Mike Mignola says his new graphic novel is "entirely made of the stuff I love"

Mike Mignola: Well I fell in love with this odd little Italian folktale years ago and wanted to do something with it. I couldn’t figure out a way to turn it into something in the Hellboy world so it just sat off in a corner by itself.

But for a long time I’d had a vague idea of creating a fantasy world – an “almost-our-world” place where I could adapt folk and fairy tales into a fantasy setting. For example, doing a very loose adaptation of a Chinese story and setting in a place that has an Asian feel but isn’t our real world Asia.

And so while I started with this one story about a kid bowling with corpses, I went ahead and created a whole world so I’d have places to set other stories from all over our world – a sort-of Africa, sort-of Asia, sort-of Europe, etc. I actually got quite carried away with the world-building and ended up with a creation myth, history and a whole lot of maps.

MM: This is entirely its own world. The Hellboy world is fantasy but it is set in more-or-less our 'real' world. I’ve done other books (The Amazing Screw-On Head, Radio Spaceman) that take place in some other worlds, but this is the only world that I’ve gone for as to actually create – with the plan to set a lot of stories in.  

MM: That’s a tough one. I read a lot – I take things in and the stuff I like I chew over and try to figure out what I can do with it. The story about the boy bowling with corpses – I read that in a collection of Italian folktales and it went into the back of my head where I spent years chewing it over until I couldn’t remember how much of it was the actual folktale anymore and how much but stuff I made up.

It’s all about taking in things, mashing them together with other things, and chewing them over till they become yours. Then, finally you draw and write them. But there is a whole lot of chewing before I pick up a pencil.

MM: I was very proud of the actual bowling sequence in Bowling With Corpses – the panels of the skull scattering the leg bones. Also the transformation scenes – wolf into man in Immortality Is Dust, and girl into bat into girl in Una And The Devil. I love doing stuff like that. That’s why drawing or painting single illustrations will never be as satisfying to me as drawing comics.

MM: I have no idea. I [started] so long ago (1982) – it was an entirely different world then. I pretty much live in my own little bubble world now so I have very little idea of what goes on in most of the comic book world.

MM: I don’t know if I’d like to bowl with those corpses, but the kid Yeb seems okay. I guess I won’t mind bowling with him. Also Una the vampire girl – I kind of love her but hate to think what would happen if I lost.