Cartoon Brew Is Changing Ownership, A Farewell From The Site’s Co-Founder (Video)

Hi, this is Amid, the owner of Cartoon Brew.

A big announcement today. Cartoon Brew has been sold. Effective today, I will no longer be the publisher or editor-in-chief of the website, nor will I be involved in any capacity with the company’s operations.

You can watch a video message below or read it as text:

Here’s the good news though — and it’s very good news. Cartoon Brew will remain independent media. The new owner of the site is Jamie Lang, who many of you already know because he was previously editor-in-chief of Cartoon Brew for two years and he’s written nearly 1,500 pieces for the site. Jamie was most recently an international features editor at Variety, and he’s returning to Cartoon Brew tomorrow, July 1, to take over the entire operation.

In these days of private equity-run media and mass corporatization, AI-generated slop and endless social media distraction, there simply aren’t a lot of resources like Cartoon Brew. I know how many people rely on the site as a daily resource and it was important for me to ensure that the values of the site continue to be upheld by people who are as passionate about animation as I am.

We also have an amazing team behind the scenes, led by Katie and Aric in sales and tech. They’ll be staying onboard. Many of our writers, some of the absolute best in the biz, will also continue to appear regularly on the site.

I have great faith in the future of Cartoon Brew. A key reason I chose Jamie as the successor is that he understands the spirit and the purpose of the site. But I’m also looking forward to seeing how the site will grow and evolve under his direction — and the fresh ideas he’ll add to the strong foundation that we’ve already built. For the first time ever, I’m going to be enjoying Cartoon Brew alongside all of you, as a reader, and I honestly cannot wait to see where it goes from here.

Cartoon Brew has always been a risky proposition and that’s not because the business model itself is risky. A trade or a B2B publication, if you can get one going, is a reliably stable and unexciting business.

But a big reason that I started Cartoon Brew was because of how bothered I was by other animation trade media. It’s that old adage of if you don’t like something, do it better yourself. Especially over the last 13 years, when I’ve been sole owner, I’ve been able to run Cartoon Brew on my own terms, and grow a viable business around that vision.

The heart and soul of this industry is its artists, and I always felt that it was artists who were being underserved by other trades covering our industry. I’m very proud that we were the first industry news publication to regularly cover artist rights and not present a management-only view of animation. That was a huge hurdle to overcome, especially in the early years when people didn’t understand what we were doing, and it often felt like I was walking a tightrope between success and failure.

Ultimately, the risk paid off. Companies, at least most of them, eventually came to understand that it was to their benefit to work with and support a publication like Cartoon Brew because a robust and inclusive dialogue about the animation world benefits everyone and keeps this medium growing.

Personally, I’m not exactly sure what I will do in the future, but I know it will continue to involve taking risks —not just business risks, but creative risks. We all have a finite amount of time on this planet, and growing as a person means trying new things and embracing change.

To be clear, I will still be involved with animation, in addition to exploring other avenues of expression. And here’s where the plug comes in – if you want to stay in touch, visit my site AmidAmidi.com. There’s a newsletter and journal there where I’ll be writing about what I’m doing and sharing my thoughts on animation and other topics. There’ll also be updates shortly on my most immediate project — a long, long-overdue biography of animation legend Ward Kimball. All I can promise is that it’s going to be as interesting as the man himself.

And finally, a thank you to you, all the readers. None of this would have been possible with you. My personal philosophy about writing (of any kind) is that it’s a conversation between the author and the reader. Journalism, in particular, is an ongoing dialogue. I don’t sit down everyday and write what I want to write. I write what the community wants to know — and in some cases, what the community needs to know.

So, we’ve all worked together for these past 21 years to create this incredibly unique townsquare where we can discuss and inform each other about this wonderful art form and sometimes admittedly not-so-wonderful business. My sincere hope is that even after I’m gone, the community continues to support the site as it has done so all these years — because we’re all in this together — the artists who create animation, the fans who love animation, the students who are going to take this art form to dizzying new heights, the management, the studios. It takes an entire ecosystem to make up this amazing art form.

It’s been a tremendous honor for me to have been accepted as part of this community.

Thank you sincerely for everything.