Lotto the Christmas Frog is a collection of wacky little situations encountered by a frog whom befriends a sack filled with money.

Lotto the Christmas Frog’s origins can be traced back to a Holiday Card writing tradition I began in the winter of 2017. I was living in Los Angeles away from my family and most of my friends and I have a fondness for the tangible and sentimental ~ so I started mailing hand written cards. I usually try to balance inspiration (admittedly a bit on the thought provoking side sometimes) and humor (which skews sarcastic and irreverent). This is a tradition I have kept since.

Flash forward to the winter of 2022. My industry (TV Animation) was shrinking and I found myself along side many others having been on what would become a very long hiatus. My colleagues and friends were beginning to lose faith in the industry, to wit, the instability has become more challenging as time goes on. A friend was relating that he’d essentially left the industry, which struck me like an arrow to the chest. Losing so many magnificent, creative people made me ponder “how much money would I need to raise to just launch my own studio that can produce content for the sake of crafting art and stories, so that I could keep as many of the creative people who’ve crossed my path engaged, inspired, and most importantly, employed!” Somehow my calculations landed at “how about ten million dollars”. We had a good laugh and a beer.

Later that week I was at my sister’s home writing out my holiday cards for the season. She and the children were anxiously looking for Glen (their pet frog). As I finished writing a card for the friend mentioned above, Glen resurfaced. Everything was good in the world again, and I was inspired to scribble a little drawing of a frog on the envelope…who happened to have ten million dollars.

The next card I wrote happened to be to a friend who had made a hilarious cartoon about a frog back in our youth. So I thought, “oh he’d get a kick out of this.” Nearly 100 cards later there was a whole series of Lotto the Christmas Frog drawings on everyone’s envelopes. Lotto evolved from just “Saying hello with Ten Million Dollars” in various forms and poses, to getting into out right hi-jinx and humorous situations – escaping the authorities, fine dining, winter sports, and too much drinking.

Owing to a confluence of current events and personality types I find myself surrounded by, other characters began populating my card writing universe; Cantankerous Holiday Tree, Gas-Lighting Snow Witch, The Impossibly Stylish and Hopelessly Hopeless Elves, and so on… 2023’s cards became fragments of inspiration for a narrative – the Adventures of Lotto the Christmas Frog.

I hope you enjoy this project and help me get Lotto to his rightful among place among the pantheon of Holiday Pop Culture Icons; Charlie Brown, Frosty, Rudolph, the Grinch, Mr. Hankey, and that Elf on the Shelf.