A Free Frederator Silkscreen.

Want a free skilkscreen overstock print? Just write to alex@frederator.kz.

In January 1997, my assistant Stephanie and I launched Frederator in a giant conference room in LA's car parts capitol, North Hollywood. Our friend, the great artist Arlen Schumer (of the Dynamic Duo Studios) volunteered to interpret our namesake (I told him it was Gigantor, though it was really a pet name from my wife). My long term obsession with Frank Kozik's brilliant reinvention of the modern rock poster led our other friend, artist Patrick Raske, to come up with a silkscreen color scheme, which we then had hand printed in Michigan. We sent out a numbered edition of a few hundred, and the overprinting went into storage.

So, here's your chance for the only officially sanction, bona fide, hand screened, Frederator collectible. Just drop an email to alex@frederator.kz, and as long as supplies last, we'll send one out right away.

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.

Oh Yeah! Cartoons. Postcards, Series 5.

Shhh. Don't tell.

In the next few days, we'll be announcing a call for submissions for the 4th season of Oh Yeah! Cartoons, the original series that launched Frederator Studios in 1998. That's right, what some have called "the American Idol of cartoons" is coming back with the production of 39 7-minute shorts.

Starting in the early 90s our artist/creator based shorts have been the starting point for the greatest stars of the new generation of animation (Genndy Tartakovsky, Craig McCraken, Butch Hartman, Rob Renzetti, Carlos Ramos, Bob Boyle, among dozens of others). We have no doubt that when you submit your new ideas, you'll be one of those new stars.

As to the postcards above: Carlos Ramos designed the OY! logo. Sam Steinberg (center) was one of the unsung 'outsider' artists of the 1970s.

Click here to see all our Frederator card series from the past seven years.