Guts N' Gutters #5 (February 2025)
New Campaigns and the incredible backgrounds of Mike Mignola!
TL;DR (Too Long, Don’t (Wanna) Read)
Crit One 3 Ends Today!
New Comic Book Yeti Articles
Krazy Kat Anthology Moves Along
Zona Del Male Now Live On Kickstarter!
New Comic With Cy Coming To The Punch A Nazi Anthology
Into the Gutters: Mike Mignola & Setting as Character
Go support on Weird Stories, Come Out and Play, & Kickstarter!
WHAT’S THE WORD?
Imperceptible - unable to be noticed or felt because of being very slight
Crit One 3
TODAY IS THE LAST DAY TO GET A COPY OF CRIT ONE 3!!!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lukewhenderson/crit-one-3-the-imp-fire-strikes-back
Also, somewhat related to Crit One 3, the interview zine Quest for Zines: A Zine Quest Zine about Zines, which features an interview by me, also ends today. Don’t miss out on this collection of TTRPG knowledge from all walks.
Recent Comic Book Yeti Articles
MINE IS A LONG, LONESOME GRAVE #1 REVIEW
A folk horror revenge story that has a lot of gothic vibes. Though some of it is a letdown, I’m excited to see where this series goes and I will always be interested in anything Chris Shehan draws.
Krazy Kat
My editor is still waiting on some stories and the cover art, but things are moving along. I’m also now lettering an additional story that uses the 1940s character, Phantom Lady!
NOW LIVE ON KICKSTARTER!
Help Zone Del Male have a great first day of funding! Pledge here
Punch A Nazi Anthology
Australian comics creator Joseph England (@drbrainstorm.bsky.social) is organizing an anthology of comics where Nazis get punched, both physically and metaphorically, to raise money for the pro-trans charity, The Trevor Project.
Fellow Comic Jam member, Cy, and myself have crafted a Lovecraftian punk story where the punching is more… abstract, but definitely a meaningful expression of emotions.
INTO THE GUTTERS
The Voice of the Background
Despite many of you likely subscribing to my newsletter for comics, I realized I have only written one comics-specific article. Guts N’ Gutters is meant to connect seemingly unconnected things, but lately, perhaps, I went too broad, too vague. So, I’ll give you all a break from the general writing and philosophy stuff (last month’s was kind of rambling, my bad awkward face emoji) and dig into something unique to sequential art: simultaneous static establishing shots.
And what better way to discuss this than one of comics’ most prolific cartoonists, Mike Mignola.
Last month, I picked up a digital bundle of nearly the entire Hellboy catalog and I’ve been burning through them. It’s one of those books where, as a writer, you know you should read them because of their popularity, but once inside, it’s immediately clear the accolades were more than justified. Hellboy isn’t just popular, it’s transformative. While there are many things I would love to talk about (and maybe I will anyway), this month I want to focus on Mike Mignola’s sense of setting, atmosphere, how he plays with the idea of establishing shots, and why more comics should take notes from him.
Firstly, what is an establishing shot? It’s typically a panel or a series of them at the beginning of a scene that shows the reader where everything takes place and the mood to follow. This allows the reader to fill in the gaps in the background even if the artist doesn’t provide one. A bird’s eye view of a house, a still of a crowded mall, or a rain-drenched forest are all examples of establishing shots.
To better explore how Mignola plays with this idea, it’s important to start with his three biggest influences: Victorian literature, folklore, and Frank Frazetta.
Victorian horror stories drew heavily from gothic storytelling and often had the setting be pseudo-characters in the narrative. This era was part of a huge societal shift where the old Aristocracy was dying and the space between different classes of people was shrinking. To many, things felt out of their control.
They believed that someone’s environment contributed to their lives as much as their friends and family. Sometimes this was expressed bluntly, like the popular haunted house stories, but other times it was expressed as a living history–a town’s bridled past infecting everything that came after, etc.
In a similar vein, folklore is all about the environment and culture in which it was created. They are often tales to express a fear and impart a lesson. For example, the folktale I drew from for Ryan Devine and I’s comic in Zona Del Male (seen above) is likely inspired by the many famines that have plagued Celtic countries. The Fear Ghorta, which translates to “starving man”, is said to be a harbinger of famine unless they are given a piece of bread (which could bless the giver). It shows the terror that long permeated this area, but emphasizes the importance of giving to those who are suffering.
With these influences, it makes sense why Mignola would emphasize setting so much in his work, but it’s the visual influence of Frank Frazetta that ties everything together.
One of the most iconic cover artists ever, Frazetta has influenced many. For Mignola specifically, Frazetta’s compositions were the most important. The focus of his covers always had heavy shadows, sometimes completely obscuring the face. While the subjects in the foreground were incredibly detailed, Frazetta’s backgrounds were more minimalist and impressionistic. They were vital for establishing tone more than showing the peaks of a mountain or the cracks in a wasteland.
Mike Mignola’s application of all these elements in Hellboy is why the series is so loved. Like those Victorian novels, Mike Mignola’s settings feel like living beings. Sometimes, his establishing shots go on for many panels, surrounding the characters with out-of-context images that form a collage of personality.
And other times, the setting inserts itself in the middle of pages, always obscured by dichromatic darkness. It's a constant reminder that the environment is important and demands to be present, if not immediately recognized.
Now, to be fair, part of this is because Mignola draws his pages first and then writes dialogue later. Some of this work is likely incidental, but even so, it reflects his appreciation of the environment in a comic book.
Mignola’s pages feel alive, like they have their own story within the story. It shows how powerful setting can be within a comic and that the establishing shot doesn’t have to be something to check off the list. It can insert itself, grow, and alter the mood of any story. While not every story demands this sort of environmental presence, it should always be in consideration.
GUTTER BUDS
Shout out to these campaigns by friends and colleagues!
Weird Stories - A Comic Magazine for the Weird
The first issue contains three distinct stories that will leave you feeling weird! The first story brings us to a part of Steel Town run by corporate gangs who make their own laws. So many innocents suffer here, and the only savior is a cursed woman on flaming roller skates, known as The She-Devil!
Brian Beardsley was my artist for the Corrupting the Youth anthology and I have been waiting for his first Kickstarter book to arrive! It’s got an EC comics feel that I love and I need to see this book made. Go support Weird Stories!
Come Out and Play: The Queer Sports Project
Come Out and Play: The Queer Sports Project is a full-color paperback comics anthology focused on LGBTQ+ people and their love of athletics. Over two dozen queer comics creators tell their stories about how they found their place in the world of sports. Come Out and Play not only features work from some of the most exciting queer comics creators working today, including Sophie Labelle, Josh Trujillo, and Richard Fairgray, but also contributions from legendary sports figures such as NFL star R.K. Russell and Canadian Hockey Hall of Famer Angela James!
There’s a severe lack of sports comics in the Western world. I love books like Prince of Tennis and Eyeshield 21, and making anything gay automatically makes it better, so this is an easy sell for me. Check out Come Out and Play!
Fluff N’ Fury - A Cy-Bear Punk TTRPG
Climate change has wrecked the world. The human body couldn't survive, so we all transferred our consciousnesses into the bodies of our little robot AI assistants. (Everybody had one, thanks late-stage capitalism!) But only the richrich were able to afford real humanoid synthetics. When's it our turn? These fluffy warriors are tired of being screwed over by the $ystem. Now, it's time for payback.
Honestly, this game just sounds cathartic thanks to recent events and it reminds me a lot of James Asmus and Jim Festante’s Survival Street. I’m also interested in how the dice rolls work differently for each weapon, more than just the type of dice used. It sounds like a jolly good time, so go back it!