Fred Seibert's Blog

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Mailed out the week of November 12, 2007

Record labels have absolutely nothing to do with the business Frederator’s in, but they have a lot to do with the business I’m obsessed with personally. Because I love records. It started with my love of music, I suppose that’s obvious, but over the decades I’ve come to love recorded music and the artifacts of how I first it. Whether it’s a 45, LP (33 1/3 rpm Long Playing album), or 78, I love the thick black circles with the paper in the middle, festooned with often very simple, but cool designs.

I included a few labels in our last series of postcards, to quizzical looks from the cartoon community, but to the best reaction I’ve ever had from any of our cards (a lot of my friends are from the music business I suppose). So we’re including a few more this year.

Frederator Postcards Series 1, 1998
Frederator Postcards Series 2, 1999
Frederator Postcards Series 3, 2000
Frederator Postcards Series 4, 2003
Frederator Postcards Series 5, 2004-2005
Frederator Postcards Series 6, 2007-2008

Frederator Postcards Series 1, 1998
Frederator Postcards Series 2, 1999
Frederator Postcards Series 3, 2000
Frederator Postcards Series 4, 2003
Frederator Postcards Series 5, 2004-2005
Frederator Postcards Series 6, 2007-2008

Mailed out the week of November 5, 2007

Frederator Postcards Series 1, 1998
Frederator Postcards Series 2, 1999
Frederator Postcards Series 3, 2000
Frederator Postcards Series 4, 2003
Frederator Postcards Series 5, 2004-2005
Frederator Postcards Series 6, 2007-2008

Mailed out the week of October 29, 2007

I know you’re thinking, “Did I miss something? There’s no election day this year, right?”

Frederator Postcards Series 1, 1998
Frederator Postcards Series 2, 1999
Frederator Postcards Series 3, 2000
Frederator Postcards Series 4, 2003
Frederator Postcards Series 5, 2004-2005
Frederator Postcards Series 6, 2007-2008

Series 6.1
Mailed out the week of October 29, 2007.

I guess it’s been well over a year since we sent out postcards and we were feeling a bit of collector’s withdrawal. On Monday, Eric starting sending our current series.

For the first time we’ve numbered the cards, though of course, life being what it is and my insistence at not being as disciplined as Eric would prefer I be, they won’t be sent out in the order they’re numbered. But hey, it’s a start.

As many of you know, our first five series of cards were compiled into a book published by the Easton Press in 2005.

Frederator Postcards Series 1, 1998
Frederator Postcards Series 2, 1999
Frederator Postcards Series 3, 2000
Frederator Postcards Series 4, 2003
Frederator Postcards Series 5, 2004-2005
Frederator Postcards Series 6, 2007-2008

Of course there are lots of reasons, and sure Eric Homan’s a nice guy, got great taste, and works hard (I won’t embarrass him further by going on and on and on about how smart he is). But as often is the case with a person you’ve worked with for a long period of time, there’s got to something more. With Eric it’s his sense, which I try to share, of the world beyond our cartoon borders.

Yesterday we were going through this season’s limited edition postcards we’ll be starting to send out this fall. “I would maybe slightly alter the American flag to an Election Day card.”

Right on Eric. Thanks.

Frederator’s got two cartoons in this week’s Platform Animation Festival, and we’re sponsoring Dan Meth’s first Drinking & Drawing cartoon jam.

Say hello if you see any of us (Dan, Pen, Lee, Eric, Carrie, me) wandering around in a daze.

“IF YOU’RE TOO ADULT TO WATCH CARTOONS, PLEASE BE assured that the one ray of optimism in this hellish world today is that this frivolous medium of children’s entertainment has recently reversed its nearly half-century slide into ever-diminishing returns to finally become the subversive, literate and irascible art form it was meant to be. If you’ve kept an eye on toons, you can surely understand our unmitigated delight when we learned that the innovative animation studio Frederator had decided to collect their rare inventory of industry-insider promotional postcards into a single volume, Original Cartoons: The Frederator Studio Postcards 1998-2005. More than just a vital testament to how a company’s faith in an artist could revolutionize the way kids think, it’s an opportunity to find out how Fred Seibert, owner and founder of Frederator Studios, ushered in the brave new anime of The Powerpuff Girls, The Fairly Oddparents, ChalkZone, My Life as a Teenage Robot, Cow and Chicken, Johnny Bravo and Dexter’s Laboratory.

“Beginning his umpteenth career at the nadir of Hanna Barbera, Seibert admits that ‘It was depressing to me to see how cartoons had evolved into animation.’ With a back-to-the-future approach, Seibert learned from the old masters what had somehow been lost: ‘How could anybody but the artist be the primary talent? If you can’t draw, you can’t write.’ In a world where the state of the art was Smurfs reruns, Seibert just followed the advice of an 86-year-old Joe Barbera. ‘He told me Fred Quimby was a great producer because he did nothing. I thought, “Yeah, I can do that.”‘ Yes, kids, it’s that simple: ‘Trust the talent and stay out of their hair.’”

By Carlo McCormack, Paper Magazine.
Artwork from ORIGINAL CARTOONS: THE FREDERATOR STUDIO POSTCARDS 1998-2005 (EASTON)
TOP AND BOTTOM RIGHT POSTCARDS: DESIGN BY ADAMS-MORIOKA

Pages 46 & 49, Original Cartoons: The Frederator Postcards

Alex Kirwan was one of the first creators signed up for the original season of Oh Yeah! Cartoons. Executive producer Larry Huber reminded me of the 16 year with the dyed red hair who should have taken 2nd Place in our Hanna-Barbera storyboard competition (he was too young!), who we’d then hired right out of high school to draw props on Johnny Bravo. Larry thought his boards showed incredible promise. I agreed and Alex started his first cartoons.

For the next two months we’re offering our site readers a special pre-publication offer on our first studio book: Original Cartoons: The Frederator Studios Postcards 1998-2005 (edited by Mr. Eric Homan & yours truly). There’s a $10 discount, and two free Frederator collectibles. Details can be had right here, or by clicking the button on the right.  Or, you can just check the complete book below, or download a free electronic copy of the book here.

As we’ve told you before, the book collects each and every one of the promotional postcards we’ve released over the last eight years, including each individual Oh Yeah! Cartoons card, hand drawn by the star creators who’ve been nice enough to do a short for us at Nickelodeon. And that’s not all! You also get a bonus chapter on the studio’s posters, and the posters we did at Hanna-Barbera for our first shorts show What A Cartoon!, including Dexter’s Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, Johnny Bravo, Cow&Chicken, and George&Jr., among others. And the essays are by Cartoon Brew’s (and Oh Yeah!’s) Jerry Beck, AWN’s Joe Strike, and the New York Times’ Steven Heller.The official release date is currently November 30, but hurry! and act now! This offer will not last forever!

Original Cartoons, Vol.1: The Frederator Studios Postcards 1998-2005