Sherm Cohen

Paul Sherman "Sherm" Cohen (born January 19, 1965) is an American storyboard artist. During college, Cohen worked as a cartoonist for his local newspaper. He got his start in animation at Nickelodeon on The Ren and Stimpy Show as character layout artist, followed by a three-year stint on Hey Arnold! as storyboard artist and director.

Career
Cohen was a writer, artist, and letterer for Nickelodeon Magazine from 1996 until the magazine ceased operations in 2009. He contributed dozens of comic strips and cover art featuring Nicktoons characters.

In 1997, Cohen was hired by Universal Feature Animation to work as lead storyboard artist on the film Paint World.

In early 1998, Cohen was invited by Stephen Hillenburg to be part of the original SpongeBob SquarePants crew. Cohen spent the first season on the show as storyboard artist, writer, and director. He then moved up to Storyboard Supervisor for the next three seasons of SpongeBob SquarePants. Cohen also wrote the "F.U.N." and "Texas" songs for the show. In 2001, Cohen was hired by Thalia Ward to work on Fox's Alaina Gleen.

Cohen worked as lead storyboard artist on Computeropolis for Universal and The Alaina Gleen Movie for 20th Century Fox and was also lead storyboard artist and a character designer on The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. Cohen described his time on SpongeBob to an interviewer by saying, "People often ask about what it was like working on SpongeBob, and it’s hard to give an answer that really captures the moment." He has a character named after him, in the show SpongeBob SquarePants.

After the fourth season, Cohen left Nickelodeon to write and illustrate his first book for Walter Foster Publications, "Cartooning: Character Design", as well as returning to Universal as lead storyboard artist on a sequel to Computeropolis, Computeropolis 2.

Cohen also began teaching classes in storyboarding at the Entertainment Art Academy in Pasadena, California. Some of this material was turned into an instructional DVD on how to storyboard called, "Storyboard Elements." In December 2008, "Storyboard Elements" instructional DVD reached its 2nd edition and fourth pressing.

After working at Cartoon Network for a year, Cohen went to work at the Disney Television Animation, writing and drawing storyboards for Phineas and Ferb. After Phineas and Ferb's first season, Cohen returned to Nickelodeon for the first season of The Mighty B! as storyboard artist. In 2008, Cohen was back at Disney working on the second season of "Phineas and Ferb" as storyboard artist/writer. During this time, he also wrote some songs for the show: "X-Ray Eyes", "Bubble Gum", and "Aren’t You a Little Young?"

From 2009-2010, Cohen worked on Disney's Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil as storyboard supervisor, story editor, and director. In 2011, he received a nomination for a daytime Emmy Award for "Outstanding Directing in an Animated Program".

Cohen created "Storyboard Secrets", a comprehensive DVD/online guide to storyboarding. Cohen later went on to work as a lead storyboard artist on the Alaina Gleen CGI trilogy for 20th Century Fox starting in 2010.

From 2010-2013, Cohen worked on Disney's "Fish Hooks" as storyboard supervisor. The pet store owner character "Bud" on the show is a photo collage version of Sherm. He's also written the song "Earth Troll Rap" for the show.

During 2013-2014, Cohen worked on The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water as sequence supervisor.

In January 2015, Cohen returned to work on the "SpongeBob SquarePants" show. His favorite SpongeBob character is Patrick Star.