Kazimieras Gediminas Prapuolenis

Born in 1959 to Lithuanian immigrant parents in Hoboken New Jersey, Kazimieras Gediminus Prapuolenis (pen name Kaz) has studied under Harvey Kurtzman (the creator of Mad Magazine) and Art Spiegelman (the creator of Maus). During and after art school he contributed comics and illustrations to many publications including “Raw”, “Weirdo”, “The Village Voice”, “The New Yorker”, “Entertainment Weekly”, and “The New York Times”. His first book of comics, “Buzzbomb”, was published in 1989.

In 1992 he started a comic strip, “Underworld”, that was published weekly in over a dozen alternative weekly newspapers across America. One fan of Kaz’ “Underworld” was Stephen Hillenburg, the creator of “SpongeBob SquarePants”, who hired Kaz to write for the hit Nickelodeon cartoon show setting Kaz off on another cartooning career. Since SpongeBob, Kaz has written for TV cartoon shows at Cartoon Network, Disney, Warner Bros., Amazon, and for Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride. Nominated for four Emmys, in 2007 Kaz won an Emmy writing for Cartoon Network. Currently Kaz has rejoined the crew of SpongeBob as a writer as well continuing to write and draw comics.