Early work

In 1981, Romero's publishing company Everyman Studios expanded into commercial animation production, hiring animators William Kirk Kennedy, Jan Johnson and Roy W. Smith, and accepting a contract to produce an animated rock video for the band Gibraltar. A work print of the 5-minute film "King's Elevator" premiered at the 39th World Science Fiction Convention in Denver, and subsequently the finished video aired on the nationally syndicated TV series "America Rocks."^[15] The studio then began producing animated television and theatrical commercials under contract.

In 1983 the studio produced titles and animation for Frameline Filmworks' Lost starring Sandra Dee and Jack Elam,^[16] and 1984, Romero produced and directed a TV mini-series about video games called Video Game All Stars for the local NBC affiliate, KOAA Channels 5/30.^[17] The series included animated bumpers by Romero. In 2022, clips from the first episode of Video Game All Stars were licensed to be included in Pause and Replay, a series of films about the history of video games that is on public display in the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.^{[18] [19]}

Also in 1984, Romero produced title animation and animated bumpers for Almost Live, produced and hosted by Jeff Valdez. Everyman Studios continued to produce animation for TV commercials, movie title sequences and software throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, converting from film to digital animation production in 1991.

ARG! Cartoon Animation

In 1994 Romero rebranded Everyman Studios as ARG! Cartoon Animation^[20] in Colorado Springs, producing animation for Duracell's national sales meeting and visual effects for Sony Pictures' Johnny Mnemonic. Romero launched the ARG! website Artie.com in 1996, and it quickly became one of the most popular animation sites on the Web. The ARG! site got 1 billion hits in a 20-month period in 2005–2006.^[21]

Best known for his work on Keanu Reeves' 1995 cyberpunk feature Johnny Mnemonic, Romero has served as ARG! producer, director and animator on movie projects, TV series, music videos and thousands of animated shorts and commercials.^[22] His directorial credits include productions for MTV Networks, PBS, Kaiser Permanente, Harper Collins, AT&T, Transamerica, Safeco Insurance and others.

In addition to its commercial work, the studio recently produced a series of short whiteboard/Flash cartoons, Edward Lear's Nonsense Stories for YouTube and cable TV. Since January 2015, the studio has produced storyboards and 4K animation for TAYEKENI Productions' Adventures of Turtle Taido, a children's television series that is broadcast on Nigerian Television Authority stations.^[23] The program was nominated for Best Animation at the 2015 Abuja Film Festival, and was screened at Cannes Film Festival in 2016.^[24]

In 2017, the ARG! studio moved from Colorado Springs to Stilwell, Oklahoma. In 2018, Romero sold their original website domain Artie.com to Artie, Inc., a virtual reality startup, and relocated the official ARG! site to ArtieStick.com. Their short film for children, Taffy the Pink Hippopotamus premiered at WonderCon on April 2, 2022, and was screened at the 2022 San Diego Comic-Con in the children's film program. ^[25][26]

CityStar Group

In 1996, Romero founded the web development company CityStar Group in Colorado Springs.^{[27] [28]} The company produced a complex of 300 city directory websites containing listings for businesses and organizations. Romero worked with the Better Business Bureau of Southern Colorado, sponsoring a series of internet marketing workshops, and promoting the Bureau's services.^{[29] [30]} In 2014, CityStar Group's assets were acquired by Blue Roof, Inc., and in 2015 the CityStar corporation was voluntarily dissolved.^[31]