Cooner was born to a family of raccoons in the Lehigh Valley, just north of the Philadelphia area of eastern Pennsylvania. Growing up in rural suburbia, he entertained a number of interests through childhood, including science, computers, cooking, and architecture. Ultimately, though, he would be destined to draw cartoons and funny animals.

Since leaving home long ago, he’s spent time living in central Florida, the Los Angeles area of Southern California and the Bay Area of Northern California. Currently he and his boyfriend reside in Austin, Texas, enjoying the coffee shop culture and keeping things weird.

A random assortment of facts about Cooner:

• He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Graphic Arts and Advertising Design, with a minor in Computer Science. At that time, in the Dark Ages, graphic arts involved optical typesetting and mechanical paste-up, and computer science included shell scripts, assembly code, and stringing together NAND gates on a circuit board.
• His senior year of college he completed a year-long independent project and wrote a thesis titled Sequential Art and the Use of Anthropomorphic Animal Characters, for which he graduated with Honors.
• At various times he was Staff Cartoonist for his high school newspaper, Editor-in-Chief of his college newspaper, Promotions Manager for his college radio station, and Layout Editor and Production Manager for a regional business journal.
• He has worked on at least one theatrically released film, and his name appeared in the credits of several television series, in type so small and fast it could barely be seen with the naked eye.
• He has served as Lead Animator and Art Director on a number of educational computer games.
• As a street caricature artist, he has drawn pictures of people from all over the world, including the United States, Canada, Brazil, England, Japan, South Africa, and India.
• He was once asked to draw a guest as Indiana Jones running down a mountain of spaghetti being chased by a giant rolling meatball while carrying the Holy Eggplant. He executed this vision with aplomb.
• He’s storyboarded at least two feature films that were never produced.
• He’s drawn a mural in real time in front of hundreds of children and adults as a college wind ensemble played Peter and the Wolf behind him.
• He once had sushi with Joel Hodgson, creator of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Joel paid the bill.
• He worked for two years in a tobacco store, yet has never smoked in his life.
• He worked for three years in a neighborhood deli, and has eaten sandwiches all his life.
• He worked in a technical support call center for three weeks.
• He likes all kinds of international cuisine, but somehow has never gotten the hang of mushrooms.
• He once rescued a dog, and still misses her very much now that she’s gone.