Mary Hildebrandt Mary Hildebrandt was born in New Jersey, and after graduating high school, she worked at two jobs, which gave her the opportunity to pursue her love of drawing animals. The first was at a horse barn, giving riding lessons and caring for the animals; the second at Turtleback Zoo, using every spare moment to sketch animals and create characters. She then attended the Joe Kubert School and worked mostly on animation and children's book illustration, and later enhanced her animation and character design skills at Milt Neil's Studio. Mary's major influences are the early Disney animations along with various manga artists, especially Osamu Tezuka. She worked as a children's book illustrator for Unicorn Publishing and shared a studio with her father Greg, and Uncle Tim Hildebrandt for years. Mary has started her own company Tusk Entertainment along with David Bolller. There she is working on the Wallas Comic book.