Brad Graeber, one of the three Founder/Directors of Austin’s Powerhouse Animation, just released the 2nd installment in his ‘Captain Capitalism’ series. This Flash-animated episode, titled ‘Piggy Bank Pinko,’ visits a young boy with a vice-grip on his piggy bank. Captain Capitalism, ‘The Cold War’s Hottest Hero,’ intervenes with a hilarious monologue on the joys of spending.

The series is written, drawn and directed by Brad Graeber, and he has a little help from two Flash animators, Jason Williams and Jennifer Borrell Anderson. If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the first episode ‘To Bleep or Not To Bleep,’ and then hang tight for ‘Nightmare of a Red Christmas,’ which is due out in December. Then head on over the Captain Capitalism homepage for series news, Brad’s blog and the store.

Mark Fiore, a political cartoonist who is featured in the San Francisco Chronicle, The Village Voice and The Seattle Weekly, is also a prolific Flash animator. Cold, Hard Flash focused on his work back in June of this year, and I’d like to point you towards one of his more recent shorts, titled ‘GOPS’ a spoof of the hit reality show ‘Cops.’

Mark neatly and hilariously sums up the recent spate of indictments and legal troubles plaguing the all-powerful Republican party in the US. Enjoy!

Editor and Publisher Magazine recently published an article by Dave Astor titled ‘Animated Cartooning in a Flash.’ It’s a look into the growing field of political animation, an off-shoot of editorial cartooning. Two San Francisco-based cartoonists are featured – Mark Fiore and Don Asmussen.

Mark was once a staffer at the San Jose Mercury News, a place where he was once asked to ‘go easy on Bush.’ He’s now a featured artist on several newspapers’ websites, including the San Francisco Chronicle, The Village Voice and The Seattle Weekly. In the article, Fiore explains his new Flash-animated approach – “The same message, but less reading.” Fiore’s career was also examined in a USC online journal article by Mark Glaser titled ‘Can the Internet rejuvenate editorial cartooning?’ Here’s an interesting bit about Mark’s work week and rates:

…he’s been able to support himself doing one animation per week, and doing a small self-syndicated run to Working For Change, AOL, Village Voice, as well as SFGate and MotherJones.com. He charges about $300 per outlet per animation, and would like to add more outlets, without overexposing himself and having to lower his price.

You can see more of Mark’s work over at his website, and notice that he’s also selling his animated work on a DVD.

Don Asmussen has been regularly published in Time Magazine, The New Yorker and U.S. News and World Report. But back in 1999, Don got a call from the CEO of Mondo Media, John Evershed. What resulted was ‘Like, News,’ a Flash-animated show that supposes “what if Nightline was hosted by an irreverent teenager named Skeeter Dubois?” Mondo and Don ended up created dozens of episodes together, along with a little help from a few familiar names – Kenn Navarro and Michael Lipman, otherwise known as Lippy. Don continued his relationship with Mondo beyond ‘Like, News’ and you can see his more recent political cartoons on his website, dontoons.com.