Animation artists' comic projects

      Many animation artists have more creativity than they can express in their studio jobs. A good number are doing comics as well. TR!CKSTER, held concurrently with SDCC 2011, is the most visible sign, but I've seen animation artists setting up and exhibiting at various comic conventions for over a decade. My brother Stuart hosted a signing for Shane Glines and Glen Murakami at SDCC in 2001. The next year, my first stop at the con was to see Enrico Casarosa and Ronnie del Carmen. Here are more creators who you may not know:
      Mark Andrews was the story supervisor for Brad Bird's The Incredibles and Rataouille. He worked on storyboards for Bird's The Iron Giant and Sam Raimi's Spider-Man. With Andrew Jimenez, he directed the Oscar-nominated One Man Band. Mark wrote and drew the graphic novel Colossus about a giant robot set loose in medieval Europe. He is a contributor to Afterworks, the comic anthology by Pixar artists.
      Mark has twice spoken at the Cartoon Art Museum about doing the chase for Uncle Ben's killer sequence in the first Spider-Man movie. Andrew turned the still boards into animatics which he learned to do from working on Bird's The Iron Giant. Mark was on a panel speaking on Hayao Miyazaki at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley. I've also seen Mark at the Cartoon Art Museum Benefit at Pixar Animation Studios.
      Ted Mathot is a story supervisor at Pixar Animation Studios and writer/artist/self-publisher of graphic novels and comics. His first graphic novel is the 2-part western Rose and Isabel set during the US Civil War. This is also available in a sepiatone French language hardcover album from Editions Akileos. From his signing trip to France in 2008, Ted has adopted the European practice of adding a sketch to the books he sells. Cora is the first part of a related story.
      Bill Presing is a story artist at Pixar Animation Studios. I discovered his (with Matt Peters) Rex Steele stories in the Monkeysuit comics anthologies before the collected edition with numerous pin-ups by fellow animation and comic artists. Rex is a 1940's American pilot fighting Nazi's. NYU animation student Alex Woo turned one comic short story into a student Oscar-winning short film. It is now available as a DVD.