M. Wartella
Michael M. Wartella (born August 19, 1976) is an American underground cartoonist, animator, writer and director based in New York City, generally publishing under the name M. Wartella or just Wartella. He is best known for his work in The Village Voice and on Cartoon Network's MAD. He is the founder of Brooklyn's Dream Factory Animation, a boutique studio specializing in the production of animated shorts for corporate and indie clients. Print career According to his 2013 autobiography, Strip Show: 25 Years of Comix, Controversy & Copyright Infringement, Wartella began his professional career at age ten producing a weekly comic strip called Clubhouse Kids for a local newspaper, which ran for two years during 1986–1987. Later, while a student at The University of Virginia, Wartella created the absurdist art comic Ackxhpæz (1994–1996) which he then expanded and nationally self-syndicated to alternative weekly newspapers (as "Nuts") from 1998 to 2000. The humor in many of the cartoons was controversial as exemplified in a 1999 comic about the Columbine High School massacre which prompted an outcry when it was published in Denver. From 2007 to 2009, Wartella's intricate single-panel "reportorial" cartoons began appearing regularly in The Village Voice, where he is still