Inside Michael Borkowski’s house is a small room he uses as his office. But “office” might not be quite the right word, since the interior looks more like a child’s bedroom than a typical office.

His shelves and dressers are lined with superhero action figures. In one corner stands a rotating bookcase stuffed with comic books, which doesn’t even include his entire collection. Almost every inch of the walls are covered with posters from the various shows and projects he’s worked on over the years. A miniature BB-8 figurine sits on his desk, a testament to his and his son’s love of “Star Wars.”

This is the space where Borkowski, a local Syracuse artist, has done most of his work as a freelance storyboard artist and illustrator. In the past 17 years, he’s worked on a number of comic-inspired shows such as “Wolverine and the X-Men” and “Avengers Assemble,” and non-comic book projects like “The Scooby-Doo Show.”

This weekend, DC Comics announced a new animated series called “Justice League Action,” which Borkowski will be working on as a storyboard artist.

“I always grew up as a comic book fan, and so that’s why I like to draw action sequences and superheroes,” Borkowski said. “I’ve been lucky that most of the shows I’ve worked on, especially in the last 10 years or so, have all been based on comic books.”

But Borkowski has done more than the action-packed cartoons he’s been known for. A longtime fan of Syracuse University sports, Borkowski has illustrated a number of athletics posters for SU football, basketball and lacrosse. His Facebook and Twitter pages are filled with drawings of Otto the Orange, whose expression depends on whether SU is losing or winning a game. Borkowski used to produce a weekly Otto cartoon for Syracuse.com, and also illustrated “Otto’s ABC’s,” a children’s alphabet book featuring the Orange mascot.

Courtesy of Michael Borkowski

As his resume can attest, Borkowski has come a long way from winning a placemat design contest in kindergarten. His biggest interests growing up were baseball and drawing, but when the 1989 “Batman” film came out, he gravitated toward drawing and comic books.

In 1997, Borkowski moved to Los Angeles after accepting a job with Sony Pictures Animation. He was only 21 years old, had never moved out of his parents’ house — let alone all the way across the country — and never even considered a job in animation.

But the late ‘90s was also the time that animation studios were hiring almost anyone. If you could hold a pencil, Borkowski said, you were hired.

Courtesy of Michael Borkowski

His wife Amy, who was his girlfriend at the time, moved out to Los Angeles to be with him about six months later.

“I just wanted to make sure that he liked it first and that it was for him. He had never done anything like that before,” she said. “That’s why I waited a few months before I went there, just to make sure that it was something he really wanted to do.”

Borkowski’s first job with Sony as a clean-up artist involved taking drawn storyboards and making them better. Artists with more animation experience showed him the ropes, and eventually he worked his way to being a storyboard artist.

Borkowski and his wife only stayed in Los Angeles for three years before moving back to Syracuse in 2000 and getting married. Borkowski even illustrated their wedding invitation, which featured the two of them and characters from the show “Dragon Tales,” which he was working on at the time, in the background.

Since then, Borkowski has made a living doing freelance work. His main projects have been with TV programs, but has also been credited as a storyboard artist in the movie “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.”

It’s only been in the past few years that Borkowski has branched out from animation, working on children’s books and even a recent sports contract with Adidas, which approached him to produce art for social media advertisements.

Although he’s done a lot of work with characters that have already existed, Borkowski said the thought of creating his own original cartoon has crossed his mind.

“I actually created a few characters many, many years ago. I just haven’t had the time to go ahead and make something out of it,” he said. “… I still have it in the back of my mind, and I ultimately will someday.”

Courtesy of Michael Borkowski

For now, Borkowski is sticking to being a storyboard artist and putting his art out on social media. Storyboarding takes a lot of time — a simple two-minute scene can take up to 200 illustrations — but as a freelancer, he’s able to pick his own hours, which allows him to spend time with his wife and kids.

There are some aspects where his art and family life will intersect. Amy said her husband would illustrate her birthday or Valentine’s Day cards, saying those were “always just the best present.” Borkowski visited his daughter Haley’s art class to speak about his career, and since Borkowski has had his own space, his son, Troy, can come in and just watch him draw.

“I can sit down at my desk and draw for hours and hours and hours, and it’ll feel like 10 minutes went by,” Borkowski said. “It’s fun to get lost in my work, just kind of forget everything else and just create something.”

Published on February 3, 2016 at 10:00 pm

Contact Clare: clramire@syr.edu