Rafael Albuquerque (born April 12, 1981) is a Brazilian comic book creator primarily for his artwork on titles such as DC Comics' Blue Beetle and as illustrator and co-creator of American Vampire. Though primarily a penciler and inker of interior comic art, he has also done work as a cover artist, colorist and writer. Early life and influences Rafael Albuquerque was born in 1981 in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Career Albuquerque begun his professional career working in advertising, doing work for local companies. He began his comic book career in 2002, after posting his portfolio on the Internet, doing work for the Egyptian publishing company AK Comics, which published books for the Middle East. In 2005, Albuquerque published the creator-owned graphic novel crime story Rumble in La Rambla. It would be published in the United States in 2007 by Image Comics under the title Crimeland. He collaborated with writers Keith Giffen and Alan Grant in 2006 by illustrating issues #4 and #5 of Jeremiah Harm and the first issue of Pirate Tales for Boom! Studios. In 2006 and 2007, he illustrated the mini series Savage Brothers, also for Boom! Studios. In 2007 he drew Wonderlost #2 by writer C. B. Cebulski, and "Oil for Blood", a story in volume 2 of 24Seven, both published by Image Comics. The latter was nominated for the 2008 Eisner Award for Best Anthology (though the anthology's editor, Ivan Brandon, was the named nominee, and not the individual creators). Albuquerque first gained the notice of U.S. comics readers with his work as the regular artist on the DC Comics monthly series Blue Beetle, which he drew from issues #10 (February 2007) to #34 (February 2009). The series proved to be a challenge to Albuquerque, who thought the mainstream superhero book was not well-suited to his darker style, and approached the book by employing less heavy blacks and ink splats, and a more "cartoony" storytelling style. His other DC work has included covers of several titles, as well as interior work on issues #52 and #53 of Superman/Batman. and the Robin/Spoiler Special #1 in 2008. That same year, Albuquerque illustrated writer Ivan Brandon's story, "Wild Goose", which appeared in the Dark Horse Comics anthology Tales of the Fear Agent. In 2009 he drew issues #3 and #4 of Strange Adventures and drew the covers to Marvel Comics' four-issue miniseries Nomad: Girl Without a World. In January 2010,