Posted on August 25, 2026

Spider-Man: Maximum Venom part 2, 2020

Back up to part 1

When 2018 ticked over to 2019, things started changing for the better on Maximum Venom. For one thing, I got a storyboard crew on my second episode. They gave me six months to do the first one, so I worked solo. Nice to have the authorship, but it was pretty lonely work. Going forward, each episode had to be storyboarded in eight weeks, the time span from getting the script to completing an approved animatic.

Feat. Toddler Groot and Mary Jane Watson (first appearance)

My team consisted of three storyboard artists. One was the energetic Jess Cuffe, who worked her way up the ladder on Avengers Assemble. She started out as a storyboard revisionist and was promoted to full board artist before it was over. Then there was the highly talented Shaan Khan, who was part of the Canadian storyboard team on Avengers and distinguished himself as a front-runner during the first season. He freelanced his work from Canada as the rest was all done in our L.A. studio. My third crew member was Ibraheem Jara, who was just getting started at the time but has since earned his stripes on other productions.

I was also assigned a storyboard revisionist. Filling that spot was Gerald Kaye, who had also worked with me on Avengers, but he came from “over the fence” so to speak. In addition to storyboard artists a crew also needs production assistants. Gerald served as my P.A. for a while, but his ambition had always been to draw. He finally got that chance when a revisionist chair opened up (in fact, it may have been Jess’ former chair) and he was right there when I needed him on Maximum Venom. Since then, he has also moved up to full board artist; both he and Jess were on board for Iyanu.

Also feat. Ironheart and Dr. Strange

When you watch the animatic below, you’ll see all of their work. I assigned them individual sequences which went through two or three drafts before being finalized and serving as the blueprint for finished animation.

Here’s how they break down:

Start to 2:08: my storyboards, cleanup by Gerald with revisions by series director Dan Duncan
2:08 to 6:00: Jess Cuffe
6:00 to 7:57: Shaan Khan
7:57 to 13:10: my storyboards, cleanup by Gerald
13:10 to 14:47 Ibraheem Jara
14:47 to 16:05: Dan Duncan
16:05 to 16:30: Ibraheem Jara
16:30 to 18:40: my storyboards, cleanup by Gerald with revisions by series director Dan Duncan
18:40 to end: Shaan Khan

There was also a “backup” group that handled subsequent revisions. This was needed because we had six weeks to produce the storyboard before our next script dropped. At that point, the first-stringers started on a new episode and the “backup” group picked up revisions that still needed doing. It sounds like a lot to keep track of, but that’s part of a director’s job. After a few rounds, you learn how to plan for everything.