By Zack Quaintance — The Hellboy Universe has unveiled a new series called Frankenstein: New World, which will be the first story set after the apocalyptical events of B.P.R.D.: The Devil You Know. Frankenstein: New World is a four-issue miniseries with a first issue due out August 3 via Dark Horse.

The creative team for the book should be a mostly-familiar one to Hellboy fans: writers Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, and Tom Sniegoski; artist Peter Bergting; colorist Michelle Madsen; and letterer Clem Robins. As noted above, the most notable thing about this one is that it takes place effectively after the end of the main Hellboy and B.P.R.D. narrative, which had gone on for years before ending in April 2019. Mignola explains how this new book came to be in a statement with the announcement, which you can find after the jump…

Mignola on Frankenstein: New World

Mignola had this to say (warning, spoilers for the end of The Devil You Know…):

“At the end of B.P.R.D.: The Devil You Know when we burned down the world and then started it again with frog people, I really did think that would be all we’d see of it. And in that same issue, that little glimpse of the Frankenstein monster in the center of the earth, that’s the last I thought we’d see of him. But…when Chris and Tom came to me with the idea of having Frankenstein’s adventures in Frog World, I think it took me about ten seconds to say YES. And then two minutes later I think we were on the phone talking about all the possibilities. I just don’t seem to be able to put a lid on this thing—which I guess is a good thing.”

The official description of Frankenstein: New World reveals a bit more about the concept that came together from those phone conversations between the trio:

Safely tucked away inside the hollow earth where humanity survived after Ragna Rok, precocious young Lilja receives visions of a new darkness taking root on the surface. Defying her elders, Lilja awakens the timeless oracle––once known as Frankenstein––to investigate the warnings and, perhaps, even explore the new world above.

Finally, in another statement with the announcement Golden described how he and Sniegoski hit on the idea that the brought to Mignola, including a how it started and how it’s going:

“Frankenstein: New World actually started with artist Ben Stenbeck, though he doesn’t know it. Ben had drawn a group shot of a number of Hellboy universe characters (plus Lord Baltimore) together and included Frankenstein holding a staff that had the sword of Hyperborea atop it. Thomas Sniegoski and I were on the phone the next day talking about it, and Tom said something about what a shame it was that the Frankenstein character was lying fallow. As so often happens, a casual comment turned into something more. I said, off-hand, that since the last time we’d seen him he was leading the last of humanity down beneath the surface of the world, we should do a series about Frankenstein returning to the surface world after two thousand years in the hollow earth (after the events of B.P.R.D.: The Devil You Know) and wandering a New World that has no memory of humanity…”

Check out the two covers for the first issue below, first the main cover as well as a variant cover by Mignola with colors by Dave Stewart:

It’s all pretty exciting. The take on Frankenstein in the Mignola-verse has been strong from the start. I was also with Mignola in that I thought the narrative was done after Devil You Know, so getting an exploration of the frog world feels a bit like found narrative money. Add to that some really strong recent new Hellboy comics (Sword of Hyperborea was a personal favorite), and I’m anxious for this new book.

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He has written about comics for The Beat and NPR Books, among others. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.