"Amazing Screw-On Head" Animated Pilot Moving Ahead

Hollywood trade pub Variety has just announced the Paul Giamatti (American Splendor, Sideways) has signed on to voice the title character in an animated adaptation of Mike (Hellboy) Mignola's "The Amazing Screw-On Head," as a pilot for the Sci-Fi Channel.

"Screw-On Head" is a one-shot published a few years ago by Dark Horse Comics that is one of the funniest, most imaginative comics I have ever read. I'm not alone either. The book won an Eisner award (top award in comics industry) for Best Humor Publication in 2003.

One of the best non-super-hero comics ever created

Who is the Amazing Screw-On Head? According to Comics Continuum, he is "a Civil War-era secret agent at the service of president Abraham Lincoln and an unsung hero who never made it into the history books. His special power is the ability to screw his head onto a variety of different bodies."

I met Mike Mignola at Wizard Philly this month, where he signed my copy of the book, and mentioned this pilot to me. He also said that this is his single favorite work of his and that he will never do a follow-up to it because he doesn't want to mess with how good it is.

Other voices featured in the pilot are David Hyde Pierce (who voiced Abe Sapien in the movie version of Mignola's Hellboy) as Emperor Zombie, Molly Shannon as Patience the Vampire and Patton Oswalt as Mr. Groin.

The pilot is expected to be finished by early next year. No word yet on when -- or if -- it will air, or if it will become a series.