I don't do costumes, I don't do sh_t like that. I love Halloween as a concept, but do I actually go out and do things? No. Trick or treating? Pain in the ass. Hate answering the door all night long. I do love fall, which is bad because I live in Los Angeles.

I wish I could say I had any idea what I was doing when I designed characters. I just take things I like and make my version of it.

Things do look pretty grim, but I think there are more laughs in Hellboy in Hell than there are in B.P.R.D.: Hell on Earth. I think Hell is getting nicer and Earth is getting worse. Once we figured out what we were doing, the whole point of the Hellboy/B.P.R.D. stuff has always been evolution. The kind of evolution we're seeing on Earth is nasty evolution - part of this kind of evolution is that you have to wipe out what was there before you can replace it.

Hellboy was entirely the comic I wish someone much more talented than I was doing, because I would have been a huge fan of that comic. But nobody was doing it, so it fell to me to do it.

With a rasping cough, the vampire shakes its head. "It was you who called us. All of you, with your war. The roar of your cannons shook us from our quiet graves.

No rain but thunder, and the sound of giants.

But if there must be an end, let it be loud. Let it be bloody. Better to burn than to wither away in the dark.