Out with the old, in with the…insubordinate broom? It’s a good thing a bum ride didn’t stop this witchy woman from flying high – congrats to this week’s winner, alesmav’s Daphne’s new broom!

A little witch just bought herself a brand new broom and she can’t wait to take it for a test drive. Unfortunately not everything goes as planned…

Is your creativity brewing with magic? Don’t miss your chance to Get With the Times in NYC – there’s only one week left to enter. For more details, check out the Get with the Times! contest page.

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For Immediate Release

August 27, 2008

MyToons.com Announces Partnership with Vuze

Leading Online Animation Community Launches Cartoon Classics Channel on Vuze

AUGUST 27, 2008 – SAN ANTONIO – MyToons.com, the premier online animation community, today announced a global partnership to bring MyToons animated content to Vuze’s 30 million member worldwide audience. Joining global television networks and production studios, MyToons debuts its first channel – MyToons Cartoon Classics – set to entertain Vuze members with an array of funny vintage animations. Featuring classic animations like Popeye and Betty Boop, viewers can appreciate these time honored animations created before the computer age.

“We are thrilled to have MyToons as a new partner,” said John Fernandes, Vice President of Marketing at Vuze. “Almost everyone has childhood memories of these great cartoons. We look forward to sharing these classics and other quality animated videos from MyToons with the Vuze community, and introducing MyToons content to a new generation of online viewers.“

“With the recent rise of CG animation, The MyToons Cartoon Classics Channel is a great way to look back at the hand drawn origins of animation and appreciate how the art has evolved,” said Paul Ford, president of MyToons. “We recognize the vast creative talent that went into these classic animations and hope that they will not only entertain, but will also inspire the Vuze audience to create compelling new high resolution content.”

MyToons is currently developing additional Vuze channels that will highlight the work of select up-and-coming global animators, including High Definition animation. These MyToons-member channels will showcase the very best in international independent cartoons and animations. Through this dynamic partnership, MyToons animation community members gain valuable exposure through the Vuze platform.

The MyToons Cartoon Classics Channel is also available on MyToons.com, and includes all of the animations available on Vuze, plus many more.

About Vuze

Vuze is an all-in-one bittorrent application that enables people around the world to discover, download, play, and share high quality content. The Vuze Network brings high quality content to its rapidly growing installed base of millions of users, from an ever growing list of providers ranging from global television networks to maverick content creators. Vuze, Inc. is headquartered in Redwood City, California, with offices in Los Angeles, New York, and London.

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 both High Definition (HD) and 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.

Popeye, along with Betty Boop and many other classic characters, are all making special appearances on the MyToons Cartoon Classics Channel - debuting on both the MyToons Homepage and the MyToons Cartoons Classics Vuze Channel.  Be sure to check out the Max Fleischer interview and Popeye’s "Never Sock A Baby" - solid advice there Popeye!  See the Vuze Channel here and the Homepage Channel here!

Getting sucked into a black hole can be an amazing adventure…or an easy way for a little girl to clean her room – which turns out to be the case for A.D.D. Jane. Congrats to this week’s winner, allandye’s A.D.D. Jane, which racked up almost 700 of your votes!

Meet Jane. She’s a small girl with even smaller attention span who goes on an amazing adventure. Too bad she’s barely paying attention!

Want to grab the attention of people in Times Square? Check out the Get with the Times! contest page for more details!

Based in San Francisco, Allan Dye spends his days as a Flash animator and illustrator. After graduating with an Animation degree from San Francisco State University, he went on to help Cisco create “Peter Packet,” a learning series designed to teach kids about the internet: “I realized I had a lot of fun writing and animating for kids, so I started to think about ideas I could develop on my own.” It was aboutt this time that Allan switched to freelancing for flexibility, opening time for personal projects.

For A.D.D. Jane, the main character stemmed from a college comic strip series that won a local contest – a type of female Calvin (Calvin and Hobbes) who had parents that longed to have a typical, feminine, sweet little girl who played with dolls; instead, they wound up with a bug-loving, doll-destroying, highly distracted little girl. Allan also wanted to include the concept of a magic fairy land that he found prevalent in kid’s literature: “If you were to go buy books I read as a kid, there’s a magic fairy land hiding in every nook and cranny.” Of course, a character like Jane would become instantly bored upon arrival.

The story of A.D.D. Jane was developed with friend Steffan Schlarb, as they focused on Jane’s short attention span: “Thanks to Steffan (also a designer), Jane’s look and feel was redesigned in order to make animating in Flash easier.” After storyboarding Allan animated the short in order, scene by scene; the short was completed in seven months using Flash, Photoshop, and Final Cut Pro.

While writing the short, Allan laid out the idea of creating in HD: “When my friend Steffan and I were first writing it, I said ‘I was thinking of trying to develop this for HD, but it seems like a pain in the a**.’ He replied, ‘Yeah, but wouldn’t it be cooler?’ Seemed like a good point at the time, but I was right, there were technical hurdles, particularly with file sizes, that I had to overcome.”

Allan learned that there are things you can get away with while creating in Flash at standard resolution, that need to be compensated for while working at a high resolution: “But, now I’m asked to develop animation in HD frequently, and thanks to Jane, I have the process down.”

Born August 21, 1906, Freleng was best known for his work at Looney Tunes Merrie Melodies, animating, directing, and producing characters such as Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Sylvester, Yosemite Sam, and his own, Speedy Gonzales who garnered 1 of Freleng’s four Academy Awards.

Anyone know which McKimson cartoon inspired Speedy’s character?

MyToons is proud to announce our brand new Digital Portfolio System – available now to all MyToons members! We have created this robust system to give you complete control over how you present yourself and your portfolio to the world.

So what’s this new Digital Portfolio System all about?

The MyToons Digital Portfolio System allows you to easily edit your portfolio:
* Personalize a pre-designed layout, or create one from scratch
* Perfect with customizable drag and drop widgets – no HTML needed
* Add HD and SD animation, artwork, music, photos, games, comments and more- it’s a piece of cake!

Endlessly create, tweak, add, or subtract from your portfolio page – even save a variety of layouts to choose from whenever your mood or the season changes!

Note: For those of you who have put a lot of work into your old page design and aren’t ready to let it go….No worries- you can get to that information. To get back to that layout, just type “/old/” before your member name like this: mytoons.com/old/userername. You can then transfer the elements of your previous design over to your new layout, save, and use it whenever you want!

The Digital Portfolio System is now in Beta, so, as always, we would love some feedback. Find a small bug or have a feature suggestion? Feel free to let us know!
To get started, check out the Quick Start Guide.