Phelan Morkel

 (born October 25, 1980) is an American cartoonist, animator, writer, musician, and voice actor known for creating Mole Miner, Morten and Storm Raiders, and co-creating Wonderbeaver.

Biography
Phelan was born on October 25, 1980 at Burbank Hospital in. He is the son of Nicholas H. Morkel of German and South African descent and Argentine-born Cassandra Morkel (née Bergamo) of Italian and Spanish descent. He spent a portion of his teenage years in, where his father taught art classes at in.

He attended, where he created the original comics of Darren the Mole Miner in 1996. The comic eventually gained national attention by word of mouth after Phelan shared them on a chatroom. In 1998, published a collection of the comics, entitled Quartz Klutz, which became a New York Times Bestseller. The comics gained enough attention to be parodied in MAD by Tuomo Harkimo as Vernon the Mentally Unstable Mole Miner, a parody which gained Phelan's attention and led him to become friends with Tuomo.

In 1999, Phelan and his father Nicholas teamed up with to begin developing a TV series based off the comics. In 2001, Mole Miner debuted on, featuring characters from Darren the Mole Miner, Ty Wojciehowicz's Ask Roddy, Lewis Catellani's Oh That Clarissa and Tuomo Harkimo's works. The series was critically acclaimed for it's humor, writing, acting, and educational content, and when Phelan found out that the series became as popular as Arthur and Dragon Tales were among PBS Kids' viewers, he asked PBS Kids to extend the series' intended run from 65 episodes to answer to fan demand. At the same time, Mole Miner: Quartz Madness! was produced as a theatrical movie. The movie received critical acclaim and was able to be a box office success.

While working on the series on the weekends, Phelan graduated from in  in 2002.

Personal Life
Phelan resides in with his wife Gabrielle Morkel. Gabrielle was a Mole Miner fan artist who later began dating Phelan. Previously, he had dated voice actress Candence Dyal in high school and had been married to Aliza Engelen from 2007-2010. He is an outspoken "libertarian with a utilitarianist streak".

Trivia

 * Phelan Morkel owns some mascot costumes in his collection:
 * A Latikuu Edacra/Fuse Special Effects-built Darren the Mole Miner mascot costume
 * One of the Mechanimation Darren suits from Mole Miner Live!
 * He also has an actual Baby Bop costume, which was sent to him by Jocelyn Stevenson, a previous executive producer for Barney & Friends.