Welcome to the new Animation Snack, brought to you by MyToons.com! This is the place for tasty tidbits on All Things Animated! Stay tooned here everyday for animation news, intimate interviews, exciting contests, great prizes and events. It's easy to comment & connect with animation industry experts, artists and fans.

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Want more than just a taste? Visit MyToons.com for tons of toons, art, entertainment, and the world's greatest animation community.

For your optical pleasure: here’s Stephen Leonard’s My Life at 26: Episode 2. Don’t forget to check out Episode 1 here.

Regardless of which camp you fall into, you can fight for your favorite with Gates vs. Jobs: The Game!  One would think that, as an artist community, Macs would triumph…does anyone beg to differ?

This blog is about to deconstruct in 5…4…3…

We kid, of course, but after watching this week’s winning animation, we’ve got transformers and futuristic war on the mind. Congrats to vincentch20 for his 3D animation World War, which garnered 835 community votes.

“It’s the simple idea of anti-war or anti-nuclear, expressed through two robots fighting badly with each other. Used oriental city and World War II as a background as a reminder to people about the cruelty of the atomic explosion 53 years ago.”

Want to transform yourself into a weekly winner? Check out the Get with the Times! contest page for more details.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it till we’re blue in the face: Animators deserve the BEST – which is why we’re now in HD.

The MyToons community rocks so hard and has been spreading the MyToons love – just take a peek at Aldric Chang’s Mediafreaks blog. Enjoy Mediafreak’s Katakune, their first preschooler 3D animated series. Don’t forget to Digg it – let’s keep animation on top!

MyToons Secures Venture Funding
Leading Internet Animation Site completes Round of Investment Led by Syncom Venture Partners & Barshop Ventures.

July 22, 2008 - LOS ANGELES – MyToons.com, the world’s premier online animation community, today announced the completion of its second round of funding led by Syncom Venture Partners and Barshop Ventures. The capital will be used to support MyToons’ continued technology infrastructure development and revenue growth, as well as expanded global partnerships. Launched in spring of 2007, MyToons.com provides global content creators with a platform to promote and share their original animations, artwork, and games with animators, enthusiasts and fans world-wide.

“MyToons presents a tremendous opportunity to address an underserved niche in the on-line content marketplace,” said Herb Wilkins, General Partner at Syncom. “The MyToons team has a clear view of what both animators and consumers are craving, and is moving quickly to deliver key services to address those needs. We look forward to helping take MyToons from early-adoption to mainstream consumption.”

MyToons recently became the first animation-focused website to launch full-resolution HD streaming - part of MyToons’ unique and proprietary technology portfolio under development for several years. Today, the MyToons community has 10,000 contributing members, over 12,000 properties, and is quickly aggregating high-resolution HD animation content thanks to its current “Get with the Times” HD Animation Contest. Working with MyToons, animation content creators can promote themselves and their work at a streamed quality level that is unrivaled on the Internet.

“We are thrilled to have Syncom Venture Partners join the MyToons team,” said Dan Kraus, CEO & Co-Founder of MyToons. “We now have two of the premier media venture capital firms as partners, as well as a world-class group of advisors as we look to improve and accelerate the ways animators distribute and profit from their content.


About Syncom Venture Partners

Founded in 1977 and headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, Syncom Venture Partners manages approximately $400 million of private equity capital on behalf of some of the nation’s largest corporations and public pension funds. Syncom is the leading venture capital firm primarily focused on early to mid-stage investments in underserved segments of the Media and Communications Industry. Syncom Venture Partners pioneered this investment strategy and has been involved in the creation of many of the most successful and visible African-American and Hispanic-owned media and communications companies including BET, Radio One, WorldSpace, Z Spanish Radio, TV One, and Iridium Satellite.

About Barshop Ventures

Barshop Ventures, LLC, is a diversified venture capital investment and portfolio investment management firm, based in San Antonio, Texas. Barshop Ventures focuses on early-stage enterprises in media and telecommunications, life sciences and medical devices and other fields.

About MyToons.com
Based in San Antonio Texas, MyToons.com was established in 2006 as the premier online resource and entertainment destination for professional animators, students, artists and animation fans. Combining high-quality video file streaming with best-in-class social networking for animators, MyToons.com showcases the greatest variety of independent and studio animation anywhere. MyToons.com empowers animators and animation fans everywhere by providing a platform for interaction and world-wide exposure, and allowing artists to share their techniques, discuss their thoughts and ideas, and explore their commonalities in a robust visual environment.

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MyToons is a trademark of MyToons, Inc. All rights reserved. Other trademarks belong to their respective owners.

 We promised you full episodes of Stephen Leonard’s My Life at 26, and that’s what you’ll get! We give you My Life at 26: Episode 1.

“The animated series, My Life at 26, follows the life of Abe, a typical twenty-six year-old guy with an unfulfilling job at a customer service call center. Along with his friends Paxon and Alexia, Abe deals with life, society, and all sorts of characters in Town Valley.

In the Pilot, Abe wins a trip to a popular, but exclusive, pudding factory, though things aren’t as he expects.”

Enjoy! And stay tooned for upcoming episodes!