Cabinet of Curiosities: My Notebooks, Collections, and Other Obsessions

MSZ: Why is that?

GDT: It’s just aesthetically more pleasing. It’s also the worst thing you can do with statuary. I mean, a lot of statuary is done like that because you are meant to look at it from below, so a lot of the sculptures have big heads and big shoulders because you’re looking at them on a pedestal. But the sign of a really bad sculptor is that they do big-headed designs. And a bad draftsman, a lot of the time, has a tendency for big-headed designs.

^{Underwater scenes, such as the one where Abe dives into the cistern to retrieve the reliquary, reveal his true, more expressive face. Storyboards by Simeon Wilkins.}

^{A more elegant combination of goggles and neck-wrap.}

^{Throughout the notebooks, del Toro persistently draws variations of an asymmetrical helmet, which he has tried to incorporate into several films.}

GDT: At the top [opposite] here, on the left, I very much wanted Hellboy to be talking to someone who was trying to soothe him. You know, “Don’t do that.” But then Hellboy just punches him through the door. But I didn’t do that until Hellboy II, when he punches Johann in the locker room. I like him losing his temper abruptly.

Then I’m gonna keep doing this drawing until I get a helmet with two lenses on one side and one in the other. First on Abe Sapien, then on Blade, and then here.

MSZ: What was this particular version intended for?

GDT: Well, I love Russian technology, and I thought of the idea of a leather cap for when they go to Rasputin’s tomb in Moscow in the winter. I wanted to create a leather helmet like an aviator cap with a set of goggles for Hellboy. The idea was that he would use it to detect the talking corpse. Of course, that didn’t happen.

^{NOTEBOOK 3, PAGE 38B}

^{This particular iteration was supposed to allow Hellboy to locate the talking corpse in Hellboy. Although the idea was abandoned for that film, del Toro was able to create something similar with the Schufftein glasses in Hellboy II.}

–Hellboy fucks Kroenen up through a wall or door.

– Final battle “a la” CB? If anime can he translated into an image

– HB wears leather protection with asymmetrical goggles of eastern European design for his trip to Moscow

The texture of HB’s horns should be plainly visible so that they don’t look like goggles

–His face is covered with a series of steel belts.

–The jacket needs to have a collar that can be turned up

–In 1945, when I was 10 years of age I decided to write a book. It would detail my father’s biography. A small story about a small family. The very moment I started writing it, I would feel so full of nostalgia and a sense of loss that I would stop and hurry to his side. Crying. This is as far as I ever got: I live with Dad. We are very happy.

^{NOTEBOOK 3, PAGE 39A}

–Amber-colored Chinese neon signs. If we make the noodle factory, the water needs to look disgusting.

–HB’s bullets are made in Japan and are activated when they are pulled out of their package.

–HB’s leather jacket should be made of leather but it should be lightweight enough to blow in the wind

–A “tracking bullet” is shot at sammael from behind an oilskin window. It vanishes in a “grotto” leading to the subway. Puddles slow.

–We’ve already seen the man who works in the subway in another sequence

–An exhaust fan blocks the light with steam. The plastic curtains are lit from behind.

–Kroenen puts together watches as a hobby. Loose parts

–A girl with Down’s syndrome sees HB and draws a picture of him in a little notebook.

–Telephone call. Static. For the girl with Down’s. Laughter.

–A ghost is what survives death. As an amputation. A scar on the soul. The remains of a destroyed soul.

–Ramps and elevators with [image of lines] and with enormous concrete numbers on them

–They travel in garbage truck. A and HB

GDT: Well, the page above is mostly notes, with this image of a shower curtain with a symbol. I like the idea of things behind plastic. You can see it in Mimic, you can see it in Cronos. On Hellboy, I really liked the idea of finding a series of plastic curtains and seeing Kroenen moving behind them. The idea being that the symbol was painted in blood.

This ended up in the morgue when Kroenen resurrects. The DDT guys were covering the Kroenen puppet with a very light plastic sheet because they didn’t want crap to deposit on the silicone. When I saw that, I said, “Give it to me for real.” What I did is, he wakes up with the sheet attached to him, and as he takes a few steps, he steps on the plastic sheet, it pulls down, and it reveals his face. Then we go behind the screen, and instead of him, you just see the screen, and his silhouette in plastic, and then he comes out. So that made it into the movie somehow.

On the facing page is Abe Sapien and his two lenses on one side, and one lens on the other. One day, one day, it’ll happen. I have faith. The respirator is not exactly like it is in the movie, but it’s pretty close.

And you can see the lock in the safety deposit door that is the entrance to the BPRD.

On the bottom [opposite]: I originally had the idea for a mechanical collar on Kroenen that injected through clockwork—injected a substance into his brain to keep the corpse alive. But then I came up with this notion of a ridiculous wind-up. I said, “It makes as much sense as a syringe.” I liked the idea of a really elaborate wind-up that is massaging his organs as he moves. It’s an oblique reference to a guy in a James Bond movie that I saw when I was a kid—the clock that massages a little mechanism that awakens him from the dead.

MSZ: Then you have him saying, “It’s so easy!”

GDT: Just a ridiculous statement. Like, “It’s so easy to stay alive after you’re a corpse. Boys and girls, order your injection today!”

^{DDT created a number of concepts for the syringe that would hold the mysterious, life-giving substance before the idea was abandoned in favor of the wind-up mechanism seen in the final film.}