Mark’s never won an Oscar or a grammy or a Caldecott. He rarely wins anything, not even those Amazon Gift Certificates for giving Adobe feedback. But he is 12 feet tall and carries his car on his back when a tire goes flat. His house is a castle that can fit in a grocery bag. Mark likes to tell stories…But here’s the real deal:

Mark grew up in Minnesota, received a BFA from the University of Wisconsin, continued studies at the Graduate School of Film at UCLA in the MFA in animation program, taking additional classes at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and the Los Angeles Animation Institute.

He has worked extensively in design, illustration and animation and along the way found himself a manager at Walt Disney Television Animation, the art director of Sony Online Entertainment and a creative director at Pearson Television. Just to make this even stranger, Mark worked on versions of gameshows including: The Wheel of Fortune, JEOPARDY!, The Price is Right and many, many others. He was a featured author and illustrator for Nikki Finke’s Hollywood Dementia website with stories optioned to HBO.

Mark’s animated short films have been seen in film festivals around the country, broadcast on Nickelodeon Nicktoons and the G4 Network in the U.S. and on World of Wonder in the U.K.

Mark now spends his time mostly worrying but also trying to write and draw picture books and graphic novels and substitute teaches primary grades in his local school district where he is happy to draw a lot of pictures for the students. His writing and illustrations have been published by Penguin Books for Young Readers, Candlewick Press, Hyperion, Chronicle Books, Knopf and a few others he can’t think of right now. He lives outside Portland, Oregon with his family.