Michael Zulli is an American Illustrator, Comic Book Artist, and Fine Artist whose work is characterized by detailed realism, a delicate painterly touch, and a hint of the Pre-Raphaelites.

Numbered among his artistic influences are William Blake, John Lennon, James Abbot McNeill Whistler, Lou Reed, Pablo Picasso, and Jack Kirby.

His comic career began in 1986 as the artist for the independent ecological series The Puma Blues with writer Stephen Murphy. He drew the infamous never published issue of Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing in which the title character meets Jesus Christ. This created such a scandal that DC Comics, fearing public reprisals, censored the issue and shelved it indefinitely. This led to a rift with its writer, Alan Moore, that is still being felt to this day. Zulli later went on to draw stories for Steven Bissette’s horror anthology Taboo.

In the pages of The Sandman, he co-created the character Hob Gadling with writer Neil Gaiman. The story goes that Gadling simply decides not to die in the 14th Century... Zulli drew most of the stories he appeared in, set at various points between then and the present day. His work on the final Sandman volume, The Wake, was printed directly from his pencils - without the use of an inker.

Zulli is still a frequent collaborator of Neil Gaiman’s. Together, they produced an unfinished adaptation of Sweeney Todd that would later become The Last Temptation Mini Series featuring rock singer Alice Cooper. With other writers, he has contributed to the DC/Vertigo Sandman spin-offs The Dreaming and Witchcraft, and illustrated Marvel's Longshot Special. He also provided interior artwork to the Legends of the DC Universe: Destroyer of Worlds, which served to re-introduce the Spectre and Hal Jordan to the DC Universe. Zulli did layout, design, and provided all of the original art to J. Michael Straczynski’s much-lauded Novella Delicate Creatures.

Current works include the Creatures Of The Night Graphic Novel Adaptation featuring two of Neil Gaiman's short stories from his book Smoke and Mirrors. The first being “The Price,” in which a black cat arrives at a country home and is soon beset by mysterious and vicious wounds. The second is The “Daughter of Owls,” which recounts an eerie old tale of a foundling girl who is left, with an owl pellet, as a newborn on the steps of the Dymton Church. This will be followed in 2006 by the forthcoming Graphic Novel Adaptation, The Strange Case of the Disappearance of Miss Finch, from the Short Story of the same name by Neil Gaiman. Join a group of friends, with the stern Miss Finch in tow, as they enter musty caverns for a subterranean circus spectacle called "The Theatre of Night's Dreaming." Come inside, get out of the pounding rain, and witness this strange world of vampires, ringmasters, illusions and the Cabinet of Wishes Fulfill'd.

Zulli is currently hard at work writing and drawing an as yet unannounced personal project entitled Fracture Of The Universal Boy, an ambitious 150-200 page Graphic Novel that is tentatively set for release sometime in 2007.

Michael Zulli was born in the fifties, survived the sixties, and spent most of the seventies recuperating. He currently lives in a house in Minnesota with a female of the same species and two Pedigree Bull Terrier roommates who are currently unemployed. He wears his heart on his sleeve and is damn proud of it. His great grandparents came from Italy from Ellis Island like a lot of dreamers...the tradition continues. he is an avowed news junky and always works with the RADIO ON...just like Sister Ray said. He also believes that growing the perfect mustache is an as yet undiscovered artform...and he’d love to come to your house to shed on the good furniture.

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