Thomas' contributions as supervising character designer and co-director on
seasons 1 and
2 of
Adult Swim's animated series
The Boondocks, helped the show to be nominated for an
NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Comedy Series and win the honorary
Peabody Award. His early production credits include character designer, layout and key animator on
Showtime's web series
WhirlGirl, assistant animator for
Lizzie McGuire and storyboard artist for various shows such as
Kim Possible on
Disney Channel,
Ben 10: Alien Force for
Cartoon Network,
The Batman,
Batman: The Brave and the Bold and
Green Lantern: First Flight, as well as supervising character designer for
Superman/Batman: Public Enemies for
Warner Bros. Animation. Thomas's first production deal was with
George Jackson's UBO Network, where he created an animated online series called
BattleSeed. Thomas wrote, produced and directed the series, which was presented at the New York Anime Film Festival in 2000. He produced a
BattleSeed original animated trailer which aired in theaters as a promotional trailer for the
Sci-Fi Channel. Thomas also provided production development for the action adventure movie
UltraViolet. In 2009, Thomas relocated to
Seoul,
South Korea, at the request of Korean animation studio JM Animation to be hired in-house as part of the animation production staff. He was later hired as in-house storyboard/animation production artist at
Studio Mir for work on
The Legend of Korra for
Nickelodeon. Soon after, Moi Animation studio looked to hire him as a producer and director on several other independent projects, marking him as the first American animator to be hired to work in-house as permanent, independent production staff for animation studios in South Korea. His time in the Korean animation industry was chronicled in a web-documentary he produced and directed called
Seoul Sessions, presented by filmmakers
Coodie & Chike's Creative Control TV. Thomas later spoke at the 5th annual
TEDx in
Incheon, South Korea, about his journey and the importance of "Successful Failures". In 2011, Thomas worked on
Black Dynamite for Adult Swim. He was creative producer and supervising director for Season 1 and supervising director in Season 2. In November 2014, Thomas crowd-funded an animated TV series pilot called
Cannon Busters: The Animated Series, based on his creator-owned comic book of the same name, featuring production by Japanese anime studio
Satelight. The project was successfully funded in December 2014 and was released to limited audiences July 8, 2016. There was a controversy due to backers of the campaign saying they had not received promised rewards they had qualified for. In October, Thomas partnered with
Crunchyroll for a deal to co-produce an
animated short film,
Children of Ether. It was released in 300 theaters on July 26, 2017 as part of Crunchyroll's Anime Movie Night event, and on-platform shortly afterwards. In August 2017, it was announced that
Cannon Busters was acquired by the video streaming company
Netflix to be co-produced by
Satelight and Japanese anime studio
Yumeta Company as a 12-episode mini-series and was originally set for a March 2019 release.
Cannon Busters launched for streaming in August 2019. On November 8, 2018, Netflix announced
Yasuke, an anime original fantasy series created, directed and executive-produced by Thomas. It is inspired by the historical African samurai
Yasuke who served
Oda Nobunaga in the late 1500s. It features actor
Lakeith Stanfield as the voice of Yasuke. The artist
Flying Lotus worked on the music and served as co-executive producer. Animation production was handled by Japanese animation house,
MAPPA.
Yasuke was released on April 29, 2021. Thomas has worked with the
Japan Society in New York City, along with co-producing partner, The Japan Foundation, for the interview series "Foreign Exchange", which Thomas hosts. In combination with the interviews, Japan Society's film side has shown retrospective screenings of influential anime films, generally of the same industry professionals being interviewed. Thomas is an executive producer of
Bass X Machina, a sci-fi steampunk western adult animated series funded by Netflix. It is scheduled for release on October 6, 2026. ==Art==