This October, Mike Mignola and co-writer and artist Bruce Zick return to the Hellboy universe. But in the new series Captain Henry and the Graveyard of Time, we’ll be entering a brand-new area, never seen before. And in advance of the book’s publication, Comic Book Club has an exclusive look at some of Zick’s designs for the title, along with commentary from Zick.
“I have always loved building new worlds, whether as a concept artist for Disney and PIxar, or a creator of comics for Dark Horse,” said Zick via a press release about the new book. “And now, I get to design a crazy fantastic reality based on the fearless imagination of Mike Mignola and his Hellboy Universe. Mike is a pure genius storyteller and when he pitched this new story to me I felt that I would need to use everything I’ve learned over my entire career to make his idea come to life as something we’ve never seen before. When you follow Captain Henry and his newfound Time Traveler sidekick, you begin in Victorian England, then to a Ghost realm and finally to a retro/tekno/dimension that descends into a nightmare realm of monsters, ghosts, and a terrifying Time King. Not to mention a peppering of familiar faces from the pages of Hellboy–including Hellboy himself.”
Added Mignola, “This is an idea that had been banging around in the back of my head for a very long time. I’m not at all a science fiction guy—unless, of course, it’s that kind of VICTORIAN science fiction where guys tamper with forces they don’t understand and jump themselves into nowhere in a bubble-helmet diving suit made out of leather and heavy metal rivets. And, of course, you need a haunted polar bear.”
You can check out the designs and commentary, below:
Monster 3--This is an early idea of what our top secret main villain looks like. I won’t show you the final, it’s a secret, but it’s fun to see the first attempts. Our friend here is totally organic and totally wrong for the project. But nevertheless he deserves a life somewhere, just not sure where.
Monster 4, or Jeff--Now we’re getting somewhere on the main villain…somewhere wrong! This is a better direction with a more mechanical feel, but I thought Jeff, not his real name, was just wearing a machine costume and not actually a mechanical being, which I thought would be much better.
Time machine 2–The Graveyard of Time is full of time machines of all sizes and shapes, all rotting away. This is one I loved right away. It’s a seven-seater because it was built by the seven members of The Secret Society of Time. Needless to say, things did not go well for them…as you will see when you read the series. It’s made of bronze, brass, silver, steel, and iron.
Motion and calculator–When designing time machines of the past, no device could work without a Perpetual Motion Machine and a Calculator Engine. The model here is an early predecessor to the Babbage Calculator Engine which became the standard in the 19th century. With these you have unlimited power and the ability to plot your course throughout the Time Stream.
Background time–This is one of the very first sketches for the Graveyard. It’s just some antiquated individual mid 16th century time piece that you would expect to see laying around. While I like everything about it, it’s a bit too cute and cartoony. I should have put it somewhere in the story, wish I had, but…too late now!!
Captain Henry and the Graveyard of Time #1 hits stores on October 22, 2025 from Dark Horse Comics.
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