Few artists have left a mark on Hellboy’s mythology quite like Duncan Fegredo, whose kinetic storytelling and emotional clarity helped redefine the character for a new era. Now, with Giant Robot Hellboy Returns, Fegredo steps back into the world he helped shape — this time with a towering, metal‑clad twist that pushes the franchise into bold, pulpy territory. Today, we talk with Fegredo about returning to Hellboy, embracing the absurdity of giant‑robot spectacle, and crafting a story that feels both nostalgic and freshly unhinged. So, let’s welcome Creator Duncan Fegredo to GVN Talking Comics.
GVN: Thanks for sharing a small part of your day, Duncan. Let’s jump right into Giant Robot Hellboy. Coming off the 2023 release, what was your and Mike’s mindset stepping into the sequel? Did you feel pressure to match the original’s wild charm, or freedom to push things even further?
DUNCAN: It’s a little of both really, we’re trying to maintain that scale and chaos through the eyes of one of the scientists from the first storyline. Leo has an inexplicable connection to the robot and it pulls him into a situation where the stakes might be far higher than he realises.
GVN: You and Mike have a long history together. What did the handoff from Mike look like this time around? Was it a “here’s the spark, run with it” situation, or a more structured collaboration?
DUNCAN: That’s actually a really good description of it. We always talk through the story at the beginning of every book, and while Mike had a general overview of this series he left a lot of the details to me.
GVN: As a follow-up, what does the back‑and‑forth with Mike look like on a project this wild—tight outlines, loose idea‑swapping, or pure creative instinct?
DUNCAN: There were a few story beats I had to hit but it was up to me to work out the pacing. I took Mike’s outline and roughly broke it down into the page count, judging how many pages were available for each event. I roughly sketched out thumbnails and then page layouts, trying to create a sense of momentum, of flow. I jotted dialogue fragments around the edges of the pages as they developed. Because I’m not used to writing I would restructure things a lot, if I had ideas or questions I’d go back and forth with Mike. I got pretty carried away at times, it was new ground for me, or as Mike would point out I would find new ways to make things hard for myself!
GVN: Sequels often demand bigger stakes. How did you decide what to escalate—threats, humor, emotional beats—without losing the magic that made the first book so fun?
DUNCAN: I think you just get a feel for these things, whether it is in the writing of the story or the visualisation of that story. You naturally infuse a story with highs and lows, emotional beats, it is all cause and effect. But you also need to modulate those highs and lows, you need some of those moments to be quiet to make what follows louder, bigger, more threatening, as the case may be. When drawing any scene I’m always looking for any way to push that moment, whether through the point of view of the action, the character performance, the composition, or the panel juxtaposition. We are talking comics of course so its more likely to be a combination of all of those things, it’s a mostly instinctive process that has developed over the years.
GVN: Giant Robot Hellboy already had a strong visual identity in the 2023 book. Were there any tweaks, upgrades, or new visual ideas that you brought to the mech this time around, or was it a simple matter of “its not broke, don’t fix it?”
DUNCAN: Alas Robot Hellboy is broken, he lost his arm during the first series and hasn’t been back to the shop for a refit, we can only hope that things improve for him soon!
GVN: (Laughing) Ok, I concede that point. What was the single toughest artistic or storytelling challenge in this follow‑up—and how did you solve it on the page?
DUNCAN: I was going to say it was conveying the scale of the robot but for this book I made a whole other problem for myself, and that was the design of the mini submarine. Mike had suggested something along the lines of the craft in Fantastic Voyage. I came up with my initial sketches pretty quickly but I gave myself two problems: firstly, I’m not really a vehicle artist, how do I make it look consistent from different angles? And secondly, I wanted good visibility so I designed it with huge windows. I wasn’t worried about structural integrity, it’s a classified polymer glass/steel weave that is beyond criticism!
To solve the first problem I figured I could make a digital 3D model, but after a week of confusion in various apps I admitted defeat. I’d drafted up plans and used them to sculpt a maquette in modelling clay, it was a little wonky but good enough to photograph and draw from. And that lead to the second problem, those huge windows, I still had to fit an interior in the ship as I wanted views from the outside looking in. Yes, I should’ve gone with tinted glass, but I wanted you still to be able to connect with the crew. It’s like problem with all over masks in superhero movies, you can’t read the emotion. There’s a reason those masks often get damaged revealing the hero!
GVN: Thank you once again, Duncan, for chatting with us. Finally, does “Giant Robot Hellboy Returns” feel like the middle chapter of something bigger, or the wild victory lap of a concept you and Mike might revisit in unexpected ways in the future?
DUNCAN: Definitely the middle yet satisfying chapter, I’m working on the final chapter right now 🙂
As Duncan Fegredo brings Hellboy back in towering, metal‑crunching form in this two-issue mini-series, he reminds us why his work continues to shape the character’s legacy. Giant Robot Hellboy Returns isn’t just a wild new chapter — it’s a showcase of a creator who knows how to evolve a mythology without losing its soul. Our thanks to Duncan for taking us inside the process, the madness, and the joy of building something this unapologetically big.
Issue#1 of Dark Horse Comics’ Giant Robot Hellboy Returns by Mike Mignola, Duncan Fegredo, Dave Stewart, and Clem Robins is available now.
Senior Writer at GeekVibesNation – I am a 60 something child of the 70’s who admits to being a Star Trek/Star Wars/Comic Book junkie who once dove headfirst over a cliff (Ok, it was a small hill) to try to rescue his Fantastic Four comic from a watery grave. I am married to a lovely woman who is as crazy as I am and the proud parent of a 21-year-old young man with autism. My wife and son are my real heroes.
