Amid Amidi is an author, historian and entrepreneur with three books to his credit. His recent book Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in Fifties Animation (Chronicle Books) won the prestigious 2006 Theatre Library Association Award for best English-language book about film and television. He has also written The Art of Robots for 20th Century Fox about the making of the Fox/Blue Sky computer animated feature Robots, and edited and designed the book Inside UPA, a compilation of unpublished photographs from the legendary UPA Animation Studios. He is currently writing two new books that will be published by Chronicle Books, and editing a book that will be published by Picturebox Inc.

He launched one of the earliest daily animation news and commentary sites—Animation and Cartoon Heaven—in August 1996. In 1998, that site became Animation Blast. A print version of Animation Blast soon followed and nine issues have been published to date. In 1998, he joined Animation World Network as Associate Editor of Animation World Magazine, the first monthly electronic publication devoted to animation. He also wrote their weekly industry e-newsletter, The Animation Flash. In March 2004, he partnered with Jerry Beck and launched the site that you’re currently reading and in March 2007, they debuted the animation-on-demand download site Cartoon Brew Films.

He has also curated retrospectives and presented lectures at the Ottawa International Animation Festival (Canada), Projector Festival (Scotland), Platform International Animation Festival (Portland), Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Comic-Con International:San Diego, and the 2D Animation Expo (Los Angeles). He has also worked in the animation industry in a number of capacities, consulted for the animation software company XOW!, and served on multiple nomination committees for the ASIFA-Hollywood Annie Awards.

He lives in New York City.

Other Amid-related sites:
Cartoon Modern blog
Animation Blast magazine
All Hail Amid photoset

For interviews, festival and speaking engagements, and general inquiries:
amid [at] cartoonbrew [dot] com