(Photo: Mike Mignola)

After 25 years, creator Mike Mignola is bringing Hellboy's story to a close.

Mignola revealed to Vulture that Hellboy in Hell - one of ComicBook.com's favorite comics of 2015 - will conclude with issue #10 in early 2016

“I was looking at what I had done, and coming off one of the stories I realized, 'Oh, we're further along in some way than I thought we were going to be. We got where we were going a lot faster,’” says Mignola. “I had some fun stuff lined up that I was going to do, but if I did it, it was just going to soften the impact, it was just going to ramble more than it needed to ramble. I thought, If we're going there, let's just go there now. So, yes, we're wrapping up Hellboy in Hell.”

Mignola already killed Hellboy, but that didn’t stop him from continuing to tell stories with the character, launching Hellboy in Hell in late 2012. Don’t expect a similar follow up series anytime soon though.

“It's been at least 25 years since I finished something and I didn't know what I was doing next — I've always had a project lined up,” says Mignola. “I've painted in the past, but I only average about one painting a year, and the last painting I did, I actually really liked. So I thought, Gee, if I do a bunch of paintings, maybe I'll actually figure out what I'm doing instead of relearning every year. So I asked my wife, could I do this? Could I just take a year off and just paint? Of course, I can't really take a year off — I am co-plotting B.P.R.D. and these various other books, but I'd like to take a year off from drawing any kind of comics, and just spend the bulk of a year doing color work. I've never taken a significant chunk of time to just do work essentially for myself. I have no idea where it's gonna go, but it's exciting. It's what keeps me going.“

As Mignola mentions, the end of Hellboy in Hell isn’t the end of Hellboy’s universe. Mignola will continue co-writing B.P.R.D., and he’ll even continue writing about Hellboy in the prequel Hellboy and the B.P.R.D. series, but, at least for now, Hellboy’s tale is coming to an end.