Fred Seibert's Blog

Writer Warren Ellis has more on the Rule of 3 on the Castlevania blog.

My friend Richard Lewis (no, not the comedian) brought by Debby Carman who showed me her wonderful pre-school characters and books.

Thanks Debby for kind permission to show your work.

They’re moving in for number 2.

Manny & Alan aren’t the first and they won’t be the last of this season’s creators to try for a second short. Yesterday they came by with the unique sci-fi comedy Dogstar.

Everyone better hurry, we’re down to the wire.

We’ve started 21 shorts in this season of Oh Yeah! Cartoons, and I met 9 of the 15 creators in their pitches over the last year or so (that’s 60% for the mathematically inclined). I only mention this statistic to counter the impression I sometimes leave on this blog that I’ve known everyone forever. I love meeting and working with new people; it’s the lifeblood of how I do what I’ve done for my working life.

Now, the other side of this startling fact is that once I become a fan of someone it’s great to work with them over a long period of time, through various phases and ebbtides of life. I try to be a loyal collaborator; I think it has served everyone well.

All of which leads to my full disclosure that I’ve worked with Alan Goodman for 35 years, and now he’s making his first Oh Yeah! cartoon with Nickelodeon New York animator and comic book artist Manny Galan. I won’t bore you with all the details, but suffice it to say that I met Alan in college radio, did my first moving picture work on his student films, was partners with him for several years, and he’s my brother-in-law. Along the way he’s been a journalist, ad writer, TV series creator, and my most constant creative confederate.

I’m thrilled beyond description that Alan and I have found another great way to work together.

Photography by Elena Seibert. Hand coloring by Candy Kugel. See, I was too skinny once.

Two old friends stopped by today in New York to pitch us some Oh Yeah! Cartoons.

John Dilworth and I worked together at Hanna-Barbera Cartoons in the mid 90s on Courage, the Cowardly Dog, and today he brought by a storyboard on Garlic Boy.

Voice actor and producer/writer Joe Bevilacqua pitched us a story of Willaby & the Professor.

Thanks to John and Joe for kind permission to post images from their storyboards.

Diane and Dana were in the New York office today to show a pitch for a second cartoon they’d love to do for Oh Yeah!. It’s called The Life of Frank.

(And have you checked out the posted piece of their animatic?!)

Thanks to D&D for kind permission to post the title page of their pitch.

Manny and Alan came back to our New York office to show us their storyboard on Bronk & Bongo.

Thanks again to Manny & Alan for their kind permission to show some of their storyboard.

Joe Strike is a journalist and author, and JP Morgan is a comic artist. Together, they created Lamb & Lion, which they were kind enough to come and pitch to Oh Yeah! Cartoons.

(Yes, Joe is the AWN contributor who interviewed yours truly in 2003.)

Thanks to Joe and JP for the kind permission to post some of their storyboard.

Bernie Petterson has been one of the stellar artists on various Frederator cartoons (among others) for longer than anyone would like to admit. Brought into the Oh Yeah! Cartoons by Dave Wasson, he became a key part of the teams on ChalkZone and My Life as a Teenage Robot. Here are two typically wonderful illustrations Bernie’s done of ChalkZone creators Bill Burnett & Larry Huber.

I’ve qvelled about Larry Huber before on this blog.

But writer/producer Bill Burnett (or Billllll, as he sometimes goes by) is probably someone new to most of you. Our long and wonderful relationship began when Bill was a writer at my advertising agency in New York in 1988. He eventually became our Creative Director, creating some groundbreaking campaigns for Nick-at-Nite, Sassy Magazine, and Nickelodeon; he even named a network called Comedy Central. The two of us bonded over our mutual belief in popular music as a supreme cultural force, and I found out that after songwriting, his next passion was for cartoons.

Against all logic, I was named president of the venerable Hanna-Barbera Cartoons in 1992, and, no surprise, one of my first creative hires was…Bill Burnett. Officially, he moved to Hollywood to run our marketing department, but he and I both knew that he would make his way into production. He became story editor on Dave Feiss’ legendary Cow & Chicken, and went on to create a record eight shorts for Oh Yeah! Cartoons. Including, of course, ChalkZone. And I’m happy to announce that along with co-creator Jaime Diaz, Bill will join the Oh Yeah! team again to produce Dr Froyd’s Funny Farm.

The best part of my day is finding something exciting. It’s even more fun when my colleagues are on the phone saying how thrilled they are about a project.

That happened today when Eric Homan called me today to tell me about an Oh Yeah! pitch from Doug TenNapel, the creator of Nickelodeon’s CatScratch and Earthworm Jim.