Fred Seibert's Blog

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.

“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

As regular readers know, Frederator Studios started sending out postcards in 1998. We intended them to be an extension of the posters we started at Hanna-Barbera to accompany What A Cartoon!, our original shorts series (where we launched seven series and a movie, like Genndy Tartakovsky’s Dexter’s Laboratory, David Feiss’ Cow & Chicken, and Craig McCraken’s The Powerpuff Girls).

So we started sending out creator cards during the first three seasons of Oh Yeah! Cartoons, sprinkling a few general hype cards for the studio along the way. After a hiatus created a little withdrawal, and the opening of our New York office, we launched a more avant series with our graphic designer friends at Adams-Morioka in Beverly Hills. 2004 started a period of renewed postcard energy, and for the last year or so we’ve sent out three cards every few weeks (the three above are this week’s) to a limited of our nearest and dearest.

And maybe you. I’d like to make a special offer: after each blog posting on a postcard mailing, for the first person that sends their address to hey@frederator.com, we’ll add you to our future list. I’m not going to hype this offer anywhere but here, and not often, so make a note, and join this exclusive group.

In the meanwhile, click here to all our Frederator card series.

We’re very excited to have received the pre-publication copies of our first official Frederator book (co-edited with Eric Homan and published by the Easton Studio Press), the collection of postcard series’ we’ve been sending out since 1998. (Also included, essays and interviews by Jerry Beck, Steven Heller, and Joe Strike).

Even though the official release date is November 30, we’re going to pre-sell copies directly from our site starting in September. (Along with a special, very rare and limited box set of all the original postcards.) Or you can pre-order directly from Amazon.com.

In the meantime, you can download a PDF of the book for your previewing pleasure.

(By the way, since a lot of you have asked: the incredible Craig Kellman did the cover illustration. He dashed it off quickly for a card he sent me about 10 years ago, and I always thought it was an amazing drawing for such a casual effort. Thanks Craig.)

If I’m reading our own blog archives correctly, we haven’t made a postcard entry in about six weeks. So, for those who’ve just joined us: Frederator Studios has been sending out promotional postcards since sometime in 1998. We began with the first season of Oh Yeah! Cartoons, creating individual cards for each of the original 30+ cartoons we made that year.

Each card in our current 5th series is sent to 200 lucky individuals, and the three up above are about to go in the mail this week. If you’re keeping track of such things, Oblivion Records was the independent blues and jazz record label I founded in 1971 with Honest Tom Pomposello.

Click here to see all our Frederator card series.