As a youth in southern coastal Maine in the late 1960s John was inspired by the characters and humor of the Peanuts comic strip. Later, he created his own comic book series, then flip books and stop motion animated Super 8 films. He majored in Film/Video/Animation at RISD, graduated in 1985, and over the next ten years freelanced in commercial animation. In 1995, John helped create the first series of Microsoft Office animated assistants, including the default character, Clippit aka Clippy. He then joined Humongous Entertainment full time as an animator and storyboard artist on their popular Backyard Sports and Junior Adventure computer games. After nearly a decade at Humongous, John retired to Maine with his wife Didi. They don't have any children or pets.