Bobby Podesta
Bobby has been drawing cartoons for longer than he can remember. While still in high school, he created a comic strip for the weekly teen section of the Sacramento Bee that ran from 1991-1993 before heading off to attend the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) where he earned his BFA in Film. While at CalArts, Bobby created several short animated films, including his senior piece for which he received a Student Emmy Award.
Bobby joined Pixar Animation Studios in 1997 and has been an animator and story artist on many of the studio’s feature films including “A Bug’s Life,” “Toy Story 2,” “Monsters, Inc.,” and Academy Award®-winning features “Finding Nemo,” and “The Incredibles.” On the Golden Globe®-winning feature “Cars,” Bobby held the role of Directing Animator, and continued on as the Supervising Animator for Academy Award®-winning feature “Toy Story 3.”
When not working on animated films, Bobby continued to draw cartoons for himself. From 2003-2004, in the age before social media, Bobby created the web comic Six Foot Six Year Old.
Bobby briefly left Pixar in 2011. During that time he served as the Chief Creative Officer of a venture backed entertainment start-up as well as worked in film development for various animation studios.
He returned to Pixar to animate on “Inside Out,” “The Good Dinosaur,” “Finding Dory,” “Toy Story 4,” and “Onward.” He was a Supervising Animator on “Cars 3” and Pixar’s Academy Award®-winning feature film “Soul.” Bobby most recently directed episodes of the Disney+ series “Cars on the Road,”.
In addition to his work at Pixar, Bobby is currently finishing up his debut middle-grade graphic novel due out from First Second Books in fall of 2025.
Bobby lives in Oakland, California with his wife, daughter, son, a few chickens, a spoiled cat and a pretty cute dog.