Michael

Michael Rianda was born on June 17th 1984. He shares this birthday with Newt Gingrich and.......I guess Newt Gingrich is the only guy. Michael had a relatively happy childhood, but the lack of closely aged siblings resulted in many board games where Michael, himself, was the sole participant. During his childhood he received an abnormal amount of money, fast food, and love from his grandmother which he is slowly repaying in high fives. During this time he had many significant escapades with his cousin/best friend Sean Fanoe, including staging fights for mall security cameras and faking ritualistic suicide in their grandmother's backyard. In sixth grade he came to the realization, with the aid of the other children, that he was a loser that wore sweatpants everyday. He learned later that year that if he repeated the words of stand up comedians from television, that the other children still found him to be a loser, but one that said amusing things, and thus acceptable. He then attended Palma High School, and a series of events led him to the group of friends including Nate Barranco, Aaron Cask, Lee Morrow, Greg Franke, Michael Flagg, and Cody Andrus. This group also had many entertaining escapades including screaming "GET IN THE CAR!" out the window to small children, filling Greg Franke's car with auto shoppers, watching Nate Barranco madly hump 7th graders, etc. In 9th grade he read an article about John Kricfalusi in Spin magazine that eventually led to his career choice, drawing silly characters that walk and dance. Michael Rianda's parents have never made him play little league, or ride a bicycle if he didn't want to. They also provided a model for happy, good, succesfull people, for which Michael Rianda will always be grateful. In the later half of high school he developed an additional set of friends including Alex Teplitzky, Joe Lansford, Weston Green, Jack Traylor, Raza Uddin, and Brian Landes. It was at this point that Michael Rianda started fully appreciating and enjoying his life, primarily through bowling. Shortly after this, Michael Rianda used his powers of application to get into the California College of Arts and Crafts. He spent his first two years in attendence thinking people were weird. He currently spends his days talking, drawing, and worrying.