| Pendleton Ward | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Name | Pendleton Ward |
| Gender | Male |
| Job | Creator |
| Birthday | July 8, 1982 |
| Voices | Computer |
Pendleton Ward is the creator of Bravest Warriors. He also created the Cartoon Network show Adventure Time and the Netflix series The Midnight Gospel. Pendleton is a graduate of the CalArts Animation Program. He grew up in San Antonio, Texas, and currently lives in Los Angeles, California.
Early life[]
Ward became interested in animation at an early age, inspired by his mother, who is an artist and worked with animators. He started drawing flipbooks in first grade.
At the Adventure Time panel at San Diego Comic-Con in 2011, Matt Groening made a surprise appearance and told a story that, when Pendleton was a child, his mother brought him to visit Groening's house to get advice on how to be an animator. However, Groening couldn't remember what advice he had given.
Pen attended CalArts, where he became friends with J. G. Quintel. (They later worked on The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack together, and in 2009 Quintel went on to create Regular Show.) At a "Producers Show" at CalArts, Pen met Eric Homan from Frederator Studios, which was his first lead in working with Frederator.
Career[]
In 2002/2003, Pendleton Ward published a webcomic titled Bueno the Bear. He later took down the comics because he thought they were "terrible". However, he retains the name "buenothebear" for his website(He never uses it) and his handle on sites like Twitter. Later, Pen created a short for Frederator Studios titled Barrista, starring Bueno the Bear.
Pen continued to work on short animations for Frederator's Random! Cartoons, which aired on Nickelodeon. There, he worked with several people who later would join him on the Adventure Time series, including composer Casey James Basichis, Adam Muto, and Niki Yang. His two shorts were The Bravest Warriors and the Adventure Time animated short. The Adventure Time short was made in 2006 and went on to become an internet phenomenon in 2007, with over 1,000,000 views by November of that year. Pen pitched Adventure Time as a full series in 2006 or 2007, but it took some time before Cartoon Network decided to pick it up.
In 2008, Pendleton Ward worked on Cartoon Network's The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack as a writer and storyboard artist. Flapjack was a storyboard-driven show, meaning that the storyboard artists also wrote the episodes, based on an outline. The experience inspired Pen to run Adventure Time the same way, once it was picked up as an actual series.
In 2012, Frederator adapted Pen's Bravest Warriors into a web series for the relaunch of its Cartoon Hangover internet animation channel.
Influences[]
Ward has previously stated that his friends, many of whom he works alongside on Adventure Time, are his biggest drawing and animating influences. In another interview, he explained that he was influenced by The Simpsons, Hayao Miyazaki, My Neighbor Totoro, David Lynch, The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Dr. Tran, The Adventures of Tintin and The Office.
External links[]
- His website
- His Twitter
- Pendleton Ward at the Internet Movie Database