Posted 9-OCT-2005

To learn more about Brian Hodge, click over to his Biography page on our site.

I'll lob a quick intro question first: What can the Hellboy fans out there expect from your new Hellboy novel, On Earth As It Is In Hell?
A worthy addition to the canon, I hope. It involves the surfacing of a first-century document called the Masada Scroll, that I’ve wanted to write about for years, and this turned into the right opportunity to finally do it. Whether true or not, there have been whispers that it does have some basis in reality — a document supposedly written by Jesus, decades after the crucifixion. In this novel, it turns into the McGuffin that draws the interest of different factions tied to Heaven and Hell, including a centuries-old cabal within the Catholic Church, an occult society dating back to Weimar-era Berlin, and angels who aren’t above attacking the Vatican. And of course, Hellboy and the others are caught in the middle, trying to sort through it all, and figure out what’s really going on under the surface of things. At the same time, because everybody’s involved, including Kate Corrigan, plus a new agent that I came up with, with his own weird knack, there’s a real sense of the family dynamics at the core of the BPRD.

Now, one warning, especially since this site is devoted to Guillermo Del Toro’s films: Somewhere on the Hellboy special edition DVD’s extras, Mike Mignola states that there are parallel Hellboy worlds: his own, from the graphic novels, and the slightly different version that Del Toro brought to the screen. But this novel, and the other three upcoming novels, were written solely in accordance with Mike’s version. That was his stipulation when he licensed these to Pocket Books. So fans that just know the characters from the movie will probably notice a few differences.

For those who missed it - what was your Odd Jobs story about?
It was called “Far Flew the Boast of Him,” and was inspired by the ancient Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf. The title comes directly from an early line in the poem, at least in the translation that I read at the time. I’d just discovered Hellboy then, after being invited to contribute to the first anthology … although I’d seen him on comic shop shelves already, and like most people’s first reaction, I thought he was this big red guy with goggles. Dark Horse sent me some stuff and I really got caught up in it.

I was reading through The Chained Coffin collection, and noticed how much Mike seemed to like the darker strains of British Isles and European folklore. Which was perfect for me. Whenever somebody invites me to leave my own yard and come play in theirs, I usually poke around in whatever overlap of shared fascinations I can find, and build from there, so this gave me the idea to use some elements from Beowulf. In a nutshell, I had Hellboy looking into the mass slaughter of a group of medieval reenactors in England. If you know anything about Beowulf, you can guess who did the slaughter. I didn’t find out until last year, but this turned out to be one of Mike’s very favorites of anybody else’s use of his character.

Beowulf, eh? Some say that Beowulf's pursuit of "fortune and glory" led to his undoing. Do you think Hellboy has a tragic weakness?
I think it’s safe to say that both of those terms apply, at least potentially, but they’re really separate issues. A tragic weakness implies some obvious flaw that will trigger his downfall, and he’s not really set up that way. He’s a strong character with a solid moral compass. Pull the phrase apart, though, and I think you’re onto something.

His obvious weakness is that he’s impulsive. He can be prone to acting before he thinks, and just wants the highlights of a situation, can’t be bothered with the minutiae. It’s often played for laughs, to one degree or another, but in the novel I touched on the way more serious consequences can befall the people around him when he doesn’t think something through.

The tragic side of him cuts right to the heart of what he is. He’s completely alone, really. There’s nobody and nothing like him, and while he may have found kindred spirits, they’re still not the same, and he’ll probably outlive them, along with everybody else he comes to love. He originated out of the most malevolent intentions, and of course he refuses to play along, but that birthright is always going to be there. So once you dig under the wisecracks and sometimes gruff demeanor, there’s a classic tragic figure standing there.

How did you get started writing?
Picked up a pencil in second grade or so. It went back that early. Earlier, actually. I had a compulsion to write even as a preschooler, before I knew the alphabet. I was winning contests by high school and college. A year after college I went to a weeklong conference in Boston, where I had a workshop with a Harvard professor. She took an interest and was pivotal in connecting me with my first agent, who sold my first novel.

Of course, that’s the ultra-short version that glosses over the immense amount of hard work and rejection letters.

For those unfamiliar with your work, what can the bookworms on our site get their hands on?
I’ve just launched a new web site, www.brianhodge.net, and the designer has done a very cool job. There’s a bibliography page with the covers of all the novels and collections, and some review excerpts. More recent stuff, and forthcoming work, will be easy to get. A lot of the older volumes are currently out of print, although I have some re-releases coming … but through Amazon and outlets like the Advanced Book Exchange, www.abebooks.com, anybody can find just about anything.

What are the themes that really get you going — or what does On Earth have in common thematically with your previous work?
It’s hard to think of anything I’ve done where the characters weren’t the top priority, even when it’s a storyline that’s very tightly plotted. I just love exploring characters and their relationships, the things underneath their skin that make them tick. I’ve also woven history into a lot of work, as well as religion and spirituality, and how the two are often poles apart. I’m also fascinated by the decay of systems — the way things break down. Plus the notion of chaotic undercurrents within a culture or a society that are beyond the control of any one causative agent … which is along the lines of Jung’s notion of the collective unconscious. All of that figures into the novel, to a greater or lesser degree.

You have other interests outside of writing — tell us about your music projects.
From gradeschool on, I had lessons on a few different instruments, but the thing I really relate to is keyboards. Piano, synthesizers, along with samplers and everything else you can control with them. Plus I love the didgeridoo, which I guess can be regarded as the Australian aboriginal synthesizer. I have about $20,000 worth of instruments and studio gear by this point. The project — it’s certainly not a band — I call it Axis Mundi. It’s a reference to the mythological World Tree, especially Yggdrasil in the old Northern European cosmology … the axis on which the earth spins, with branches reaching into the heavens and roots descending into the lower world. I like melodic material, but I’m also really drawn to works that are primarily textural, more of a soundtrack/sound design kind of thing, where you’re creating this three-dimensional world that’s mostly about mood and atmosphere, and conveying a sense that something may actually be living there. I’ve posted a few MP3s on the Music page on the new site, with brief explanations of what they emerged out of.

Since this is a site frequented by movie buffs – seen any good movies lately?
Well, I’d hoped by this time to be singing the praises of Serenity or A History of Violence, since they opened this weekend, but I haven’t been able to claw out the time yet. I’m expecting both of those to be stellar. Actually, the one that stands out most lately was a rental and might be a surprising choice: Dear Frankie. It’s a Scotland-set film about a nine-year-old boy whose mother has been faking letters to him from his long-absent father, and what happens when the truth is about to come out. It’s an honest little gem of a film that doesn’t go for cheap sentiment and is full of great performances.

Also, this week I picked up the new concert DVD from industrial band Skinny Puppy, The Greater Wrong of the Right Live. I saw them on their tour last year and it captures the show really well, even if it’s tough to convey the visceral experience of getting hit with it in person. Of course it’s not a movie per se, but because of the theatricality of it all, and the often macabre nature of the visuals — especially some archival footage from the early ‘90s on Disc 2 — I’d think that there might be some Del Toro fans who would definitely find it of interest.

Thanks so much to Brian Hodge for granting this interview!