"Sinister Occult of Sweden" ("Mamma Mia")
By the time July came around, both Tony and I were feeling exhausted with the number of superhero movies coming out. While we loved this new renaissance of films based on our favorite printed genre, our white flags were getting ready to wave.
So, when it became a choice to doing either "Hellboy 2: The Golden Army" or "Mamma Mia", our hearts wanted to tackle Mike Mignola's creation, yet we just didn't have the inspiration. Not a single idea came to mind except maybe having Erik fighting a golden army. However, even that played too close to an idea for a movie coming down the line.
"Mamma Mia" on the other hand was completely different. We already did our 'chick flick' for the year and felt it was enough. But just recalling some of the lyrics to "Dancing Queen" gave me the perfect set-up for a picture. I kept fighting it. There had to be something we could do with Hellboy because I sure didn't want to draw a picture of a guy named Water Lou and... DAMMIT, there was another idea!
And so it went on. Every time I thought of "Mamma Mia", another song title would come up inspiring a character design around it as a play on words. Within hours I had a legion of characters floating around in my head. It got so bad that when it came time for the group’s name, it contained two nods to ABBA. But I really wanted to do something with Hellboy!
Eventually I gave in and for the second time that season, I flew solo tackling a film aimed for the female 18 to 60 demographic. Ironically, I still managed to give it a comic book theme. - Jake