Preview, The Frederator Postcards book.

Well, we've gone and done it. Frederator's first major book will be released early this summer, titled Original Cartoons. The Frederator Studios Postcards 1998-2005. You can click here for a low-resolution, not-quite-proofed PDF preview.

We started releasing postcards with each of the original Oh Yeah! Cartoons shorts in mid-1998. It seemed like a great way of giving each creator and his idea a personal nod, rather than the lumping together of an anthology series. Each of the three seasons (1998, 1999, and 2002) had a unique feel, and taken together, the 80 or so cards got a great reaction from the public that received them.

Frederator set up a New York office with partners Emil Rensing and Travis Pomposello, and we thought it would be fun to do a non-cartoon postcard series. Our friends, the great designers Sean Adams and Noreen Morioka, and their studio Adams-Morioka, were given complete carte blanche on the 2003 series of 24 cards. The results speak for themselves, with a wide range of fun styles, adding photography as a major graphic element.

The last three years have been those behind-the-scenes kind of times: putting My Life as a Teenage Robot into production, setting up a fourth season of Oh Yeah! Cartoons, the establishment of Bolder Media for Boys & Girls (with partner Susan Miller), and starting Bob Boyle's Wubby Widget, and Walden for Nick Jr. We were getting bored with nothing to send out, so Series 5 came just in time at the end of 2004, and they'll be out in the mail for the rest of the year. Just keep watching your mailboxes.

The book will also include assorted posters we've released over the last eight years, interviews, and essays.

I'd like to give some kudos to my co-editor and colleague Eric Homan. Eric started as a cell cleaner at Hanna-Barbera (really), his first job at Frederator was as producer of these postcard series, and he's become the best development executive a producer could hope to work with. Thanks Eric.

Let us know what you think. There's still time to make a few changes around the edges. Hope you enjoy it.