Michael Fry and T Lewis have known each other since 1992 when they both contributed to the "Mickey Mouse" comic strip. They work on the Over the Hedge comic strip together via the telephone and the fax machine.

In addition to writing Hedge, Fry is a screenwriter and producer of the Internet cartoon series Live Nude Geeks (at pcmag.com). He brings an illustrious cartooning background to Over the Hedge. He and Guy Vasilovich co-created the popular comic "When I Was Short," which was made into a pilot short for Warner Brothers Television Animation. Fry is also the creator of "Cheeverwood," "Scotty" and the editorial cartoon "No Bull." In addition to the Over the Hedge collections, Fry's published works include When I Was Short (Avon Books), Scotty: Born to Be Mild (Fine Toon Books) and Scotty's Houston: The View From Cafe Phil (Loud Books).

Born in Minneapolis, Fry attended Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and holds a Bachelor of Arts in history from the University of Texas at Austin. He was an editorial cartoonist for the student newspapers at both universities and his first cartoon published after college appeared in Playboy. He is a founding partner of RingTales, an Internet start-up that provides and distributes animated serialized content for the Web, and he has worked with Mondo Media to create, produce and develop interactive animated Web programming. Fry lives near Austin, Texas, with his wife, their two daughters and a bevy of animals.

Lewis, Hedge's artist, was born in Texas and has lived in such exotic locales as Africa, Switzerland and Alaska. His broad range of drawing styles has appeared in many formats, but his favorite continuing duties (besides drawing Over the Hedge) are as the illustrator of children's books. Lewis won the National Cartoonists Society 1999 Reuben Division Award for Book Illustration. He has published more than 15 children's titles, including Cinderella, the Untold Story (Birch Lane Press), Peter Pan (Troll Associates) and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Calico Books).

Lewis holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from North Texas State University, where he had his first comics published. A lengthy stay in Alaska followed, during which time he painted and exhibited locally, contributed to a collection of Alaskan art in the Smithsonian Institute, and taught in Barrow, 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Lewis lives and sort of ranches in rural Washington State with his wife and son and a smattering of dogs, cows and horses.