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The companies behind "Happy Tree Friends" and "Dick Figures" have merged into a single studio.

The post Mondo Media and Six Point Harness Finalize Merger appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Bandai Namco is promoting Dark Souls III with this hand-drawn animated short.

The post Eli Roth Directed A Dark Souls Animated Trailer appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

If Ed Skudder and Zack Keller’s Dick Figures – The Movie is any indication, the animated feature revolution will not only be televised, it will be fan-funded and delivered directly to its audience through an innovative multi-tiered distribution strategy.

On = September 17, the entire film will be available for purchase or rental in a variety of digital platforms, including Google Play. However, the 73-minute movie adaptation of the popular webseries Dick Figures will have a day-and-date episodic release. It will be made available free of charge on YouTube, distributed in twelve weekly ad-supported installments.

“We want to give people the option to download or stream the movie from wherever they’re comfortable, from wherever they have accounts, from wherever it’s easiest for them to get access to the movie,” co-creator Keller told Mashable. “We operate in online space, so we wanted to keep it in an online space. People don’t even have to leave their couches or their desks or wherever they are.”

Since its premiere in 2010, Dick Figures, which follows the comic experiences of two juvenile young adult stick figures, Red and Blue, has racked up 43 short episodes and over 350 million views on YouTube, making it one of the most popular animated webseries to date. Creators Skudder and Keller raised over $300,000 in crowdfunding for the feature project on Kickstarter last year. (Most of the Kickstarter backers will be able to download the film at no cost.)

Tailoring the film’s release primarily with its core audience in mind, distributor Mondo Media and production company Six Point Harness partnered with digital platform manager Cinedigm, (who will also release the film to DVD in December) and Yekra, a VOD provider that enables viewers to stream and download content through blogs and social media sites.

He’s lived in Knoxville, Seattle and Los Angeles, but animator Joel Trussell recently moved to a town you won’t find on any map — Electric City. Electric City is the name of the new animated series spearheaded by actor/director Tom Hanks, and it’s one of the first major animation productions specifically designed for online viewing. Premiering today on Yahoo’s video site Yahoo! Screen with ten five- to seven-minute episodes, Electric City is a co-production by Hanks’ Playtone shingle and Los Angeles animation studio Six Point Harness, who tapped Trussell to direct this unique animated series.

Trussell’s career has seen a steady uphill trajectory since graduating from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville in 1998, doing animated music videos to commercials and even segments of television shows like Yo Gabba Gabba. Cartoon Brew has followed Trussell’s career for years, beginning with 2005’s War Photographer music video . After doing a prodigious amount of work out of his Knoxville home far removed from the traditional animation hubs, Trussell moved to Los Angeles in 2009 to pursue opportunities for larger projects. In no short time, Trussell connected with Six Point Harness to do commercials which segued quickly into the opportunity to helm Electric City.

Chris Arrant: Electric City is the biggest project you’ve ever done – 20 episodes, 5 to 7 minutes each. How’d you get involved and did you have any concerns about such a large scale project?

Joel Trussell: For several years I directed animated many music videos (Jason Forrest’s War Photographer, M. Ward’s The First Time I Ran Away) commercials (Esurance, Nicorette) and TV/film segments (Yo Gabba Gabba, The Animation Show) while living in Knoxville, Tenne

I’m no fan of Scooby Doo, but if Warner Bros. ever decides to do a series or movie with character designs as cute and stylized as these, I’d quickly change my mind. Here’s the very appealing opening title sequence from the new direct-to-video Scooby Doo: Camp Scare, designed by Peter Girardi, Dan Krall, Pete Oswald [...]