We’re delighted to report that the Cartoon Brew Facebook community recently surpassed 500 600 700(!) members. In the few months that it’s been up, various folks have used it to post short films, link to job listings, and participate in discussions, but it’d be fun to see even more of that happening. In particular, the Wall portion of the page is underused; it’s an ideal format for posting notes about film screenings as well as other animation-related news and events. We started the Facebook community with the idea that Brew readers could have a place to communicate directly with one another. We hope you give it a try sometime.

A few months ago on Cartoon Brew we announced a new and affordable monthly advertising option on Cartoon Brew for independent companies, studios and individuals who couldn’t afford the standard rates that are charged by our ad partner Federated Media. We’ve just set up an Advertising page that offers all the details on this advertising option.

Also, here’s a shout-out to the advertisers who’ve already signed up. Yesterday, we put up two new Comic-Con related ads for:
Fleet Street Scandal
Hard Eight

Earlier advertisers include:
House Industries
Meathaus
House of Cool
Rembrandt Films

That’s today’s topic of discussion on the Cartoon Brew Facebook page. We’re planning a refresh of the site and want to hear from Brew readers how you’d improve the site’s design and layout, and which technical features and additions you’d like to see implemented on Cartoon Brew.

Cartoon Brew was launched four years ago this month - and my, how we’ve grown. Below are some thoughts on the anniversary from the Brewmasters:

Jerry Beck
Back in 2003, Amid was updating his Animation Blast website with commentary and news; likewise, I was posting a stream of information and reviews on my Cartoon Research page. I recall a conversation we had at the time, both of us enthused about the potential of the Internet to expand our writing about animation. We were eager to communicate our thoughts, comments and criticism and saw a huge opportunity to expose new talent. This discussion led to our decision to “team up”, and create a new blog to share our ideas on one dedicated site that could lead to something more valuable to us - and our readers. We launched Cartoon Brew on March 15, 2004.

It’s turned out to be the most exciting, fulfilling, pleasurable and yes, time consuming, project we’ve ever taken on. For me, Cartoon Brew is a natural extension of what I’ve always done: communicating with fellow animation buffs and sharing my views, as well as trivia and souvenirs, from a lifetime of cartoon research. I love it.

We’ve watched our humble blog grow from several thousand readers a week to several thousand each day. A little over a year ago we opened our posts to comments from our readers, expanding the conversation to include the entire animation community. I’ve considered all Brew readers to be my friends, as we all share a love for an art form which, despite all its commercial success, is still not completely understood and fully explored by the mainstream public.

And that’s why Cartoon Brew is important to me. If I can enlighten someone to the latest film by Miyazaki, alert you to specific classic animation on DVD, or point even one person towards a Spongebob Squarepants Musical Rectal Thermometer, then I can rest a little easier, knowing I’ve done my job.

Amid Amidi
Wake up, brush teeth, wash face, put on coffee, log onto the Brew. Working on the site has become second-nature to me. I’m always amazed at how many people tell me that Cartoon Brew is one of their essential daily reads, but what I always forget to reply is that it’s exactly the same for me on the other end. The Brew is such an essential part of my daily life. Even on days when I have nothing to say (obviously, those are pretty rare days), I still check into the site to see what Jerry is writing and what readers are discussing.

As we begin our fifth year, we have big plans for the website. We are currently hard at work on a relaunch of CartoonBrewFilms. The idea continues to grow and morph but our goal remains the same: making quality animation available to a wide audience while making filmmakers money for their work. We’re also looking at numerous ways to extend the Cartoon Brew community, both through real world events and through online sites. Along those lines, we recently started a Cartoon Brew Facebook community (for Facebook members only) that allows readers to interact with one another through the discussion boards, and share links to films and articles with one another. Whereas the comments section on the Brew is for specifically responding to items that we post, the Facebook community is an opportunity for any reader to initiate a discussion or post interesting items.

This is also a good time to thank a few of our friends without whom we couldn’t be doing this site: the fine design team at Also Design who redesigned our website and logo, the sales team at Federated Media who help bring us corporate advertisers that we could otherwise never get on our own, and Leslie Cabarga who came up with the original set of Brew logos…remember these?

I just wanted to reassure Cartoon Brew readers that neither Jerry nor I are involved in the following scandolous headline from today’s LA Times: Brewer Apologizes in Sex Case.

We’re going to begin doing a regular roundup that indexes some of the more noteworthy items on Cartoon Brew. Here are some of the news items that created the most buzz and generated the most discussion during the past couple months. Any that we missed?

• The Little Island by Richard Williams
• Superjail
• Hatti Noel as Hyacinth Hippo: Part 1 and Part 2
• 1930s Wartime Japanese cartoon
• The Rocky and Bullwinkle statue: Part 1 and Part 2
• Spongebob Rectal Thermometer and Spongebob Voice-overs
• Kung Fu Panda Trailer
• In by Philipp Hirsch and Heiko Tippelt
• Why Don Hertzfeldt Probably Won’t Win An Annie
• Marcell Jankovics’s Fehérlófia
• Lili Chin and Eddie Mort Abandon Flash Animation
• Diznee’s Aladin and Ratatouille Knock-off
• Studio 4°C’s Genius Party
• The Hard Lessons of Kwicky Koala
• Academy Ignores Animation for Best Foreign Film
• Usavich
• Who Writes Cartoons?

After some record-breaking days of traffic last week, we’ve decided to take the next big step and upgrade Cartoon Brew to its own dedicated server. We hope that this will speed up everybody’s site load times as well as prepare us for future traffic spikes. The transition to a new server has not been especially smooth, hence the downtimes during the past couple days, but everything should be back to normal after this weekend. Thanks to all the Brew readers for your patience and support!

We are happy to announce that Cartoon Brew is now accepting ads from third-party advertisers (in other words, you) in our right-hand column. Many individuals and companies have commented to us throughout the past year that they’d like to advertise on Cartoon Brew but that they can’t afford the prices that our ad partner, Federated Media, charges for the large vertical and horizontal banners. While we’re thrilled to have major advertisers like Adobe, Cartoon Network,Verizon, Toyota and Hewlett-Packard occupying those spots, we also recognize the importance of giving independent companies, studios and individuals the chance to promote their projects in an affordable manner to the Cartoon Brew readership.

So we’ve decided to introduce a new advertising option of 125×125px square boxes in the right-hand column of this site. Previously we have only used these smaller ads to promote our personal projects and to support special causes, but now we will be adding your ads to the mix. We are selling these spots for only $250/month. That buys you an uninterrupted month-long campaign on Cartoon Brew, which receives an average of over 200k unique visitors/month and over 300k page views/month. If you’re interested in purchasing an ad, contact either Jerry or Amid through our bio pages at the top of this site and we’ll set you up. As a bonus, the first two advertisers who sign up will receive $50 off of their first month.