One of Nickelodeon’s longest-running animated series has lost the creator. Stephen Hillenburg, who created Spongebob Squarepants, died yesterday at the age 57 from ALS. The official Nickelodeon Twitter posted this:

Hillenberg ended up creating, writing, producing, and directing the series. There is a video that Nickelodeon Animation released, and in it, Hillenberg mentioned that he was a fan of marine biology, and ended up going to art school, studied animation, and combined that with his love of Marine Biology to create Spongebob.

Source: Nerdbot