And then, yeah around age 12 or 13, I read Dracula and I remembered knowing that that was it. Mike Mignola: I remember being in elementary school and finding a book on ghosts and must've checked it out half a dozen times. This love of the Gothic runs deep in Mike Mignola- pretty much as far back as he can remember. It suits his subject matter- monsters and ghouls abiding in shadowy Gothic worlds. His drawing is distinctive- Alan Moore has described his style as 'German expressionism meets Jack Kirby' and that seems about right. Mignola has also won dozens of writing and illustrating awards. Mike clearly has cornered the market on good titles.

Mike also created the award-winning comic book The Amazing Screw-On Head and he’s co-written with author Christopher Golden two novels ( Baltimore, Or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier And The Vampire and Joe Golem And The Drowning City). There are also two animated and two live-action films about Hellboy- the latter directed by Guillermo Del Toro and starring Ron Perlman. There are, at the moment, 13 Hellboy graphic novel collections and several spin-off titles. Hellboy might have been Mike's first creation but he wasn’t his last by a long shot- there’s Abe Sapien, Lobster Johnson, Sir Edward Grey, and Lord Baltimore- to name only a few. And who better to help than Mike Mignola, the creator of Hellboy- that very large demonic creature who might look like a devil but who fights on the side of good and has a wicked sense of humor. Just in time for Halloween- we’re taking a look at what it takes to create a monster. Jo Reed: That's comic book author and artist Mike Mignola and this is Art Works, the weekly podcast produced at the National Endowment for the Arts. But I love that character, he's always fun for me to draw.

Mike Mignola: Before I did Hellboy, I had never drawn any one character for more than a year. Music Credits: Original music by Philip Brunelle “Universe in Hands,” written and performed by Kai Engel

Mike mignola drawing monsters