Fred Seibert's Blog

Book cover illustrated & designed by Carlos Ramos

OK, here ’tis on Amazon.com, Original Cartoon Title Cards from Frederator Studios, before Christmas, as we hoped. Not sure if they can actually deliver it by next week, but you can check. The official release date is in March, so at least you can get a head start on everyone else. In the meanwhile, you can preview the whole book below to see if it’s worth it to you.

Here’s the blurb (and here’s the entire introduction):

Please, consider the unconsidered art of the original cartoon title card.

For almost a century, the art of the cartoon title card has not been disparaged, disregarded, or dismissed. It has been completely ignored. And by the 1970s it had almost completely disappeared.

Over 200 full color original title cards from hit Frederator cartoon series, including The Fairly OddParents, Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, Fanboy & Chum Chum, Adventure Time, and eight more.

Frederator loves you.

Original Cartoon Title Cards from Frederator Studios

David Levy has proved it over and over again. Being a talented artist and animator doesn’t prevent anyone from being a good writer. Case in point, Dave’s third book, Directing Animation, where he easily brings us through story after story of success (and sometimes, not so much) from the trenches of our business. (Full disclosure: there’s a chapter on internet cartoons, featuring the Frederator production of Dan Meth’s “The Meth Minute 39.” Alas, no embarrassing, humiliating stories this time.)

If you’re looking for some of the best reading to be done from the inside out of the animation industry, you’d do a lot worse to check out all of Dave’s library, from how to break into and thrive in the business, to getting a show on the air.

VOTE for Pen’s T-shirt @ Threadless. 

(Sorry for the censorship, but I’m told that with the overwhelming popularity of Adventure Time and Fanboy & Chum Chum we’ve got a huge kid readership.)

Frederator/NY was thrilled when artist extraordinaire (and 2010 Emmy® winner) Caesar Martinez and his longtime life partner, writer Dina Allen, stopped by for a visit on a detour from their New York vacation. It’s always a pleasure to spend a little downtime with colleagues from our productions. When we’re in the middle of the action conversations are always about the work at hand. Thanks for coming by guys.

It took a while to get the gallies right, but the second collection of Frederator’s postcards is available over at Amazon.com (the first one’s there too).

Eric Homan is our resident postcard collector, but that’s not the main reason he has an insightful interview here. Entertainment journalist Michael Goldman wanted to get the scoop on how Eric developed the last round of big ideas in our Random! Cartoons shorts incubator, including the background on Fanboy & Chum Chum and Adventure Time. Their cards, and all 39 of the original Random!s, are included in the book.

And that’s not all! The complete postcard series 6 through 9 are here, including the black & whites, and the History of Frederator set. And, the non-series Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! collectibles that were made for the International Licensing Shows, and a bunch of stragglers that were produced here and there over the years. Plus, a preface by the guy we work for at Sony Pictures Animation, Bob Osher, and a short introduction from moi.

So, check it out. Broke? Too cheap? Here’s the free PDF download:

Original Cartoons, Volume 2: The Frederator Studios Postcards 2006 - 2010

Frederator Postcards Series 9.7, mailed April 16, 2010

We worked with Bob Boyle on two shorts at Oh Yeah! Cartoons, and when he was the art director and producer on The Fairly Oddparents. Eric Homan brought Bob in the door when we started thinking about picture books for pre-schoolers. One of them became a book last month, and the other? You’re looking at it.
……

From the postcard back:

Congratulations!
You are one of 200 people to receive this limited edition Frederator postcard!
www.frederator.com

History of Frederator Studios
Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!
2006 - ?
Created by Bob Boyle

Executive Producers: Bob Boyle, Susan Miller Lazar, Fred Seibert
A Bolder Media/Starz Production
Bolder Media, a joint venture of Frederator Studios & Mixed Media Group

Series 9.7

Postcard ©2010, Bellport Cartoon Company. Wow!Wow!Wubbzy! ©2010, Bolder Media and Starz. All rights reserved.
……

More Frederator postcards

I’ve been writing about artist Nathan Sawaya for a few weeks, telling you a that we’re working on a project together. Here’s the first look. But not the last.

Len Peralta and I met in the new classic way people meet. I liked his stuff on Flickr and set him up as a contact. He contacted me back and sent an email, telling me that his animation class had turned him onto Adventure Time and asked if I could participate in his project Geek-A-Week. After I protested (not too much) that I didn’t deserve geek status, and then convinced him to set it up on tumblr, I agreed and he did an interview and tricked up these cool trading cards. I’m in awesome company that I wish I deserved.

Thanks Len!

Our friend Bob Boyle is the hardest working man in show business. He just released his first picture book last week –Hugo and the Really, Really, Really Long String– and already he’s done a commercial, and now, a music video, produced with our Wubbzy bubby Brad Mossman. Check it out, buy the book!

Nathan Sawaya is one of those rare artists with a unique vision that has quality and populism wrapped up in one really cool package. I’ve written about his Lego art before (he’s sculpting a Fredbot logo tag for us), so I brought my family over to his art show opening in New York last night (my younger son is a Lego Robotics competitor). It was totally worth it, so if you’re in New York in the next few weeks, drop by the Agora Gallery for a glimpse.