The Beginning

John Trotter’s beginnings can be traced to a shopping trip to the foothills of beautiful Appalachia back in the early 70s. While on a shopping excursion to nearby Athens, John’s mother Barbara found herself enveloped in a shower of radiant light as she haggled with a local vendor over a Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel Bulldawg throw rug. (The light would turn out to just be her husband Walter, with a flashlight in his mouth as he was working on an old pickup.) Nine months later John “Ignatius Elwood Waldorf” Trotter was born.

Before he could even crawl, Trotter began to do studies in still-life known to all now as the “Crayola/Fisher-Price” period. Mr. Trotter would win his first international acclaim in 3rd grade with his famous portrait of Dogs Playing Atari. His work became so regarded that TV Guide reached out for him to draw the turtle that people copied to submit to art school. (However, he was dismissed after his drug test came back positive for paste and cocaine. The cocaine was later ruled out as a lab error but the damage was done.)

The Middle

Trotter eventually graduated high school and went walkabout into the mountains of North GA where he would discover lifelong inspiration and guidance from a cast of assorted artists, rabble rousers, and poets. They all remain such to this day.

Mentoring complete, Trotter was bestowed the mantle of Monkey With A Paintbrush (later just shortened to The Paintmonkey) which is Georgia slang for “One Who Finds Beauty and Mayhem Within Nature, Not to Mention a Bit of a Jack Davis Fixation” (Odd how specific Southern jargon gets). Supplies in hand, Trotter was ready for a mate but no woman of these United States could handle such a combo of raw creative genius and the ability to rattle off an impressive amount of Blues Brothers lines and cartoon history minutiae. The answer came in the form of a North Wind from the land of Tim Horton’s, Geddy Lee, and an almost appalling friendliness in two languages. Her name was…Jenn…which is Canadian for…Jennifer. An exotic and alluring language.

The End...?

Now armed with pens and quills and a lovely Canadian lass, The Paintmonkeys settled into their home outside of Atlanta where they became a refuge for lost kittens, puppies and graphic novels. Trotter splits his time between plotting the downfall of political and societal norms through cartoon revolution, and watching online marble races and animal live cams.