Patrick Nolen McHale is an American writer, storyboard artist, animator, songwriter and independent filmmaker. He is best known for being a writer and creative director on the animated series Adventure Time for Cartoon Network, which he contributed to during its first five seasons, and creating his own Emmy Award-winning mini-series, Over the Garden Wall.
Life and career
Early career
McHale graduated from the California Institute of the Arts in 2006 with a BFA in Character Animation. He began his professional career at Cartoon Network Studios in 2007, as writer and storyboard artist on The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack. He helped to create ten episodes in total. The one-shot character Punsie McKale was inspired by and modeled after McHale. After leaving Flapjack, he joined fellow CalArts alum and Flapjack storyboard artist Pendleton Ward to help develop Ward's Adventure Time short into an animated series. Once the show got picked up, McHale stayed on board as the show's creative director through the show's second season. He then moved to New York City with his wife and fellow filmmaker Jiwook Kim. He continued to freelance for the show in the capacity of writing some songs and providing input on story outlines. This lasted until the middle of season five.
''Tome of the Unknown'' and ''Over the Garden Wall''
In October 2011, he started work on the eight-minute animated short Tome of the Unknown, which was produced as part of Cartoon Network's shorts development program. Unlike the other pilots, released online on Cartoon Network Video, the film was selected to be showcased during the festival circuit throughout 2013 and early 2014. It received The Bruce Corwin Award for Best Animated Short Film at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. The short became the basis for a ten-part miniseriesOver the Garden Wall, which premiered over five consecutive nights in November 2014. Tome of the Unknown was streamed online in May 2015. McHale won a National Cartoonists Society Reuben award as the creator of Over the Garden Wall, in the category for TV Animation. The series won an Emmy for Best Animated Program. That same year, McHale's Over the Garden Wall won Best Animated Feature at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. In 2016, McHale received an Eisner Award for Best Publication for Kids as the creator and a writer of the Over the Garden Wallcomic book featuring the characters first appearing in the television series.
Other works
In early 2015, McHale self-published his first short novel, Bags, via Etsy. In 2015, Frederator Studios announced that McHale would direct an 11-minute adaption of Costume Quest. In 2017, director Guillermo del Toro announced that McHale is co-writing the script to del Toro's stop-motion adaptation of Pinocchio.
