Biography

Pedro Martín is the Newbery Honor Award, Pura Belpré Author and Illustrator award-winning creator of Mexikid A Graphic Memoir, based off his online comic series of the same name.

Mexikid has landed on many end of the year best-of lists, including The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, Amazon, New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library, The Guardian, and Booklist.

The son of an immigrant sharecropper and one of nine kids, Pedro spent his childhood in the strawberry fields of the Monterey Bay Area. He grew up with a talent for art and music leading him to earn a graphic design degree at San Jose State University.

His father begged him to join a mariachi instead. “Those guys make $100 a night playing in the bars! Can you make that kind of money in art?”

He could and he did! Pedro eventually became and artist at Hallmark Greetings and worked his way up to manager of a 20-person art studio and then on to become a Master Artist. He helped pioneer the animation/properties department by developing animated shorts and full-on animated specials for CBS and The Hallmark Channel. He was nominated twice for Annie Awards for production design.

He retired from Hallmark and pursued his dream of writing an ongoing graphic memoir that would honor his hilarious and generous family and all that they struggled to achieve. He’s been collecting these childhood stories on note cards and storing them in a Batman lunchbox for years.

Pedro lives with his very talented wife and two somewhat talented dogs in Kansas City, Missouri.

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