Posted 18-JUN-2005

Tom Sniegoski recently contributed the short story Act of Mercy to the Dark Horse Books Odder Jobs collection. You can read a brief biography here, or you can visit him online at www.sniegoski.com.

You are no stranger to the B.P.R.D., having worked on Hollow Earth and Weird Tales. What is it that keeps you coming back to Hellboy?
Hellboy has it all: horror, humor, action, adventure. Just about everything that a true comic geek is looking for can be found in a Hellboy adventure. He's quite possibly one of the most versatile characters in comics right now. You can tell just about any kind of story you want with him.

Why did you choose to add the story of Dyavo Mahr to the Hellboy universe?
It's interesting. I had laid out a completely different story and was getting ready to start writing when I realized something just didn't feel right. It was a good idea and all, but there was something missing and I realized it was that connection to ancient myth, to old European folk tales and stuff. I realized that it really wouldn't feel like real Hellboy story without a little touch of that. From there, I came up with the idea of a monster past its prime, that still wanted to hold on to its former glory and how it wanted Hellboy's help in ending its life. I really enjoyed writing it.

You've done quite a lot of work with Christopher Golden. Why do enjoy collaborating with Christopher?
What's that saying about like minds? It's like were long lost brothers or something. Separated at birth you might say. We share an awful lot of the same likes and dislikes and also have pretty compatible writing styles. It's a real blast doing book/comic projects with him. Completely different than if we were each working alone, and I think it shows in the work. One of us is always trying to top the other which leads to some pretty wild stuff.

What or who influences your story ideas and your writing?
Well, I'm a huge comic book geek and I thinks aspects of that make its way into just about everything that I do. I'm also big into movies and books as well. I borrow from just about everything that I absorb. If I had to name some influences . . . Jack Kirby, Stephen King, Mike Mignola, Truman Capote, Richard Matheson, Hong Kong cinema, Bernie Wrightson . . . the list could go on and on.

I understand your writing one of the new Hellboy novels. Anything you can let slip out of the bag?
It's called Hellboy: The God Machine and part of the story is actually based on a real incident that happened in the early 1900's in my home town of Lynn Massachusetts. There was supposedly this group of psychics and mediums who believed that they had communicated with a God like being who wanted them to help prepare his coming by building him a mechanical body for this god would be the perfect melding of man and machine--the next stage in man's evolution. And that was the germ of the idea that will be the core of the book, definitely crazy, but it should be a blast to write.

What's next on your project list?
Well, let's see. Around the same time I'm doing Hellboy I'll be starting work on the second book in a two book series for Penguin Razorbill. The first of the series is called Sleeper: Awakening and the second is called, Sleeper: Bad Biology. They're YA thrillers, sort of like Robert Ludlum meets the X-Files. Chris and I will then be starting the third book in our Menagerie series. The second book, Tears of the Furies will be in stores in May. The third book, Ghost Sonata will be out sometime in 2006. Chris and I are also developing an animated series based on an 80's horror property for Cartoon Network, but I really can't say anything more than that. I'm sure there's other stuff that I'm forgetting, but I don't want to take up any more of your readers valuable time.

Many thanks to Tom Sniegoski for contributing this interview. Also, a special thanks to Christopher Golden for helping set up the ODDER JOBS interview series. You can order Odder Jobs online at Amazon.com.