Marvin Flute is a misanthropic detective who easily cracks complex cases but struggles to solve one mystery: his family. This series introduced me to a whole new kind of storyboarding. In the beginning it felt clumsy and awkward. But this plane was in flight and I was on it.

During my tenure as the go-to storyboard artist for Max Steel movies (2007 to 2012) that guy got into one bonkers scrape after another, and it was my job to get him out. Between the 6th and 7th movies came a set of 15 "Turbo Adventures." See them all here with storyboards to match!

When you find a sparkly dragon scale in your new house and hold it up to make a wish, be very, VERY careful what you wish for. Here's the story of one of the hardest TV projects I've ever taken on. It may be fun to hang out in Dragon Land, but it's murder to work there.

Do you remember what you were doing during the month of December 2008? I do, because I've got the time-stamped files to remind me. I spent the first half of that month drawing storyboards for the 6th Max Steel movie, titled Mutant Menace (or, if you're a member of the audience it was made for, Amenaza Mutante). See the whole thing with some behind-the-scenes movie magic here!

Historically, sitcoms make up the smallest piece of the TV cartoon pie with the fewest productions. Why? Because they're the toughest to find an audience for. The Simpsons is the clear standout, and a handful of competitors got as close as they could. After that, there's a steep dropoff into a chasm of one-shots and single-season experiments. Here are two stories from my time in that chasm.

GOING TURBO! The last time we checked in on Max Steel, he was the star of a clunky CG-animated TV series that ran from 2000 to 2002. Toy sales were tepid in the US, but overwhelming in Mexico and Brazil, which motivated Mattel to GO TURBO! with a series of movies. Starting in 2004, these became annual projects. I was invited to GO TURBO! and storyboard the fifth of these films, and I stayed on for several more. See the movie and background info here!

Anime was always going to win. It was just a matter of time. I use the word "win" as if it was a contest. It shouldn't have been, but American producers made it that way. We on the art side became their opponents, and we outnumbered them. So the results were inevitable. What am I talking about? Get comfortable...

What do you do when you start a TV series on the wrong foot, find nothing whatsoever to like about it, and have no interest at all in what happens to the characters? You shut up and draw, that's what. Storyboarding for the third season of Max Steel was a big, valuable lesson in pride-swallowing. But I kept some stuff from it anyway. See it here.

With every series I've worked on, I always found something to love and memories to cherish. Except this one. To the outside world, Nickelodeon is a playground of fun, excitement, and colorful cartoons. On the inside, the picture is quite different. Everyone comes out of it with a story to tell, and now you get to read mine. Spoiler: it ends with me getting fired.

I've had the pleasure of storyboarding numerous special projects, including this one: a pilot for a series based on a well-known fantasy book series. Since you've never seen a series titled The Secrets of Droon, you already know how this project ended. But the journey is always a story in itself, no matter how it ends.

Hulk's pulverizing brute strength and Tony Stark's high-tech brainpower come together to face off against the ultimate enemy. When "Zzzax," a seemingly invincible, energy-devouring monster threatens to destroy the planet, Marvel's unlikeliest pairing of Avengers is mankind's only hope. Alone, neither can defeat the awesome power of Zzzax. As a duo, they just might have a chance -- if they can find a way to work together without smashing heads before time runs out!

Nothing quite matched the spark, enthusiasm, and unbridled fun of Xiaolin Showdown. In many ways, we all made that show our own and those characters became our family. I hope I'm lucky enough to have that experience again. But if I don't, I have nothing but gratitude for getting to do it even once.

Following the disappearance of both Jean Grey and Charles Xavier, Wolverine becomes the new leader of the X-Men. The government organization MRD (Mutant Response Division) begins capturing mutants to "protect the safety of humankind." Magneto responds by welcoming mutants to his island sanctuary Genosha. Mix in a dystopian future war and the Hellfire Club's attempt to revive the Phoenix Force, and you got yourself a party.

Picking up where we left off, the second half of Season 2 gets rougher and rowdier with the villains getting more powerful and the paths of our Xiaolin warriors becoming less predictable. You might say the funny even gets seriouser! It was as suspenseful for us as we made the show as it would be for anyone watching it week after week on TV.

After season 1 wrapped in the fall of 2003, I already knew I wasn’t coming back as a director, but they were happy to have me back as a storyboard artist working for other directors. I wouldn’t be in a position to guide individual episodes, but I would get to contribute to more of them and actually leave a bigger mark on the series. Here's EVERY episode from the first half with notes for how to find my bits.

My largest DC project was The Brave and Bold (all three seasons), but I also dipped my toe into Teen Titans and Young Justice for brief periods. For even briefer periods, I worked on the two projects presented here: Legion of Superheroes and DC Superfriends!

Royal Rumble was the title of my fourth episode in season 1 of Xiaolin Showdown. It's also a good descriptor for the process of directing it. This turned out to be the last episode I directed, though I was still heavily involved in the show for its subsequent seasons. Why? Because there were some lessons I hadn't learned yet.

Never heard of this one? That's probably because it didn't get past the pilot stage. It was a 3-minute Looney Tunes-type showdown, based on a Mattel toy line, between top-tier WWE wrestlers Kane and John Cena. Since the project was so short, I'll take the opportunity to present something people outside the animation biz rarely see: multiple drafts of a storyboard as it goes through notes and revisions.

Our third episode of this series was where we took command. We'd already taken to the show like fish to water from the beginning, but now that the 2-episode shakedown was behind us, our funniest stuff was pouring out, and we drew the best-looking storyboards we could. See them all from start to finish here!