Michael Wayne Howe
6 February 1980

Michael is the eldest of three children born to Steven and Genevieve (deceased). He was born and raised in the same house all of his childhood in Waterloo, Iowa. As a child he enjoyed playing video games on his Nintendo game system, building Lego cities, drawing, watching Disney and other animated films, reciting/acting out portions of films, and riding his bike. He was always protective of both sisters (Stacey and Crystal). He always loved music; he began taking piano lessons at age 6 and he and his other siblings ceased taking lessons in the summer of 1994.

He attended Kittrell Elementary for kindergarten through 5th grade. While there, he wrote and illustrated a book, The Game Wizard, which was added to the school's library. He also wrote and illustrated several other shorter books that were not distributed. He began playing the trumpet in the 5th grade band.

Michael attended Hoover Intermediate School for 6th through 8th grade and continued playing the trumpet in the band. He played Optimist basketball for a season but sports were not something he was passionate about. Michael continued drawing and took up creating short films with the family video camera; he used the Lego city he and his sisters built as the set and the Lego figures as the actors. Many of these short films were stop motion and today most or all of the tapes with the content were lost.

He attended West High School where he played the trumpet in the marching band, concert band, jazz band, and orchestra. He was also involved in the drama club and its productions. The summer prior to his freshman year, his mother was diagnosed with cancer in the late spring of 1994; she died in April of 1995.

After graduating high school in 1998, he attended the University of Northern Iowa for two years. Michael then transferred to the Illinois Institute of Art located in Chicago where he completed a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Media Arts & Animation in the spring of 2003.