Fans, Friends and Followers: Building an Audience and a Creative Career in the Digital Age may be this year’s must-read book for anybody who makes creative content on the Internet. Everybody, including the Brewmasters, constantly preaches that the future for artists is on the Internet, but how exactly can an artist establish a fan base, generate revenue, and create a reputation on the Internet?

Scott Kirsner, Variety writer and editor of the invaluable CinemaTech blog, breaks it down in his new book by offering case studies of thirty visual artists, comedians, animators, documentary filmmakers, musicians and writers. I haven’t seen the book yet, but I’m sure that it’s not going to offer many easy-to-follow formulas. Even the traditional media gatekeepers, with their hundreds of millions of dollars, have yet to figure out a formula for taming the Internet. What the book will likely show though is that there are countless different models that indie media makers, including animators, can use to connect with an audience online. Unlimited opportunities await artists on the Internet, and this book should serve as an invaluable handbook for any creative soul who is brave enough to venture into this uncharted frontier.

The website for Fans, Friends and Followers offers the book for purchase in multiple formats including Kindle and PDF, and a paperback version is available on Amazon.

The author, Scott Kirsner, has kindly provided Cartoon Brew an exclusive excerpt from an interview in the book with JibJab founders Evan and Gregg Spiridellis, and how they’ve found unconventional ways of generating revenue from their animation work:

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When one thinks of David Stainton, the former president of Walt Disney Feature Animation, what are the first two descriptive terms that come to mind? According to his website DavidStainton.com, it should be “creative leadership” and “strategy.”

To his credit, Stainton IS very creative when it comes to rewriting history and making his reign during one of Disney’s lowest creative moments seem like an accomplishment. The bio on his website includes these fancy bit of revisionism:

At Feature Animation, David transformed the division financially, creatively, and technologically. During his tenure, he cut overhead, production costs, and operating losses in half. At the same time, he revived the culture of creative excellence at the studio with a new line-up of films. Finally, his leadership drove the historic transition from hand-drawn to computer-generated animation at Feature Animation and his other divisions, bringing animation at Disney fully into the digital era.

So how much of Disney’s creative inadequacy was directly Stainton’s fault and how much of it could be attributed to the dysfunctional corporate infrastructure that had been in place since the early-1990s? That’s a question that will have to be answered by those who are much more knowledgeable about the inner workings of the studio. It was a new one on me though to read in Stainton’s filmography that Hunchback of Notre Dame was based on his pitch and adaptation. That fact alone should have been an adequate warning that he didn’t have the first clue about what types of material are best suited to animation.

“Congobeat” has posted on YouTube several really cool, vintage animated advertisments from Australia. Each one put a smile on my face. The first one, dated 1941, is for Bushell’s Tea and features what life will be like in a retro-future down under:

The next one is for Aeroplane Fruit Jellies and features their mascot “Bertie” the airplane:

Another for Aeroplane Jellies, this one a TV spot from 1959 that introduces the I like Aeroplane Jellies theme song.

Big day in the U.S. and Canada for prime time animation. The folks behind the hilarious Arested Development have concocted Sit Down, Shut Up for Fox. The first episode airs tonight at 8:30pm. Meanwhile, in the Great White North, the McKenzie brothers return to Canadian television in the new half-hour animated series Bob & Doug, premiering tonight at 7:30pm on Global. Any thoughts?

I know what Bill Plympton wants for his birthday. He wants you to attend his Idiots and Angels VIP Screening and Birthday Party.

On Thursday, April 30 at 6pm, Bill will screen his latest feature Idiots and Angels at the Helen Mills Theatre (136 West 26st St. between 6th + 7th, in Manhattan) — and everyone who attends will recieve a FREE Plympton original drawing. At 8pm, there will be a VIP After Party with wine, desserts “and surprises”.

Proceeds from this evening will contribute to the production the upcoming documentary project, Adventures in Plymptoons! For more information on this event go to brownpapertickets.com/

You know those Magic Eye pictures? The ones that, if you stare at it long enough, you can see 3-D (without glasses). Here’s an attempt to do that with a moving image –the Pink Panther, animated. It’s a looped sequence of 19 frames converted from Flash animation. I’m not sure if it’s working for me, but I like the idea.

It looks a little better larger, at 3Dimka’s Deviant Art page. Interesting?

(Thanks, Jake Friedman)

You know the Raymond Scott tune from a million different cartoons. But I bet you’ve never seen it played like this:

(via BB, thanks Chappell)

It’s the sign of a healthy festival when others begin creating unofficial events around the main proceedings. That’s what’s happening regularly now with the Annecy animation festival. In 2005, filmmakers Pat Smith and Bill Plympton started the still-continuing Annecy Plus, which is a screening for films rejected from the festival.

Yesterday, I got an email from Annecy local Raphael Cahuzac, who runs a record label in town, and he’s starting up another screening during the week of the festival. Here are the details from Raphael:

We’re having a party on the 8th of June in a local bar Le Comptoir de la Folie Ordinaire where we want to screen short films during the Animation Film Festival. Our event isn’t part of the official festival or the Annecy Plus program. I’m interested in anything (2D, Flash, clay animation, etc.), either in English, French or with French and/or English subtitles. We will only accept DVDs.

The event will be free and open to all. I would also like to encourage people who will be in Annecy during the animation festival to come and party with us.

If you’re interested in having your film screened at this event, you can reach Raphael at r.cahuzac at wanadoo dot fr. I’m definitely going to be checking this show out.