Mike Mignola And Christopher Golden Talk Baltimore: The Cult Of The Red King with Comic Book.com

CG: I don’t know Mike, what can we say about that?

MM: I was strange, but exciting, to get past the end of the novel, to stop adapting a novel and kind of go, “oh, well, what are we going to do?” And, unless I don’t remember a conversation, I think that we know where we’re going-

CG: Yeah.

MM: - but, as with all these things, not everything is written in stone. There’s still a little bit of flexibility. But I think, as I recall, we were really quick to kind of come up with a direction and, again, to kind of say “let’s not drag this thing out forever, but if we’re going to go someplace let’s figure out where we’re going and then figure out how to get there.”

CG: Yeah, it was really a case of the first four volumes being the story that we set out to tell from the beginning. There’s a big gap of time in the novel, and we wanted to fill in a big portion of the events that happened in that gap. Then, at the end of the fourth volume, we told the story that happens as the end of the novel. Then, as we were moving forward, it was really sort of open-ended when we talked about what we were going to do after, and when we explore this world further, and how the circumstances of it, and the evils that are rising, and all of the things that are going on because of the Red King’s influence.

And then, one day, we were on the phone, and I think I said “Hey, I think we have an ending here.” So we discussed exactly how it was going to end, and once we knew that it led us to the story we’re talking about now, which is The Cult of the Red King, and that leads to everything that comes after, towards that ending that we’ve got in mind.

MM: I find that very exciting, about plotting things when you realize – because I’m doing with Hellboy and the BPRD at the same time – you realize, “oh, we’ve got all the pieces on the board.” Sometimes it surprises you when you look around and go, “oh wait a minute, all the guys we need,” or “all the situations,” or “all the characters we need are here, now it’s just a matter of arranging them in the right places so that the dominos will fall.”

CG: And what’s great about a situation like that is, yes, you could go on and tell, ya know, we could spin these stories for another 10-15 years. But I love working towards a specific ending, and not just spinning your wheels. Just because the characters are great and you can continue to tell stories doesn’t mean you should. I think it gives the story added vitality.

I actually think The Cult of the Red King, this particular story, is the best thing we’ve done so far with this book, and I feel like it’s the perfect opportunity – I feel like if you haven’t read anything, thus far, in Baltimore, you can absolutely pick up the first issue of The Cult of the Red King and get everything you need to know about what the story is, where we’re going, and how completely f**cked up it all is.

MM: Yeah, so f**cked up that you will definitely want to go and get the first four books [laughs]. Don’t think you want to skip those forever, but if you need to start someplace, this is fine.