The artist (center front) with the competition, 1963
Gary Damian Thomas, the son of a creative and dynamic Sicilian mother and a gregarious and inquisitive English-Irish-German-French-Hungarian father, was born December 17th, 1961 – the youngest of six funny, smart and creative children. As an Air Force brat his life was always changing and once he was old enough to fight for his share of the food, he thrived in the bustling home environment. By his teens, it was evident that he had a natural talent for art, creative thinking, music and avoiding responsibility. He enjoyed learning on his own and adopted an easy-going approach to life which most people know as “laziness”. Not surprisingly, he had no formal education after high school. By age 22, his parents had grown tired of feeding a full-grown adult, so after receiving a polite shove from the nest, he found himself unhappily working as an assembler in Silicon Valley. Eventually, Thomas found work as an artist/salesman in the caricature map business. That job convinced most of his friends and family that he had his life in order but In 1988, he found the true inspiration he needed to live up to his potential: the fear of being dumped by his girlfriend. He quickly landed a steady job in the art department of the architectural firm, The Dahlin Group. Before long, he had a working car and could enjoy luxuries like food and shelter. In his spare time, he mastered watercolors and, with hopes of an easy path to riches in the funny papers, created The Chronic Comic. That project exploded on the launchpad but he shifted to editorial cartoons and was finally making his mark. Thomas left his job at the architectural firm to focus full-time on his new craft and soon, more than two-hundred political cartoons were published. At long last, he found a measure of fame and continued to experience what so many great artists before him had experienced: abject poverty. In the coming years he further avoided reality by developing a comic strip entitled, Planets, created oil portraits, and began to write screenplays.
By 1995, Thomas had relocated to Hollywood and become a film and commercial storyboard artist. He was offered representation by Storyboards Inc. and was accepted into the Illustrators and Matte Artists Union. By the summer of 1996 he was actually earning a living and had worked with well known directors including Wes Craven (Scream) and Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential).
During the next four years, Thomas wrote several short stories and treatments and more storyboards followed.
Thomas was briefly involved in feature film animation after joining Dreamworks Animation as a story artist on the film Kung Fu Panda but having tired of the business, he took a break from earning a living to paint in the impressionistic style of plein air. Thomas found another diversion when comedy giant and close friend, David Zucker took pity on Gary and hired him for the job of illustrating and co-writing a children’s book entitled Sara’s Story, which was based on the Zucker family history. He also wrote the poem For My Dad and he staged a successful show of his plein air work where 13 of 26 paintings were sold – just enough to pay for the framing and the show!
By 2005, Gary returned to story boarding and things like paying bills. In the coming years he would work on over sixty more films including Tropic Thunder, Zombieland, Zero Dark Thirty, and the Oscar-winning best picture The Hurt Locker. He has since received high praise from such A-list directors as Kathryn Bigelow, Denzel Washington and Ben Stiller.
In 2008, Thomas set the nearly impossible goal of becoming a writer/director. In 2009, figuring that a “writer” should have “original” material, he wrote a raucous romantic comedy entitled Bewilderness and in 2010, inspired by events in his own life, wrote, produced and directed a spec TV pilot called Kinderparents. In 2011, he wrote a poetic romantic comedy called Little Gods, and since his daughter was old enough to exploit, directed her in the spec commercial, Wake the kids. In 2012, Thomas wrote two more spec screenplays: a campy horror film, Bad Crab! and a kid-friendly romantic comedy, I Found A Cowboy. In 2013, Thomas produced, and directed an animatic for Bad Crab! and in 2014, Thomas, apparently unaware that he could stop, wrote yet another romantic comedy, The Slump Breaker. In 2015, Thomas continued to work as a storyboard artist and completed several more films including the Rocky sequel: Creed . He also completed the second and third in a trio of poems honoring his parents with, A Mom’s Poem and The Mysterious Mr. Bill. Thomas also wrote, produced and directed an award-winning original short film, Downhill
In 2016, Thomas completed storyboards for more films including Marvel’s Black Panther. He also wrote a musical entitled, POTUS. And then the 2016 election happened… So that project got shelved.
In 2017, Thomas did storyboards for director Ruben Fleischer on Sony/Marvel’s Venom and, taking a break from writing, Thomas returned to composing. In homage to his favorite composer, Brahms, he composed the Sonata for Piano and Clarinet. Other compositions included Waltzs No. 1 & 2 and Intermezzo No. 1 & 2 .
In 2018, Thomas finished more musical compositions including Waltzes 3, 4 & 5, Intermezzo no. 3 and a Piano Sonata No 1 in D ( in the Classical Style), and completed a new screenplay entitled, The Hacker’s Apprentice. In 2019, Gary completed storyboard work on Morbius, Zombieland – Double Tap, and Yes Day.
On September 4th, 2019, after nearly a year of production which included composing 11 original songs and lyrics, recording, mixing and mastering, Thomas released the indie-pop album What The Hell Do I Know? in which his daughter Lydia provided the lead vocals.
In the fallow 2019, Thomas was recruited to storyboard the Kevin Hart/Woody Harrelson comedy action pic, The Man From Toronto and in early 2020 he was hired to storyboard scenes from Sony’s long awaited film adaptation of the world famous video game Uncharted.
Due to the Covid -19 Pandemic, Thomas was forced to retreat like the rest of the humanity, and took shelter in his Venice home with his family.
During the summer of 2020 Thomas composed the Piano Sonata No.2. In F Minor and Piano Sonata No. 3 in A Flat Major– which completed his set of classical style sonatas.
Between October 4th and the 8th, 2020, during a rather manic episode, Thomas composed his first Piano Sonatas using modern harmony. Sonata No.4, and Sonata no. 5
In the last quarter of 2020, Thomas completed storyboard work on an untitled Mark Boal series for Apple TV and began work on the movie adaptation of the video game Borderlands with Eli Roth directing.
In April, 2021, Thomas completed Piano Sonata no. 6, the final work for his set of Six Piano Sonatas.
In February, 2022, Thomas relocated to Cascais, Portugal.
In May of 2022, Gary, for the first time in his life was hired to write a screenplay! None other than Bob Dylan and his production company, Grey Water Park Productions, commissioned Thomas to scribe a work about the 19th century virtuoso violinist, Niccolo Paganini.
Thomas did storyboards for Creed III in June.
In September, Thomas returned to painting the local landscapes but for the first time in watercolor and gouache. Follow his work on Instagram at garydamianthomas_art.
In December Thomas, also created storyboards for the Pilot for a spinoff of The Good Doctor called The Good Lawyer and Jeff Bridges second season of The Old Man.
In July Thomas produced storyboards for an Amazon TV pilot Motorheads.
On November 9th, 2023 Thomas held an opening for his watercolor paintings of Cascias, Portugal and launched Gary Damian Thomas Gallery. A companion book, Cascais in Watercolor is now available.
His work is to be exhibited at The Museum of the Sea – Museu Do Mar in Cascais, Portugal beginning June 12th, running through August 31st. .
In December 2023, Thomas released his first novel, Love In The Flow and its companion soundtrack, Love In The Flow.
In 2024, Thomas returned to music making and completed Piano Sonata No. 7 in B Flat and No. 8 in A, and completed String Quartet no. 1 in A and String Quartet No. 2 in E minor.
In mid 2024, with the Hollywood strike finally over, Thomas was hired to storyboard, Now You See Me 3 and Kathryn Bigelow’s Untitled Thriller for Netflix.
As of Summer 2025, Thomas completed Sonata No. 9 in E Flat Minor and is currently composing a 10th Piano Sonata.
Contact Gary: yes@garythomas.info