ProFile Friday Jill Thompson (born November 20,...

ProFile Friday

Jill Thompson (born November 20, 1966) is an American comic book writer and illustrator. Probably better known for her work on Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman characters and her own Scary Godmother series, she has also worked on The Invisibles, Swamp Thing, and Wonder Woman.

Thompson grew up in Forest Park, Illinois and graduated from The American Academy of Art in Chicago in 1987. After working for smaller publishers such as Comico and First Comics, she was soon tapped to draw Wonder Woman for DC Comics.

She illustrated The Sandman story arc Brief Lives (issues 41-49), and the individual Sandman issue “The Parliament of Rooks” (issue 40) in the Fables and Reflections collection. Within this tale she created the immensely popular characters of Li’l Death and Li’l Morpheus, child-like versions of two of the Endless based on classic comic characters Sugar and Spike; these (together with their siblings, the other five of the “Little Endless”) were later given their own book, The Little Endless Storybook.

She has since written and illustrated several stories featuring the Sandman characters; in addition to The Little Endless Storybook and its follow-up, Delirium’s Party, she created the manga-style book Death: At Death’s Door (one of DC’s best selling books of 2003) set during the events of Season of Mists. In 2005 Thompson wrote and illustrated the Dead Boy Detectives, an original graphic novel based on two minor characters from Season of Mists.

In 2008, she launched another children’s book series, Magic Trixie. In 2009, with writer Evan Dorkin, she started Beasts of Burden, a series featuring animal characters that first appeared in a short story, “Stray”, in The Dark Horse Book of Hauntings.

She has won multiple Eisner Awards, including in 2001 for best painter for Scary Godmother, 2004 for “Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art)” for her work on The Dark Horse Book of Hauntings, and in 2005 for “Best Short Story” for “Unfamiliar” (from The Dark Horse Book of the Dead) with Evan Dorkin. In 2011 the National Cartoonist Society named her Best Comic Book Artist for Beasts of Burden.

Thompson is married to fellow comic book writer Brian Azzarello, creator of 100 Bullets and current writer of Wonder Woman.

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01/6/12