Katie Mignola is one cool kid. Not only is she smart as a whip, but she also has the rare distinction of being the youngest Eisner winner of all time. Oh, and she's also the daughter of Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, so she's got that going for her too. Here's Katie now with a little bit about her Eisner-award winning story The Magician and the Snake. Katie, take it away:
Hello! This is Katie Mignola guest blogging for Dark Horse Comics. As you may know, my dad has a new book, The Amazing Screw-On Head and Other Curious Objects, coming out on August 25th. This new book will include a short story, written by me when I was seven. I don’t remember much about how I came up with the story other than that I painted a picture of a snake yelling at a bunch of shapes. I didn’t put any more thought into it until my dad asked me what I did at school that day and I told him about the picture. I made up the entire story on the spot and my dad said that he would like to use it in a comic. Over the course of a few months my dad drew the story, changing small details as he went such as the monkey king, which wasn’t in my original story. There were a few things that I wouldn’t let him change such as the magician’s style (he wanted him to be a parlor magician and I wanted a classic stars and moons magician) and the death of the magician. My dad suggested that the magician turn the snake into a lion so that he could eat the shapes and save the magician but I, for some reason, said that the magician had to die at the end. The story went on to win an Eisner for best short story in 2003. I couldn’t wait to tell all my friends that I had won. Unfortunately, none of them had any idea what an Eisner was so it didn’t really mean anything to them. I’m glad that it is finally being published in a book that people are more likely to read and I can’t wait to show it to my friends. I hope you enjoy the new book!
--Katie Mignola
