Earlier this year, Dark Horse comics released ‘Into the Silent Sea’, a highly anticipated graphic novel set in the Hellboy universe, written by creator Mike Mignola,and illustrated by artist Gary Gianni. Gary in easily one of the finest Inkers in the industry is well known for illustrating the syndicated comic strip, ‘Prince Valiant’, for more than 8 years.
“Gary is a genius. And not just a regular kind of genius, but a very specific type of genius—the kind you think of when you want someone to draw and co-write a ghost and monster story that takes place on a ship and you want it to look like it was done in 1902. Come to think of it he’s the only guy you think of when you want something like that. He’s THAT kind of genius.”
—Mike Mignola
The art in ‘Into the Silent Sea’ is truly remarkable. Undoubtedly due to the immense planning, care and effort that Gary put into the project. This is evident in his preliminary work for the book, which perhaps even more beautiful than the final art. So much so, that Fleskes Publications has launched and funded a Kickstarter to publish a special ‘Studio Edition’ of ‘Into the Silent Sea’, which will showcase of all the preliminary work for the graphic novel.
The Studio Edition of Hellboy Into the Silent Sea will be 144 pages of pencil and color preliminaries. The hardcover book will be oversized at 10 inches wide x 13 inches tall, and printed on a thick woodfree paper stock in order to mimic the art boards that Gianni uses for his original art.
The Kickstarter is in it’s final days, and I’m excited to see this project come to fruition. However, I’m unusually excited about the prospect of one of the stretch goals, which is a special 96 page book with over 100 drawings by Gary, illustrating H.P. Lovecraft’s’The Call of Chuthulu’. They are currently only a few hundred dollars away from that goal!
Not the biggest fan of Hellboy … unless it is illustrated this well! This looks incredible and so glad to see its not only funded, but all stretch goals have been unlocked. Brilliant!
Intersting. Personally, I love Hellboy (and Mike Mignola's art), but was never a real fan of the movies. I'm curious what it is you don't like about him? Was your introduction the films, or the comics? A particular story arc or artist that turned you off?
Hi Dan. The character, the stories, the entire premise … love them all, just feel 'disconnected' with the art. It relies heavily on the inking and the coloring is done quite … flat. It all works together very well, its just not the kind of comic art I pick up. The movies I really enjoyed. Simply different tastes 😀
Funny, I buy it mostly for the art, for precisely the reasons you mentioned. I can see why a lot of people may not like it though. It is so stylized.