Artie Romero
Artie Romero, July 3, 2016.
Born	Artie Edward Thomas, Jr. Springfield, Missouri
Nationality	American
Area(s)	Cartoonist, Publisher
Pseudonym(s)	Ed Romero
Notable works	Realm,Cascade Comix Monthly,Johnny Mnemonic
www.artiestick.com

Artie Edward Romero (born inSpringfield, Missouri)^[1] is an Americancartoonist,animator, producer, director andpublisher. He began his career incomic books at a young age in the 1970s, and now is best known for hisanimation work.

The first child of Wilma and Artie Thomas, he was born in 1951 in Springfield, Missouri, and named Artie Edward Thomas, Jr. His parents' tumultuous marriage produced three more sons before ending in divorce in 1962. Wilma then married Jose Santiago Romero, and Jose adopted the four boys, changing their names to Romero.^[2]

Romero decided to pursue a career as an artist while he was still in high school. His work was published in his school's literary magazine, and he became fascinated with the technical aspects of printing and publishing. In 1968 he joined the staff ofCarl Gafford's New Milford, Connecticut based fanzineMinotaur as a co-editor. Romero recruited fellow student artists and writers to create a magazine, and in January, 1969, the first issue ofPlatinum Toad appeared. Printed on the school's duplicator, it included poems by co-editor Tom Haber, a cover by Romero, comics by George Laws andRobert Crumb (an unauthorized reprint of Crumb's "Keep On Truckin'"), a short story by Martha Ann Kennedy, and assorted artwork.

In his school years Romero published original illustrations byFrank Frazetta,Vaughn Bodē,Barry Windsor-Smith andMichael William Kaluta in his comics andscience fiction fanzineRealm (1969–72).^[3] He dropped out of college to help found Everyman Studios, an artists' collective. Other founding members of Everyman Studios include illustratorsRick Berry and Darrel Anderson, who later founded Braid Media Arts.^[4]

In 1974–75, Anderson and Romero were co-editors of aColorado Springs alternative newspaper,The Everyman Flyer,^[5] which included underground comix.^[6]

From 1978 to 1981, Romero edited and publishedCascade Comix Monthly,^[7][8] afanzine aboutunderground comix with news and artist interviews, includingArt Spiegelman,Denis Kitchen,Dan O'Neill,Gilbert Shelton andTrina Robbins.Cascade also published original comix and art byS. Clay Wilson,Spain Rodriguez,Skip Williamson,M. K. Brown,Jay Lynch and other pioneering underground comix artists. Several full-size underground comix, tabloids and a series of 21minicomics with color covers were published under Everyman Comics' imprint.^[9] Several of Romero's minicomics were reprinted, including their color covers, in Fantagraphics' 2010 anthology,Newave! The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980s.^[10]

While attending college, Romero began working on animation projects^[11] such as music videos, TV commercials and movie titles. He continued to do so from 1981 through 1994 as Everyman Studios, then in 1994 he founded ARG! Cartoon Animation Studio. ARG! currently produces animation for movies, television and the Web. Romero's screen credits include digital effects animation forJohnny Mnemonic^[12] (Sony Pictures, 1995), and animated cartoon segments for a children's program,TV Planet (Rocky Mountain PBS, 1999).^[13][14]

In 1981, Romero's publishing company Everyman Studios expanded into commercial animation production, hiring animators William Kirk Kennedy, Jan Johnson and Roy W. Smith, and accepting a contract to produce an animated rock video for the band Gibraltar. A work print of the 5-minute film "King's Elevator" premiered at the39th World Science Fiction Convention in Denver, and subsequently the finished video aired on the nationally syndicated TV series "America Rocks."^[15] The studio then began producing animated television and theatrical commercials under contract.

In 1983 the studio produced titles and animation for Frameline Filmworks'Lost starringSandra Dee andJack Elam,^[16] and 1984, Romero produced and directed a TV mini-series about video games calledVideo Game All Stars for the local NBC affiliate, KOAA Channels 5/30.^[17] The series included animated bumpers by Romero. In 2022, clips from the first episode ofVideo Game All Stars were licensed to be included inPause and Replay, a series of films about the history of video games that is on public display in the Smithsonian Institution'sNational Museum of American History.^[18][19]

Also in 1984, Romero produced title animation and animated bumpers forAlmost Live, produced and hosted byJeff Valdez. Everyman Studios continued to produce animation for TV commercials, movie title sequences and software throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, converting from film to digital animation production in 1991.

In 1994 Romero rebranded Everyman Studios as ARG! Cartoon Animation^[20] in Colorado Springs, producing animation for Duracell's national sales meeting and visual effects for Sony Pictures'Johnny Mnemonic. Romero launched the ARG! website Artie.com in 1996, and it quickly became one of the most popular animation sites on the Web. The ARG! site got 1 billion hits in a 20-month period in 2005–2006.^[21]

Best known for his work onKeanu Reeves' 1995 cyberpunk featureJohnny Mnemonic, Romero has served as ARG! producer, director and animator on movie projects, TV series, music videos and thousands of animated shorts and commercials.^[22] His directorial credits include productions for MTV Networks, PBS, Kaiser Permanente, Harper Collins, AT&T, Transamerica, Safeco Insurance and others.

In addition to its commercial work, the studio recently produced a series of short whiteboard/Flash cartoons,Edward Lear's Nonsense Stories for YouTube and cable TV. Since January 2015, the studio has produced storyboards and 4K animation for TAYEKENI Productions'Adventures of Turtle Taido, a children's television series that is broadcast onNigerian Television Authority stations.^[23] The program was nominated for Best Animation at the 2015 Abuja Film Festival, and was screened atCannes Film Festival in 2016.^[24]

In 2017, the ARG! studio moved from Colorado Springs toStilwell, Oklahoma. In 2018, Romero sold their original website domain Artie.com to Artie, Inc., a virtual reality startup, and relocated the official ARG! site to ArtieStick.com. Their short film for children,Taffy the Pink Hippopotamus premiered atWonderCon on April 2, 2022, and was screened at the 2022San Diego Comic-Con in the children's film program.^[25][26]

In 1996, Romero founded the web development company CityStar Group in Colorado Springs.^[27][28] The company produced a complex of 300 city directory websites containing listings for businesses and organizations. Romero worked with the Better Business Bureau of Southern Colorado, sponsoring a series of internet marketing workshops, and promoting the Bureau's services.^[29][30] In 2014, CityStar Group's assets were acquired by Blue Roof, Inc., and in 2015 the CityStar corporation was voluntarily dissolved.^[31]

In 2022, Romero launched a website development and hosting company, Ozarks Tech LLC^[32] in Stilwell, Oklahoma. It creates sites for city governments,^[33] school systems, non-profit organizations and businesses.

Wikimedia Commons has media related toArtie Edward Romero.

• ARG! Cartoon Animation
• The Artie Show, Romero's blog with podcasts
• Artie Romero atIMDb
• ARG! Cartoon Animation on Facebook

• 1951 births
• Living people
• American comics artists
• American animated film directors
• American animated film producers

• Comics infobox image less alt text
• Comics creator pop
• Track variant DoB
• Commons category link is on Wikidata