Tim Burton - A Child's Garden of Nightmares charts the filmmaker's path from malcontent animator at Walt Disney Productions (creating the "scary movies for little kids", Vincent and Frankenweenie) to directing feature films with a fantasy aesthetic and a natural sympathy for the alienated outsider (Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands, Batman, the deformed Penguin). The book also acknowledges, both textually and visually, some of the 'monster culture' influences that inform his films: Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, the films of Ed D. Wood, Jr. (the infamous "worst filmmaker ever"), and the trading cards that inspired his Mars Attacks!