Michael Dialynas's dreams come true in NYC

He likes to describe himself as a "comics artist and beast wrangler." It makes sense if you know that he lives with six cats (only partly because his mother is an animal rights activist): "Shiro, which means white in Japanese, Oliver Twist, whom I rescued from a gutter, Easy, a gentle giant, Shadow, always hiding in the shadows, Scampy, the lady of the house, and Little Miss Scrumptious Swaggerpants, found dumped in a box by the side of a road. I've also put them in a story where the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles beat up a bad guy in an alley. I'm a happy cat daddy."

Michael Dialynas has every reason to be happy, because he's doing exactly what he dreamed of as a kid and in the past five years has worked with six of the biggest American comic book publishers in the world: Dark Horse, Marvel, Boom! Studios, IDW Publishing, Image and DC Comics. Success did not come without toil...