Living near Portland Oregon, after many years in Southern California, I find the lack of sun keeps me indoors more often. No wonder I’m keeping this blog. I grew up near St. Paul, Minnesota and I didn’t have to travel far to attend the University of Wisconsin, Madison where I studied Comparative Literature, Chinese, Ancient Art History and Art. Yeah, I was that kind of student. Taking whatever I was interested in and that finally lead to a BFA. I also drew for the student newspaper and The Capital Times. My work was twice included in The Best Editorial Cartoons of the year by Pelican Publishing. After that I worked in advertising, politics and for a software company designing marketing material and doing interface design. After a few years more in Madison I transferred myself to Los Angeles. I worked in a number of graphic design and art direction positions. Overseeing websites, creating marketing material, creating international multimedia projects for various companies including, Apple Inc., Adobe, Blockbuster, Transamerica, Honda, Toyota and many more. I became an Art Director for Sony Online Entertainment overseeing the development of dozens of online games based on Sony properties and licensed titles including the first web based interactive versions of JEOPARDY!, Wheel of Fortune, The Dating Game and Trivial Pursuit. I was a Creative Director for Pearson Televison New Media where I developed Family Feud Online for multiple countries and worked with the television production department to bring supporting websites live for new TV shows. I later enrolled in the MFA in animation program at UCLA where I made The Thing with No Head. This animated short was aired on Nickelodeon Nicktoons and in festivals around the world. Other shorts I wrote or directed have appeared on G4 TV in the USA and on a variety of channels in the UK. I also developed and sold an online animated show called Hollywood Backlot working with Mondo Media. I left UCLA after my first year to work at Walt Disney Television Animation as a current production manager. I also wrote an essay for The Comics Journal about the future of online animation which later became recommended reading for MIT’s The Future of Broadcasting course. I created a comic book called Cenozoic and my work appeared in the anthology comic book series Periphery. I have done visual development for animated TV series and feature films. I took a children’s book illustration class at Art Center in Pasadena taught by Marla Frazee. That class reminded me how much I loved writing and drawing books. Ideas are funky things and it’s not always clear why one idea works so much better in one medium than another. That’s the fun and dynamic part and is very intriguing to me. I love drawing and writing picture books. I am represented by Sean McCarthy of McCarthy Lit. You can contact me at: markfearing (at) gmail dot com. Read less