The creator

Meet Matt Bolinger.

Animator, illustrator, and the one person on Earth responsible for sending four baby dinosaurs into space.
Origin story

It started with twelve plastic dinosaurs.

When Matt was five years old, his family was getting ready for a trip to the water park when his sibling accidentally slammed a door in his face. Instead of spending the day at the water park, his dad took him to the emergency room to get stitches.


On the way home, they stopped at the dollar store to cheer him up, and Matt picked out a pack of twelve tiny plastic dinosaurs. He carried them everywhere in an egg carton, which naturally became their spaceship.


Now fast forward twenty-five years. After spending half a decade working in the animation industry, helping bring other people's stories to life while seeing several of his own projects stall or get canceled, Matt was visiting his parents' house when he stumbled across that same egg carton, with those same dinosaurs still inside. 

Back then, in his childhood imagination, things didn’t have to make logical sense. Dinosaurs could fly around in a spaceship with no explanation other than that it was cool. Now, the ideas and themes of prehistoric life and the cold, uncaring nature of space and sci-fi perfectly overlapped. Like a mosquito trapped in amber, these toys instantly transported him back to that feeling. But this time, something else clicked. He could suddenly see the story with complete clarity.


He knew it was time to create something that was entirely his own.


That idea quickly became Dino Babies in Space. Rather than spending years pitching and hoping someone would eventually greenlight the project, he decided to simply start drawing. 

Path to animation.

Matt feels like he snuck into animation through the side door.

Growing up in Texas, he was obsessed with comics and animation, but art school never felt like a realistic option, let alone a career as an artist. After college, he spent his days working in a screen-printing warehouse in Austin and his nights at a retail job, saving money to attend graduate school for graphic design.

Then everything changed when the fire nation attacked a random conversation chance friendship changed everything. One of his coworkers at the screen printing warehouse, Dustin Pilkington, happened to be in the band that wrote the music for Bravest Warriors at Frederator Studios. Dustin introduced Matt to the team, and before long he landed an internship.

The internship was unpaid, but it was a dream come true. Matt found himself helping run the then-record-breaking Bee and PuppyCat Kickstarter while learning the ins and outs of the animation industry firsthand. As the internship came to an end, he was preparing to leave for graduate school when the office manager pulled him aside. She told him she didn't want to convince him not to go, but if he decided to stay, there would be a full-time position waiting for him at Frederator.


It was one of the easiest decisions of his life.

Since then, Matt has worked as a writer, storyboard artist, and designer for Cartoon Network, Warner Bros., DreamWorks, Nickelodeon, Apple TV+, Disney, and several other studios, all while continuing to build toward his ultimate goal of creating original stories of his own.

Creative philosophy

Matt’s goal has always been to create original stories of his own that he is deeply passionate about. He’s interested in creating work that lures audiences in with a broad, hooky premise, only to subvert expectations with rich world-building, characters with deep inner worlds, and powerful themes that slowly simmer under the surface before exploding in the most ridiculous way possible. 

AMA

Ask Matt anything.

Who are your biggest creative influences?

My biggest creative inspiration is Eiichiro Oda, the creator of One Piece. He's telling one of the biggest, most ambitious stories ever written, but he never loses sight of the fundamentals: memorable characters, great humor, and emotional storytelling.

Other creators I admire include Jonathan Hickman, Taiyo Matsumoto, Tatsuki Fujimoto, Brandon Graham, and Jesse Moynihan.

More than anyone, though, I'm inspired by my friends. I was lucky to grow up surrounded by creative people who all chose unconventional paths instead of traditional 9-to-5 careers. We were never competitive with one another, but seeing them take creative risks gave me the confidence to pursue a life I probably wouldn't have chosen on my own.

What's your favorite part of Dino Babies in Space?

I'm really proud of the opening scene in Volume One. It might sound like a cop-out, but I genuinely think that if you read the first five pages, you'll know almost immediately whether the book is for you. That said, I think Chapter One of Volume Two is the best work I've ever done.

What's your favorite dinosaur?

Anything from the hadrosaur family, the duck-billed dinosaurs. Ducky from The Land Before Time was a very formative character for me growing up, so I've always had a soft spot for them.

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