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Mike Mignola (born in Berkeley, California on September 16, 1960) is a American comic book artist and writer. He has also worked for animation projects such as Atlantis: The Lost Empire and the adaptation of his one shot comic book, The Amazing Screw-On Head.

Career before Hellboy

Mike Mignola began his career in 1983 by illustrating issues of comic books such as Daredevil and Power Man & Iron Fist for Marvel Comics, and later worked on titles such as Alpha Flight and the Rocket Raccoon mini-series.

After some initial work for DC Comics, such as 1987's Phantom Stranger and The World of Krypton, Mignola began to attract greater notice at DC. 1988 featured several high-profile assignments, including covers for Batman: A Death in the Family and pencilling Cosmic Odyssey, a galaxy-spanning 4-issue mini-epic featuring an ensemble cast of DC heroes, and Gotham by Gaslight, in which a Victorian version of Batman faces Jack the Ripper. The success of that 52-page one-shot inspired DC to launch the "Elseworlds" concept.

Through the early 1990s, Mignola worked on such titles as Batman, Starman, and covers and backup features for various Marvel comics. With Howard Chaykin and P. Craig Russell, he worked on Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser and Ironwolf: Fires of the Revolution. He illustrated the comics adaptation for Bram Stoker's Dracula for Topps Comics, having assisted with design and storyboarding for the Francis Ford Coppola film.

Hellboy

Previously, Mignola had always worked on characters and properties owned by others. He deviated from that practice in 1994, when Mignola's first Hellboy story, The Seed of Destruction, was published by Dark Horse Comics. Hellboy draws heavily on Mignola's own interests — folklore, B-movies, ghost stories, monsters and pulp stories — and the series about a paranormal investigator from Hell, the eponymous Hellboy, soon proved to be a popular and critical success. It has since been the endeavour Mignola has been most closely connected with, and he has kept up a steady stream of Hellboy stories and merchandise.

Prior to Hellboy, Mignola was not experienced in writing his own stories, and thus, at Mignola's request, the first series was scripted by John Byrne. However, the next Hellboy story, Wolves of St. August, was scripted by Mignola, who also wrote the majority of the subsequent Hellboy tales, though other writers and artists have also worked on the character since.

Style

Mignola is particularly noted for his highly distinctive style, which was once called "German expressionism meets Jack Kirby" by Alan Moore, in an introduction to a collection of Mignola's Hellboy works.

While Mignola has heavily influenced a new generation of comics artists since he began working on Hellboy, he was something of an odd man out in the superhero comics industry in the beginning of his career. Mignola's imagery stood in stark contrast to the style of his contemporaries. Where others would draw muscular men and slim, well-endowed women, Mignola's characters were usually bulky and rough-looking, and more often than not defined by large shadowed areas rather than fine details. Mignola often takes the same approach to architecture, particularly in Hellboy, where he often sets the scenes in slowly dilapidating Victorian and Gothic surroundings. He also commonly draws machines that feature steampunk imagery.

Work in film and television

Hellboy was made into a feature film in 2004 by director Guillermo del Toro. Mignola was closely involved with the movie's production and a sequel is currently in development.

Prior to that, Mignola worked as an illustrator for Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 movie Bram Stoker's Dracula. He was also the production designer for the Disney feature film, Atlantis: The Lost Empire in 2001, but in name only, as the art team drew so heavily from his works that they felt they should give him some credit, and was a concept artist for 2002's Blade II, also directed by del Toro.

Mignola's The Amazing Screw-On Head debuted in 2006 on the Sci-Fi Channel, starring the voices of Paul Giamatti and David Hyde Pierce.

Trivia

• Mignola designed the Batman: The Animated Series version of Mr Freeze at Bruce Timm's request. He also produced several character and location designs used in Batman Beyond.

• Mignola and the creator of the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, Kazuki Takahashi, once participated in an art exchange. Takahashi, who is a fan of American comics, drew a picture of Hellboy with Yugi Mutou's hairdo, a Millennium Puzzle, and a duel disk. Mignola drew a picture of Hellboy wearing a Millennium Puzzle and a T-Shirt with Yugi's face, and the two exchanged their artwork. These pictures can be seen in an American issue of Shonen Jump.

• Early on Guillermo Del Toro and Mignola both agreed that Ron Perlman, an actor long revered for his ability to express emotion through heavy layers of prosthetic make up, was the only actor who could portray Mignola's Hellboy character in a live action film. The studios were against it and wanted a more recognizable "name" actor in the title role, but Del Toro fought for Perlman and eventually won.

External links

• Mignola's official site
• "Devil in the Deep Blue Sea", career synopsis by Fletch Adams for Broken Frontier, June 23, 2005.
• Mike Mignola's biography

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