Our Mission & Origin Story

From Daily Journaling -

DinoToons® started as an idea for a class I planned to take in school. During a morning journaling session, I jotted down some quick ideas for Character Design 2, and didn’t come up with the working title DinoToons until a few days later.

That class ended up being one of many canceled that semester, and I eventually withdrew from the art college I was attending. Instead, I continued studying independently with a few professors and began developing the characters on my own, outside of school.

To a Kind Mentor - 

In Spring of 2020, I took a class with one of those professors now at Fullerton College -Children's Book Illustration, with Marshall Vandruff, who I still study with today. In that class, I started to really develop ideas for both comics and books. There, I laid the foundation work for "Here Comes the Moon," which was published over a year later in December 2021.

To My Personal Struggles - 

When it came to including the LGBTQ+ themes of DinoToons, I was uncertain. I had come out in 2016 as a transgender man, and I had formerly close family distance themselves, saying they didn't want their children to be "confused." Every day I wish I'd had the right words to help my family be less fearful of transgender people, and honestly, bringing that side of myself to this project has been both healing, and very scary. 

I believe that there are simple, child-friendly ways to explain LGBTQ+ concepts - and I hope to make those a little bit more accessible for the people who want to understand.

I’m Phoenix Baldwin, an author-illustrator who is looking to have the guidance of an agent for the next projects I work on – whether I’m coming on to do my original work, or as an author or illustrator on someone else’s project.

While I have a lot of ideas for projects, my self-published picture book series DinoToons® is the one I have the most passion for. DinoToons® is an LGBTQ+ inclusive series that emphasizes love and empathy for everyone – whether they look, act, or love differently, it’s a series for all kinds of families. For the past five years, DinoToons® has connected with audiences on Instagram, Bluesky, and on its original website, DinoToons.net. It has sold hundreds of copies during conventions in Southern California—the most popular of the current five books being Formerly Known as Ella, where Ella comes out as nonbinary and changes their name, and their best friend Porter needs to come to terms with the feelings of confusion and loss to accept their friend’s new self. I try to create the books that I wish I’d had growing up.

DinoToons® has been a quiet success, but as proud of it as I am, I know that the financial investment and lack of marketing is unsustainable. For future books, I would really prefer for DinoToons® to find a home with the right publishing house. It should go without saying, but the agent and publisher I go with need to be comfortable with telling diverse stories, including those of the highly politically divisive transgender and autistic communities.

The color block for the next book, Hats Off, is already completed and pages are in progress. Hats Off features a character who loses a precious item to them, and who doesn’t have the words to explain the emotional value of the item. It will touch on neurodivergence, the important of comfort items to the autistic community, as well as body dysphoria, and how feeling badly about one’s appearance can be a normal feeling eased by supportive people in one’s life. All told through the lens of a little green dinosaur named Petra Pachycephalosaurus, who has been a fan favorite for a while.

I’m a hardworking freelance artist who can get things done in a timely manner. DinoToons® books have been completed in as little as two months – always thirty two fully illustrated pages with a front and back cover, ready to print, free of typos and illustration errors. In total I’ve done five books for DinoToons® and two books as a co-illustrator for another publisher.

I’m adaptable, communicative, used to working in a team, and good at my craft – storytelling. But, I’m a poor marketer. I’m really in need of someone who can help me connect to the people who would benefit most from having me work for them, and I’m open to whatever that looks like, from me writing, to illustrating, to doing my own work with the assistance of a publisher.

Agents, collaborators, and publishers, I'd love to connect! 

Reach me at  phoenix.baldwin@yahoo.com

~Phoenix