Announcing Cartoon Brew Next, A Showcase of New Animation Talent

Today we’re announcing a new talent showcase called Cartoon Brew Next. The young artists whose work will be featured in this semi-regular feature may not be big names in the industry yet and they don’t have major credits to their name, but the work that they’ve created shows big talent and promise.

The animators and filmmakers that we plan to profile are located around the globe, and their aesthetic and narrative sensibilities branch out in equally diverse directions. They may use conventional structures, like short films, to express themselves, but they may also use new media like animated GIFs and Vines to distribute their concepts.

The key commonality amongst these artists is an unprecedented comfort with technology. For artists growing up in the 1990s and 2000s, technology isn’t something to learn, it simply is. Artists of this new generation intuitively understand how technology works like previous generations understood the concepts of paper, pencils, and paint. Their ideas are shaped by the support of online communities and networks, and they have vast educational resources available to them anytime and anywhere on the internet. Those who choose to work with more traditional media are still influenced by the historical riches of animation and film content available on the internet.

The job of running a site as sweeping in scope as Cartoon Brew necessarily requires having a macro view of the industry. The responsibility isn’t just to cover the animation world, but to make some sense of this fast-growing art form. From where I sit, it’s easy to see the broad trends that shape the field. Every so often, I discover artists whose sensibilities don’t follow the established patterns, and Cartoon Brew Next will shine the spotlight on these artists because they are the ones whose ideas will challenge the art form and industry to new heights.

We will, of course, continue to introduce new filmmakers and animators through our Short Pick of the Day, Artist of the Day, and elsewhere on the site. Cartoon Brew Next is not a replacement for existing coverage, but an outgrowth of our enthusiasm for the future of the animation art form, and the young creators who will take us there.

Cartoon Brew Next will launch early next week.