So which comic books did Mignola actually draw? And why did he stop drawing?

[WheresMyElefant]

I absolutely love Mignola's style, but was disappointed to find that he didn't draw in books such as Abe Sapien and Lobster Johnson. Does anyone have a list of the stuff he actually did the art for?

[Kees_L]

If you go to the main page of the Dark Horse website, find the search-box (with the magnifying glass icon)

and enter "mignola", you are asked whether you wish to "view all 685 products" by clicking on this command.

And once you do, you can set the "Sort:" modus to "Date - Old-New". Then click "browse".

What you get is a complete and chronological list of every comic / book / collection with all creative personnel specified:
(link: http://www.darkhorse.com/Search/Brow...+2016/Ppydwkt7)

You may note from that list there'd be quite a number of titles!

Also, Hellboy started out with the Seed Of Destruction mini-series, some promotional appearances plus a couple of crossovers amongst and between the titles of a small group of creators working under the banner of the short-lived "Legend"-imprint.

From my understanding has Hellboy always specifically been a creator-owned Mike Mignola thing, which didn't however mean that any assistance or input as sought from fellow colleagues would be forbidden.

As if it could be possible that even artist-both-as-writer-creators wouldn't shy away from what assistance they could be open to, also for helping the books to come out in a convenient schedule or flow, instead of just whenever one would be done. In my own words.

If Hellboy being creator-owned springs from keeping it as inspired as it could get, then getting what assistance as needed would stand to reason I'd think?

Eventhough it would all evolve around the creations and ideas of one and the same person, the Hell-verse books have never been a purely one-person-gig-per-se I would reckon'.

By the time the B.P.R.D. became to be looking as if it could do with becoming its own title, people like John Arcudi and Guy Davis among others became seriously involved.

Even legendary icons have been adding their stuff over the years, such as John Severin, Bernie Wrightson, Richard Corben, P. Craig Russell, Kevin Nowlan and many others.

Mike Mignola never stopped drawing, but has always appeared to be drawing or writing both as overseeing all that he has done, with what help he felt to find I'd imagine.

Only around the time of the second Hellboy movie it was announced that mister Mike would be handing the drawing of the then current Hellboy-continuity over to Duncan Fegredo - stated as being one of the hardest decisions in his career - but he came back to fully both as consistently drawing Hellboy as of the start of the title Hellboy In Hell and even various features as well as complete books already before that.

I hope the Dark Horse website may answer any of your questions, they also have a separate Hellboy Zone thing going on, with all titles up to the most currently upcoming ones. Straight from the Horse's mouth, so to speak!
(link: https://www.darkhorse.com/Zones/Hellboy/738

[middenway]

Actually, Mike Mignola has always been drawing, but he took on more and more writing, which obviously takes time away from drawing, and at one point he was doing covers for practically every Hellboy spin-off. There's a lot of those, and Mike Mignola is very particular about his covers, so that was more time taken away from drawing Hellboy interiors. That's why he's not doing many covers any more, even for the trade paperbacks.

The Hellboy movie derailed his confidence a bit too. He described it as "living in the film's shadow." (He speaks a bit about this in the Hellboy Library Editions, Volumes 3-5, in his afterwords.)

But he never stopped drawing Hellboy. He slowed down, especially around the films and Duncan Fegredo's run as the ongoing artist, but he was always drawing short stories and one shots.

And now he draws until he's comfortable with a page. He's removed deadlines so that he can revise until he's totally satisfied. The comics aren't solicited until he's nearly finished with them.

This year's a slow year for Hellboy in Hell. He wrote Frankenstein Underground and did its covers, and was very involved the design process of that book. He was heavily involved in writing 1952 (John Arcudi's contribution was largely dialogue for that book), and he's been hard at work on 1953 as well as another secret project not set in the Hellboy or Baltimore universes. Again, he's heavily involved on the secret project. So he's been very, very busy, but he's always still drawing.

[Kees_L]

The Hellboy movie derailed his confidence a bit too. He described it as "living in the film's shadow." (He speaks a bit about this in the Hellboy Library Editions, Volumes 3-5, in his afterwords.)

I'll have to read those afterwords again, and the secret stuff sounds really interesting.

I have something which I'll try and phrase as succinctly as I can but I would like to run it by you as fellow fans:

when I personally think back to when for instance "Hellboy: The Island" was coming out, the whole "Mignolaverse" comics roster and the volume to it seemed all so different in scope from nowadays.

To say that I'd think the writing may have just become more and more of a thing over the years.

Like as if for telling it all it literally needed to expand into more than one title, as distinctly as possible towards any type of reader.
Or else the impact and focus to any new installment might just become uncomfortable at one point?

I mean, consider how between 'Hellboy: The Third Wish' (2002) and 'Hellboy: The Island' (2005) would be to exist a three year lapse. Just the way it was, no problem.
In between which some 20 or 40 other titles and books per year appeared - a whole lot of books I would think. Still no problem.
Stories to the first B.P.R.D. trade, a Hellboy prose anthology, standlone stories - all very great and very diverse, as much back then as it would be now.

But the difference in impact would be that among all that product, the continuity for Hellboy seemed to go from being stranded or afloat to him remaining stranded or afloat with skeletons, continuity-wise all the way until the start of 'Hellboy: Darkness Calls' (2007)!

Over a period of time amounting to roughly half a decade (!), for what then still could be seeming much a 'main and only current title'.
Which still wouldn't be a problem but just the actual reality at the time.

Whereas this year a whole new ongoing Hellboy title was launched (Hellboy & the BPRD), Hellboy In Hell appears at least once a year but actually more regularly than that, next to the steady streams of other titles, from BPRD to Frankenstein Underground, each of them adding scope or perspective to where Hellboy's world would be at steadily both as constantly.

Making that each and any type of reader, as following or preferring whatever, any such an approach may get catered to as regularly and steadily as could be, now moreso than ever before.

In short: it seems to me there aren't and weren't ever *few* products coming out. Not ever few, but lots more rather.
Diverse ones related to not merely Hellboy or even the Hellverse but just literally all kinds.

And I do think that with all the many books to having gotten published, getting conceived of as devotedly as they have been, with proving available and accessible for any people to read, for me this appears to be making any part of it only the more roomy, only the more accessible and comfortable to follow or get into.

Even any thoughts or feels towards endings closing in: the diverse nature to the many different perspectives seems to ease this more rather than not, if only since anything may get followed up on.
Plus there'll be standalones or flashbacks too, which may even rival the focus to developments away from the present any given time.

Or now with Hellboy & the BPRD existing as an ongoing thing even, next to it all, it really does seem that there will be just so much still to come, to either worldending stuff or be it the golden days to things? This would be my line of thinking I suppose.

[middenway]

...the secret stuff sounds really interesting.

It certainly does. I'm very eager to find out what it is...