Lord Baltimore Returns in “Baltimore: The Cult of the Red King.” #13DaysofHellboy

Scott Allie: Baltimore has certain similarities to Hellboy, but significant differences, so for me as a fan of Mike, I appreciate both. We all like a hero with a dark side—Hellboy is very goodnatured, but he is half demon, after all … Baltomore is so driven by revenge and bitterness, as well as guilt, he’s much more monstrous than Hellboy, despite being an actual human. However, at the point we’ve now reached in the comics, Baltimore is barely human—that is, he’s lost some part of his humanity—but that’s in the comics …

When Mike created Hellboy, you could see he was less interested in drawing the modern world than all the crumbling castles and witch caves and whatnot. He wasn’t interested in portraying a world with cars driving around in it. With Baltimore, Mike and Chris Golden developed a setting made up of only those things, and they populated it with monsters. So it started as a novel, but it had to lead to comics, because Mike wanted people to see that world.And before Baltimore, Mike had collaborated with Chris on a couple illustrated Hellboy novels. But Chris wrote those on his own, with Mike and me just serving as editors. With Baltimore, Mike and Chris really worked on the story together, really cowrote it. So much of what Mike does in comics comes from his reading of old folklore and old horror and gothic fiction—so Baltimore was his first great chance to really DO that himself. Also, on the Hellboy novels Mike had developed ideas about how to do an illustrated novel with the drawings really complementing rather than simply decorating the text. And the Baltimore novel that we’re bringing out now in paperback is the best version of that he’s done.

BD: How much will fans of the comic series get out of the novel?SA: Well, the novel is genuinely a must read for the readers of the comics, and the timing couldn’t be better. The novel spans a very long time in Baltimore’s life, and when we started the comics, they were all meant to take place within that timeframe–that is, between the beginning and end of the novel. But now, in the comics, in BALTIMORE Volume 4: Chapel of Bones, we finally brought the character of Baltimore full circle to resolve the quest that ran through the previous comics and through the novel. The vampire he was hunting for revenge, Haigus, who killed his family, was destroyed in the Chapel of Bones, just like he was destroyed in the novel. The comics and the novel have finally dovetailed, and you have the complete picture now—which, incidentally, beautifully sets things up for the next phase of Baltimore’s adventures.

In the novel, we followed Baltimore’s quest to kill Haigus—Baltimore was hellbent on revenge against the vampire who killed his family. He devoted years of his life to that, in a tragic, epic saga—three words often misused, but totally applicable here. Between the novel and the four existing graphic novels, readers finally have the complete saga of Baltimore’s bloody and self-destructive quest for the vampire Haigus, which costs Baltimore his own humanity.

With volume 5, out soon in hardcover, we begin the post-novel stories, which actually represents a sea change in the story.  Volume 6, BALTIMORE, CULT OF THE RED KING is a terrific jumping on point, because now we find Baltimore, a monster fighter who’s lost touch with his humanity, pursuing a mythic being who may be responsible for all the horror in his world. Baltimore has built a company of damaged allies to pursue the Red King, but is the Red King even still in existence…?

BD: How is Sofia joining Baltimore’s company going to change things?