to show up again in B.P.R.D. or Abe Sapien? He was just sort of left hanging when Hell on Earth started.
ScottAllie: Yes.

mizclu: Given the pervasiveness of the Hellboy movie and it's completely divorced characterization of Abe, do you ever deal with people or situations that confuse the two? We're all still laughing about a review of Dark and Terrible that discussed "Hellboy's psychic sidekick," but that does seem like a potential really confusing barrier to new readers if anyone is starting with Abe. Does the movie's impact ever bother you?
ScottAllie: No—I think I avoid that problem with Abe because the guy in the movie so clearly is not the guy in the comic. They're SO different. Although I guess I missed that review. What can you do ... But we get more of that with Hellboy himself, where people are so moved by the version of him in the film that they think it's the same guy in the comic. The worst is when collaborators make that mistake ...
mizclu: Oh gosh I can only imagine. Its amazing how many supposedly-comic Hellboy pinups clearly draw more from the movie characterization of HB. its always easy to spot who hasn't actually read any of the comics, dark devil anti-hero my ass.

Phandz: With Hell on Earth "winding down," can we look forward to a whole new cycle, hopefully more than one? Or should we be sort of prepared that the universe is done expanding and beginning to contract?
ScottAllie: It's gonna maintain roughly this same size for a while, but there will come a time when it starts to contract.

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robotgerman: Hey Scott!
I am a huge fan of all things Hellboy. How does collaboration between the many different teams work? Are their meetings between you and mike and then direction is given, or does everyone work pretty independently of each other doing what the feel works for the story and just be aware of whats happening in other corners of the universe. For a world with so many books tied to it it easily the most fully realized and consistent universe in comics.
ScottAllie: There's a lot of interaction. Some of my favorite parts in the process is the phone calls with Arcudi and Mignola, talking big picture. The ideas to do the Plague of Frogs Hardcovers came after a dinner in Baltimore with Mike, John, and Guy, in which we also talked about how to end the Plague saga.
With the visual execution of the world, designs bounce back and forth between Mike and the artists. Sometimes we do that with cover sketches, sometimes—rarely—with layouts in a story, but most often with monster designs. We want the monsters in the world to have the Mignola feel, even when he doesn't design them himself. Sometimes Mike redrawing someone's design once, in his own style, is enough.

Twinkydog: 1)Will the thing in Get the Lobster about the pirates and the people that can turn into panthers be used in future stories? 2) Will there ever be a Lobster Johnson/Black Beetle crossover?
ScottAllie: 1) Not necessarily. The pirate thing was something we were wanting to reveal for years, but now it's out there, and the panther stuff is a very subtle connection to things we've touched on in other books. Both these things are less about setting up future things. 2) I'd worry that LoJo's crew would just get confused.

chrisfaefoggie82:
Hi Scott. When can we expect the next issue of Hellboy in Hell and who is that creepy dude with the sword on the Abe Sapien trade cover?
Thanks
ScottAllie: The next part of Hellboy in Hell is a two parter, and Mike likes to have it mostly done before we solicit, so that is still a little bit off—but he's totally focused on those issues right now. He talked me through some new bits this morning, and it's gonna be great. Regarding the creepy guy on that Abe Sapien cover ... Man, we are reaping great benefits from working with Random House on distribution, but their work flow is so much different from the direct market that it takes a lot of getting used to, how early they need covers. You know in the book world the whole book is often complete like a year before it comes out? Very different from how comics are done. So that Abe Sapien trade cover hints at things in the next arc, but I sure as **** ain't gonna explain it yet! The on thing I'll say—that creepy dude is sort of connected to my answer to someone else below... [NOTE: Above on this particular abridged transcript]

Phandz: How are Kroenen and Kurtz alive?!
ScottAllie: We knew we were stretching credibility there, but we thought long and hard about it and decided that Zinco needed to have recovered them.

And that's it!

[LobsterJohnson]

There were some good Hellboy related questions in the AMA; it was very exciting when Scott answered my Lobster Johnson questions.