MIKE MIGNOLA 's fascination with ghosts and monsters began at an early age; reading Dracula at age twelve introduced him to Victorian literature and folklore, from which he has never recovered. Starting in 1982 as a bad inker for Marvel Comics, he swiftly evolved into a not-so-bad artist. By the late 1980s, he had begun to develop his own unique graphic style, with mainstream projects like Cosmic Odyssey and Batman: Gotham by Gaslight. In 1994, he published the first Hellboy series through Dark Horse, leading to over two decades of comics spinoffs, prose books, animated films, and live-action films. He worked on Francis Ford Coppola's film Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001), and with director Guillermo del Toro on Blade II (2002), Hellboy (2004), and Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008). A new film by Neil Marshall was released in 2019. Mike's books have earned numerous awards and are published ina great many countries. He lives in Southern California with his wife, daughter, and cat.