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The response around the web is expected – venom mixed with sadness – but from where I sit, that’s less animation jobs and I never like to report on that. I hope everyone up there finds work soon and congrats on a great run.

For more on Fatkat, read our interview with founder Gene Fowler, who is reportedly starting a new studio called Loogaroo.

Last week, Seth MacFarlane, the creator of Family Guy and American Dad, was on The Howard Stern Show on Sirius Satellite Radio to promote The Cleveland Show. The conversation eventually steered towards Stern’s own latent cartoon ambitions. You see, back about 5 years ago, Stern was cooking up a series for Spike titled Howard Stern: The High School Years. Well into development, Howard ran into some budget problems. Spike reportedly wasn’t interested in paying $800,000 or a million per episode for traditional animation – ala Family Guy – so they started down the Flash route, or what Stern calls “cheap shit animation.” In last week’s interview, MacFarlane remarked on this production choice and subsequently pissed all over Flash (listen here – around 8:00):

There’s something so sanitized when they do it with Flash. There’s still no machine that can substitute for hand drawn. Some people like it. I have the same visceral reaction that you do. It just feels very cold.

To illustrate how ridiculous this comment is, I direct your attention to a Flash-animated project – one that MacFarlane may recognize:

How cold! How sanitized! The animators must have been replaced by robots! That was Up Late With Stewie & Brian, which was produced in Flash by Flinch, Zeek and Fatkat back in 2007.

There’s not accounting for taste, as it’s a personal thing, but Seth has bumbled into the same old mistake so many others have made – he blamed bad painting on the brush. It’s quite apparent that Seth hasn’t seen the volumes of excellent work produced with the Flash thoughtout the years. Go watch Superjail! or some of the work we highlighted in the Flash Animation 10, and you’ll agree it’s not the tool that’s sanitizing anything.

You can actually see the test Stern is referring to. In November of 2003, Mark Marek met with Stern and subsequently produced some animated tests, hoping to land the directing gig. He posted the results on his site, which don’t look all that bad to me.

Big thanks to Dave Redl (Family Pants) for the story tip.

The show, which features 3 Kung-Fu teens who deliver fresh food and fists of fury, features a traditionally animated look, which isn’t the common approach for TV series produced in Flash.

Here’s short clip from an episode:

These clips below are selected action and effect shots from the production, animated by folks like Jon Lambe, Melanie Albert, Matt Taylor, Jeff Davis and Neven Nesic, and overseen by Robert Keith Anderson, one of the animation supervisors.

Click on the thumbnails below so see some background layouts from the series production:

Lastly, let’s hear from some of the artists and production staff who worked out of the Miramichi-based studio:

It’s a rare occurrence to be able to animate in a traditional style in Canada in a Flash environment, and I find that it forces me to apply all the art and animation techniques I’ve learned over the years.
-Tavis Silbernagel – Director, Three Delivery, Fatkat

Anything worth doing in life is hard and this show is no exception. Long days, cold nights, the hard but worthwhile fights. At the end of the day it all comes together with final picture and sound and you pick yourself up off of the dirty floor and shake off the discarded candy wrappers that you used as a blanket and say, “yes, that’s the show we wanted to make.”
-Robbie Anderson – VP of Production, Fatkat

Three Delivery has been one of the best opportunities I’ve had in the animation business to do something truly different. The characters are believable and easy to sympathize with and the artwork doesn’t follow the usual rules of geometric shapes and bright colors.
-Alan Foreman, Art Director, Three Delivery, Animation Collective

Three Delivery is proof that you can traditionally animate an entire long format series in flash, and that you can do it here in North America with studios like AC and Fatkat.
-Gene Fowler, President, Fatkat

At least 5 of the series have committed to using Flash in their production pipeline:

Chinatown Cops
Portfolio Entertainment
A crime wave has hit Chinatown, enshrouding everything from the mom and pop laundromat to the dim sum restaurant in a dangerous veil of crime and corruption. Sadly, nobody cares but Officer Jay Walker and his partner Rick Xia (“Shaw”): sexy, sensitive super cops of the Chinatown beat. They will brave any danger and suffer any humiliation to inflict their specialized brand of Ginseng Justice in order to save their home from the talons of mysterious new crime queen-pin, Honey Moon.

Fugget About It
9 Story Entertainment Inc
It’s hard for a quick-tempered goodfella who’s used to always getting his way to settle for suburban life in Canada. Powerful New York under-boss, Jimmy Falcone and his family try unsuccessfully to fit in the suburban life in the witness protection program in sleepy Oakville Ontario.

Space Knights
Fatkat Animation
Space Knights is a parody of super hero cartoons of the late 90’s. A group of slightly outdated superheroes who drive Honda Accords that when linked together, can transform into a variety of giant robots, from a pterodactyl, to a giant T-Rex, to a saber tooth tiger, the Space Knights use these and other powers to stop a never ending stream of bizarre creatures and insane villains. The irreverent comedy follows the misshapen adventures of the crime fighting team who must battle bickering and in-fighting almost as much as the external foes they face.

Ninjamaica
Lenz Entertainment
With a cutting edge graphic look and a creative team made up of hot new comedians and musicians, Ninjamaica melds animated action adventure with biting comedy and a bumping musical soundtrack. An amnesiac Rasta with extraordinary fighting powers and an insatiable appetite sets out to rebuild his memory and reclaim his life, all while dodging bullets from his many enemies and possibly making time for a Twinkie.

Nunchucks
Fresh TV Inc
Ninjas are everywhere, from housewives to school janitors and even nuns. NUNCHUCKS follows the amazing adventures of Sister Mary O’Lary and Sister Catherine Fitzgerald, two undercover ninjas posing as nuns at the impoverished St. Pius X Convent. Between fighting injustice, drooling over the hot instructor at the new karate dojo and dodging the pious sister Anne Sheppard, things get complicated for the girls.

Joel Trussell, the brilliant designer and artist from Tennessee was featured in the Metro Pulse, the Knoxville weekly. They discuss his recent short for Yo Gabba Gabba!, his rise to web fame with War Photographer, and his fear of Flash games. Click here to read.

Tom Neely, who was featured here in 2005 for his Muffs music video, has been having one helluva year. His graphic novel The Blot has found a great deal of critical success, then the Black Maria Gallery in Glendale put on a one-man show, titled Self Indulgent Werewolf, of his painting and sculptures. Even in his still work, Neely can’t help but animate. Click here to read his interview at the LAist.

Gene Fowler, the top dog at Fatkat, won BDC’s (Business Development Bank) Young Entrepreneur Award for New Brunswick. The press release features a brief interview with Fowler. Click here to read.

There’s also been some echoes of a Flash-related dust-up that started over at Cartoon Brew.

Pete Emslie continues to berate Flash as the cause of bad animation.

And John Kricfalusi posted a thoughtful reply to Emslie and claims that if it’s Overseas vs. Domestic Flash – he’ll take Flash any day.

Fatkat’s submission, Space Knights, is an animated parody of superhero shows from the 90′s like Disney’s Power Rangers. The Fatkat blog explains that the series would follow “the misshapen adventures of the crime-fighting team who must battle bickering and in-fighting almost as much as the external foes they face.”