Most of you probably know Ben Stenbeck’s work from Baltimore, a book he was working on from 2010 to 2014 (and still does covers for). This year, he returned to the Hellboy Universe in a big way.

This year has been a big year for you. After being on Baltimore for five years, you departed from the series and returned to the Hellboy Universe with perhaps the most unusual book in the entire line: Frankenstein Underground. And this month you kicked off Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1953 with a series of short stories showing Hellboy in the field with Professor Bruttenholm (an event often mentioned, but never seen until now).

What’s it been like to return to the Hellboy Universe, and to work on such unique stories?

Ben Stenbeck: It’s cool. It feels weird to have been working with Mike for as long as Guy Davis did, but I’ve contributed almost nothing to the Hellboy Universe. So it’s fun to be a part of that. Frankenstein Underground was a dream project. We’d talked about it for a long time before we did it and it was always fun listening to Mike developing the story as he’s talking over the phone. I would have loved to keep going with Frankenstein—that was the original idea—but when I read that last issue, I could see it was the right place to leave him.

If there’s ever an opportunity to revisit the character, I’d certainly be up for it. Frankenstein Underground was like nothing else. At first it almost seemed only tangentially related to the Hellboy Universe; there were a few connections, but for the most part Frankenstein’s creature was on his own path. Then all of the sudden in came the Heliopic Brotherhood of Ra, the Hyperborians, even King Thoth himself. It ended up being a tale deeply rooted in the Hellboy Universe’s mythology.

BS: Yeah, initially the idea was just to do a fun Edgar Rice Burroughs–style adventure with Frankenstein fighting monsters and cave men. Which I would have been totally happy with, but then Mike spun it into something much bigger and connected it to so many other things, like that first Witchfinder book we did.

Yes, In the Service of Angels. Did you know when you first started on Frankenstein Underground that the Heliopic Brotherhood of Ra and the Hyperborean material was coming, or was that something you discovered when Frankenstein Underground was collapsed from a series to a single book?

BS: I think so. I just have a vague memory of Mike saying, “I’m going to connect it to that Witchfinder series you drew.” I didn’t know he would cover so much of the Hyperborean history.

It must have been a fantastic surprise then.

I can see why you were chosen for such a mythology-heavy story. Your style of drawing is obviously very different from Mike Mignola’s, but you share similarities in the way you tell stories, and you seem very confident with his story beats. This particularly shows in the “grand history lessons” sections of the story. Mignola has a specific way of approaching the history and mythology material in Hellboy, and I got those same feelings from the history sequences in In the Service of Angels and even more so in Frankenstein Underground.

BS: Mike tends to do more layouts for something he’s written himself. He did a lot of layouts for the last three issues of Frankenstein Underground, so that’s probably why it feels so close to his stuff. But in general I think I have a pretty good understanding of the way Mike thinks.

That Mike contributed to the layouts of the last three issues doesn’t surprise me. He likes to use visual echoes in his work, like this moment from In the Service of Angels revisited in Hellboy in Hell.

BS: When I drew that version Mike was really specific about how he wanted it to look. He must of known back then he was going to repeat it. But yeah, that whole repeating panels thing is great. You get to see other artists do their versions of something you did and you get have a go at things other people have done. I think it’s much more prevalent in these books than people realise. With so many books telling so many stories I think it’s a really elegant way of keeping it all constantly linked together, having these little moments that sort of loop in and out of each other, like you say “visual echoes”, without needing to be all heavy handed and have someone directly saying, “Oh hey, this looks just like that thing we all saw that other time!”

Continued below

And, of course, that stuff doesn’t happen by accident; it requires planning.

Did you have any sequences that changed considerably from Mike’s first pass on the Frankenstein Underground story to your final page?

BS: I can’t think of anything. There’re always lots of little things. The only thing I can think of was that last panel of issue one. Originally, it was supposed to have dust and rubble falling into the blackness with Frankenstein, and I drew all that, but then Mike wanted to make it just a black panel, so I made a case for just having Frankenstein on his own in the blackness, and that works so much better than the original panel I had with all the rubble and what not. But mostly it’s exactly what Mike wrote.

You were working for a while on Baltimore, a series that has many monstrous humans (like vampires), but relatively few outright monsters. So in the second issue of Frankenstein Underground with all those monsters in the Hollow Earth, it really felt like you were cutting loose and having fun. Can you tell us about your design process on these monsters?

BS: I don’t really think of myself as much of a designer, but I did some sketches for those things. I think all of that is printed in the collection. I usually end up working out a lot of stuff on the page. That giant pterodactyl thing was all drawn, but I just wanted him to have something extra, so I went back and added that crest of feathers on his back. I tend to fiddle with this stuff right up to the point of scanning it. Issue three has a couple underground creatures and they were all worked out on the page. I think I like that lizard in issue three better than the one in issue two.

This is why I don’t get people saying dinosaurs wouldn’t be scary with feathers. Feathers can make a creature look really creepy. I liked the creatures in this world. It’s one of many, many reasons I hope some day another story will venture back into the Hollow Earth and bump into Frankenstein’s Creature again.

BS: Dinosaurs with feathers. It’s such early days. That’s such a new idea that I don’t think anyone has properly wrapped their head around it. I’ve got chickens living next door and those things are creepy. The neighbourhood cats won’t touch them; they have all these extra toes and claws. Imagine those fuckers thirty feet tall with teeth.

As I said before, Frankenstein Underground has a lot of connections in it. In fact, I’ve found connections to every other series in the Hellboy Universe. One particular connection I enjoyed was seeing Marquis Adoet de Fabre, Marchosias, and Iblifika from B.P.R.D.: The Universal Machine again. In particular, I enjoyed seeing how far you pushed the Marquis’s expressions while retaining his character.

BS: I was really excited to draw the Marquis and all his buddies. I could draw Marchosias all day. Guy Davis breathes so much life into everything he draws, so that makes it easier to carry that stuff forward, I guess.

BS: I’m not sure if excited is the right word. There’s a certain amount of anxiety that goes along with drawing Hellboy. But, yeah, it was pretty cool. I just thought, whatever I do, I’m never going to be satisfied with what I’ve done, so just get on with it. If you’d told me twenty years ago that id be drawing two issues of Hellboy written by Mike, I have no idea, I’d probably have spent a month doing comedy spit-takes. There’re four stories in these two issues. My favourite is The Witch Tree from issue two. I think I did the best work on that one, but also it’s a really great weird story.

Continued below

You needn’t worry. Hellboy looks good. I think you managed to capture more youthful body language without Hellboy being unrecognisable as the character we’ve known these past twenty years. You’re in uncharted territory really. The comics have referenced prior missions with Hellboy and Bruttenholm out in the field together, but we’ve never actually seen it before. Readers have been imagining what this might be like for a long time now. I can’t speak for others, but for me, you captured the right spirit.

BS: Thanks! Alex Maleev’s Hellboy looked like the Hellboy from Seed of Destruction, which I thought was a really smart way to tie this stuff back to that time period, but there’re going to be a few different artists working on these books, so I figured I could get away with just drawing him the way that felt right.

I liked the shift in attitude. You know, when they walk along, Hellboy is at the back, looking around him as he walks. The older Hellboy walks like he has blinkers on, younger Hellboy walks like the county kid in the city for the first time.

BS: He’s kind of bored at the start. There’s nothing fun in two old men talking over names and dates. He’s looking around because he’s not paying any attention to the discussion, and then once things start happening he just impulsively jumps in without thinking. He kind of just wants to do the fighting monster stuff without worrying about why. I think.

In Darkness Calls, Hellboy referred to his travelling with Professor Bruttenholm and Harry Middleton as the good old days. This was one of the happiest periods of his life, which is the other part of what makes 1953‘s Hellboy so different; he doesn’t have the weight of his purpose or destiny on his shoulders yet. Plus it’s fun to see him jump into a fight and then a moment later feel sheepish in front of the Professor. Seeing their relationship evolve is the best part of this story for me.

BS: I think this is the first time we’ve ever seen hellboy having a picnic. One of my favourite panels is that last panel of Hellboy asleep, all tuckered out. And the top of the page has that beast of the apocalypse. There’s something so funny about that last panel. Also I just now realised, hes nine years old in this comic!

Actually, he’s only eight since his birthday is so late in the year (December 24).

There’re a lot of moments of contrast in the comic. There was a great moment with Professor Bruttenholm and Harry trying to deal with the demon, and Hellboy’s own methods were completely the opposite. I loved that. And the picnic moment you mentioned is another good one (Hellboy is carefree, while Bruttenholm is certainly not).

So, could you talk me through your process a bit? When you first get a script from Mike, is there much back and forth in the thumbnailing phase?

BS: I was just looking over Mike’s layouts for issue two. The layouts he sent through had all the panels drawn out—just boxes with the relative sizes and shapes of each panel—and he sketched in about twenty percent of the panels. So then I drew out the rest of the layouts and started gathering reference. I was really happy with the layouts I came up with for this. Which means that one day’s work set me up for enjoying the next nine weeks’ worth of work.

So then those layouts get sent through to Mike and the editors, and I’ll phone Mike the next day and well talk about them. There’s always something where Mike will make a change that immediately elevates it and makes it all work so much better, which is one of the best things about this job. I’m being paid to learn from a true master. Every now and then I’ll run into someone who thinks Mike’s sitting over my shoulder telling me how to draw. I can’t think of the last time Mike said anything to me about drawing. What he talks about and what you learn from working with Mike is story telling. Ninety percent of the back and forth that happens on these books is at the layout stage. (The other ten percent is probably design.)

Continued below

So then I start sketching digitally over the top of the layouts, until I’ve refined it enough that I know what I’ll do when I come to ink it. Those pencils get sent for approval, but there’s hardly ever anything to change at that point. So then I print out those ‘pencils’ in a really light blue and ink over the top of that.

I just read this issue with Dave’s colours and [Clem Robins’s] lettering and its the best art Dave and I have done together. I’m not usually happy with my work, but when I read this issue I sort of read it as if I hadn’t drawn it. I just enjoyed it, which is new for me.

It’s interesting you say 90% of the back and forth happens at the layout stage. As I said before, your layouts always struck me as being very in-sync with Mignola’s style. It’s a collaboration that clearly works. You’ve been working with Mignola since 2008’s B.P.R.D.: The Ectoplasmic Man, and I hope you’ll be working together for many more years to come. Just think, by this time next year you’ll have worked on Mignola’s books longer than any other interior artist.

I can’t wait to read 1953 #2 and whatever else comes next…

BS: Technically Dave Stewart is the artist who’s been working on these longer than anyone else. But yeah, I’ve been talking to Mike about the next few years. Things change, but there’s this project he’s been talking about for a while that we both really want to do. I was actually supposed to be working on it now, but Mike wanted a year to focus on Hellboy and this other project was sitting around waiting for an artist, so I’m on that now. But eventually we’ll do it.

Ah, excellent! We have a couple of books to look forward to then.

Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1953 #2 — The Witch Tree & Rawhead and Bloody Bones and the trade collection of Frankenstein Underground both come out November 25.