Mike Mignola analysis

 

Composition

Mignola uses strong shadow shapes to create silhouettes of objects such as helmets while letting the rest of what would be thin lines fade innto the background color as we see the figures arranged in the gray backgroundd that the church is connected to. The way Mignola organized these shapes and values is something to take note of. 

Again what we see is a zig zag like pattern of the figures as they turn towards us as if they are just becoming aware of our presence. We can also see they are stacked on top of one another in a similar zig zag pattern. Starting on the left we see one figure peeking out from behind another that is higher than him, the foreground figure is then much closer to us but is arranged below this second figure, with a fourth figure tucked between the focal point character and the ghoul with the goggles on. 

Its also cool that mignola uses the shadow shapes of the figures in the background to help define the silhouette of the figures in the foreground as we see here. Instead of adding more unnecessary lines to the back of the foreground figures helmet he uses the shadow shape of the guy behind him to define its shape and still lose it in the gray shape in the backdrop. 

On the other side of the central figure we see the pattern reverse itself going downwards and again we see an example of how overlapping forms helps define forms close to us from our view. This is interesting cause we see him smartly group both midtones and darktones together to great effect like in most of his covers. 

The black as usual is all grouped together and we see that the black on both sides merges into the strong detailed silhouette of the central figure. The central figure contasts not so much in value but in color saturation and this form contrasts against the higher key background color of the flames coming from the church as they sway to the left. In fact you could almost follow an invisible diagonal Z through the whole piece as it starts on the right top side and ends on the bottom left. 

Whats also interesting to note is that the colors are not always so cleanly placed and are more offbeat than one would think. Take the top portion of the page for example we can see that there is some green and pink as well as some hints of blue and pink ion the faces of the figures below, but this color variety is masked by these colors being in the same value range.