Hellboy in Hell #9–10

[Kees_L]

I know Mike said he never planned the snake to be her before he got to issue #9. I'm also glad he said so much is open to interpretation, because I want it to be her.

Hah!

Speaking of Mike... He just said the following on Facebook -

"It wasn't intended to be Harry's place but if you guys want it to be it certainly can be. That ending is open to all kinds of personal interpretation."

And there you go.

I tried to find where on Facebook he said it for seeing the context, but couldn't find it. Oh well.

I personally interpret the ending as if Hellboy is walking away from the reader (and creator) into the story matter itself, as if crossing a horizon, with returning to more familiar *strange places*. Like how the voice of a storyteller becomes detached once the story becomes fully told, the comic book reaches its last page, into the last panel. And that's that.

I do think however that Hellboy is to show up one final time, being on the battlefield of Vigrid, once the apocalypse is actually coming to pass, as not having actually occurred yet, since the actual dragon or 7th incarnation of the Ogdru Jahad as yet still remains emprisoned and with it mankind as not having been destroyed.

Which seems an image sort of like Atlas needing to be holding the world on his shoulders, as more rather an allegory - the story continuity wouldn't even have to be touching on it, since it would be apparent like as doom itself. Plus noone living could be to really witness it anyway, since the end or the apocalypse would be rather deadly!!

The allegory to such being, that eventhough the world hasn't been destroyed the reader could already long have been recognizing or be to sense in Hellboy's eyes that he (and only he) would be the one having to end the world due to being the ultimate doombringer.
My sense is that in this way Hellboy's ending was set in roasted-peanut-scented stone all along, eversince his beginning.
That's what I think, and I like it .

[middenway]

I tried to find where on Facebook he said it for seeing the context, but couldn't find it. Oh well.

It was on the Mike Mignola Appreciation Page.

[Kees_L]

Ah, thanks. Found it.

[topfueluhl]

Mike told me something at SDCC that I found interesting about page 20 of the final issue. He said the three skeleton guys watching Hellboy walk down the beach to his final home represent himself, Dave Stewart, and Scott Allie.

Issue10_page20.jpg

[Joker]

That's awesome, thanks for sharing that! (Did he say who's in the cage?)

I read that he said the living room in the final scene is his living room. I don't know if that's untended in story, but it's at least what he based it on.

[topfueluhl]

That's awesome, thanks for sharing that! (Did he say who's in the cage?)

I read that he said the living room in the final scene is his living room. I don't know if that's untended in story, but it's at least what he based it on.

Yep, Mike also told me the final page was his living room, and then he mentioned it again at the panel. He said something like he wanted to put Hellboy in his living room for safe keeping so he would always know where he is in case he wants to pull him back out to use again.

He didn't mention who was in the cage.

[Joker]

That's pretty cute. It fits perfectly with how personal an ending that was.

[Kees_L]

He didn't mention who was in the cage.

Cool. So in the cage it could maybe be the letterer, like Clem Robins or Pat Brosseau? And any of the other in-panel distant cloaked figures could be the printing peeps and paper scoopers? Cool.
They could even be from China! Cool, cool, cool .

[zerodemon]

John Arcudi?
John Byrne?

[borntohula]

Maybe skeleton in the cage is the reader, who's facing the direction Hellboy came from

I really liked the seagull showing up. Reminded me a bit of both From Hell and 100Bullets.

Love him walking by the sea after having the done the thing he always said he wouldn't. I'm thinking that the breeze isn't filled with salt, but sorrow --given it being hell.

While I hadn't read Amazing screw on head back when I first read the ending to Hellboy in hell, it still very much -like the wizard and the snake story- felt like an ending to me. That after all he's been through, Hellboy feels at home. Like he did as a little boy coming to earth. Amazing ending

Btw. I miss much by not reading Hell on earth? I'm thinking that earth got attacked by hell, and there where losses. But like Hellboy, I don't have much of a clue

[xxmarkabyx]

Has anyone here read The Unreasoning Mask by Philip Jose Farmer? It also features a circle, triangle, and cube with mysterious powers. I haven't finished the book yet, so don't spoil it for me. Are these three shapes common reoccurrences in scifi/ fantasy stories? It'd be cool to see a vein of short stories just based around these three shapes.

[grogtheslayer]

Has anyone here read The Unreasoning Mask by Philip Jose Farmer? It also features a circle, triangle, and cube with mysterious powers. I haven't finished the book yet, so don't spoil it for me. Are these three shapes common reoccurrences in scifi/ fantasy stories? It'd be cool to see a vein of short stories just based around these three shapes.

They are the Platonic solids. Mignola is using a pretty classical reference there. Do an internet search and you'll turn up all sorts of cool stuff about the Platonic solids.

[Kees_L]

Mignola is using a pretty classical reference there.

Agreed.

They are the Platonic solids.

Are they?
When I google those I'm finding five different kind of die-shapes, being 4, 6, 8, 12 or 20 sided.

Those aren't the same as the Magician & the Snake or the Hellboy shapes, being apparently the circular, triangular and square shapes, lighting up.
Potentially the triangular shape - as moving three-dimensionally, could be either a four-sided shape consisting of only triangles, but it could also have a circular or either square base, so as combining multiple shapes into one.

To me it seems the three basic possible shapes - circular, triangular or square - would stand for all shapes or graphicalness, like as being the most primary 'building blocks'?
It's how I would figure this I mean to say.

[grogtheslayer]

Agreed.


Are they?
When I google those I'm finding five different kind of die-shapes, being 4, 6, 8, 12 or 20 sided.

Those aren't the same as the Magician & the Snake or the Hellboy shapes, being apparently the circular, triangular and square shapes, lighting up.
Potentially the triangular shape - as moving three-dimensionally, could be either a four-sided shape consisting of only triangles, but it could also have a circular or either square base, so as combining multiple shapes into one.

To me it seems the three basic possible shapes - circular, triangular or square - would stand for all shapes or graphicalness, like as being the most primary 'building blocks'?
It's how I would figure this I mean to say.

Yes, in 2D representation the circle, triangle, and square would likely be seen as building blocks, as they are in Euclidean geometry.

It might be interesting to look at Bruno Munari's Circle, Square, Triangle. Basically the ancients ascribed all sorts of magical meanings/powers to these shapes.

I think they are also related to the ancient Greek ideas about perfect (or ideal) forms.

[Kees_L]

Yes, in 2D representation the circle, triangle, and square would likely be seen as building blocks, as they are in Euclidean geometry.

It might be interesting to look at Bruno Munari's Circle, Square, Triangle. Basically the ancients ascribed all sorts of magical meanings/powers to these shapes.

I think they are also related to the ancient Greek ideas about perfect (or ideal) forms.

It's funny to me (as well as magical as such I guess), that for as long as I've been making drawings, both as looking at graphics such as comic books, I've always found the distinction between 2d and 3d really marginal because basically any drawing as containing perspective will be two-dimensional of itself yet with representing or referencing three-dimensionalness nonetheless!
Even a drawing displaying arguably improper or incorrect perspective would technically still be referencing or evoking the correct or proper attributes, by conflicting with those.

Regarding the shapes and mr Mike Mignola serving them up as with Hellboy, or the Magician, or the Snake, being to look and ponder and reflect on them, on those floating and lit up shapes, it's nice to think that in this way the reader would become to be doing the same thing:
fixing one's eyes at the floating and (to my mind) moving objects. Objects describing or showing what shapes they could represent and be to embody as such.
I am inclined to believe the angles on these shapes are delicate and particular enough that as a reader, I should be capable of figuring out what shapes they actually could and would be representing exactly:

from the two books, or each of the instances the shapes appear in Mignola art, I or the reader would be able to figure whether the circle would be a sphere or a mathematical cone shape, whether the triangle would be four-sided as proving perfectly triangular, or square-based like a piramid shape. Or what square the square shape would or could be.

Although in their moving or hovering with showing each or any of their angles, these three shapes are basically already showing any possible shapes, any shapes imaginable, with any angles as potentially being to shift.
The square could become a rectangle or trapezium, the circle (if formed by a flat surface like in case of the base side to a cone) could become elliptic, plus depending from the triangular shape its actual form, as either a cone or (5-sided) pyramid or (4-sided) triangular form - these three basic shapes would be making themselves apparent as being capable of representing any shape imaginable, even regardless of from what angles they'd be viewed!

I reckon' any of that is indeed very magical in its own right, plus should ancients or smart-panted persons have been doing similar things then I can only applaud that. It obviously makes for cool comic book themology for sure! "Deep" even, because the reading or experience of it would really prove engaging pretty wonderfully