Founded in 2003 by Jerry Beck and Amid Amidi, Cartoon Brew has run continuously as an animation news publication for over two decades. In 2025 the founders sold it to Jamie Lang, who now owns and edits the site. That kind of generational handoff is rare for a niche trade outlet, and it raises an obvious question about continuity, but nothing in the record suggests the editorial mission has shifted. A single experienced editor taking the helm is a cleaner transition than a corporate buyout would have been, and Cartoon Brew comes out of the change still covering what it always covered.
Animation news coverage
The remit is animation broadly defined: animated film and television, shorts, VFX, CG, the VR and AR fringe, and the software and tools artists actually use. If a studio announces something, a festival hands out a prize, or a box office number lands, Cartoon Brew tends to have it. The format mix includes breaking news, exclusive trailers and clips, interviews with directors and artists, awards tracking, and box office reports. There is also a steady thread of commentary on artist rights, which distinguishes the site from outlets that just relay press releases. That editorial point of view is one of the more useful things about it.
Global reach across regions
The geographic spread is wider than you would expect for a specialty publication. North America is well covered across Los Angeles, New York, the Bay Area, Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto. European reporting reaches London, Paris, Spain, Ireland, and Germany. Japan and China both get attention on the Asia side. For anyone tracking the field beyond the Hollywood feature pipeline, that spread is the difference between a regional blog and something closer to a working global record.
Festival reporting and reviews
Festivals are clearly a priority. Annecy, the centre of gravity for the art form internationally, gets sustained attention throughout the year, and Cartoon Brew follows animation strands at broader events like Sundance as well. Festival reporting reads as routine until you try to find it elsewhere and discover how few outlets actually send anyone or file detailed dispatches. The on-the-ground coverage surfaces work that has not yet found distribution, which is the part of the site that ages best in the archives.
Critical assessments of films
A separate reviews section carries critical assessments of animated features and shorts. Plenty of industry sites stop at announcements and never put a stake in the ground on whether the work is any good. Having actual criticism alongside the news gives Cartoon Brew something to argue with its readership about, and it reflects an editorial willing to judge rather than just relay.
Audience and newsletter delivery
The readership is wide but coherent. Working animators and studio executives use Cartoon Brew as a trade paper. Students and historians treat it as a reference and an archive. Enthusiasts read it because there is nowhere comparable that takes the medium this seriously across both commercial and independent work. A newsletter handles delivery for people who would rather not check the homepage, and a tip-submission form lets readers feed the newsroom directly. Advertising placement is available through a dedicated page, which is the ordinary business model for a free trade publication.
Editorial contact methods
On contact, the picture is plain. A contact page routes messages to the editorial team, and a separate suggest form handles tips. No phone number or street address is listed, and email is routed through the form rather than printed openly, which is sensible for any newsroom. For a publication of this type, both routes are present and functional.
Industry standing and credibility
Cartoon Brew carries no star ratings or review counts from third-party platforms, and that is expected: nobody leaves a Yelp review for a news site. What does exist is more useful. Wikipedia references Cartoon Brew as a long-running animation news source. TV Tropes lists it among the best in its category. Discussion on Reddit consistently treats it as a central hub for industry coverage. Those mentions accumulate over years of consistent work and say more about standing than any rating widget.
The 2025 ownership change is the one open variable. A founder-led publication keeps its character partly through the people who built it, and a sale always raises the possibility of drift in tone or priorities. Nothing in the published record points to that having happened, and the editorial output of Cartoon Brew through the transition looks continuous. Still, it is the thing a long-time reader would watch over the next year or two.
Two decades of uninterrupted animation coverage, genuine international scope, a critical reviews section that most trade outlets skip, and a clear editorial stance on industry issues: Cartoon Brew holds an unusual position in this corner of media. The festival dispatches and the reviews section are the parts that repay close reading. The newsletter is the practical way in, and the suggest form is the line to the newsroom if you have something worth filing. On the strength of the record, Cartoon Brew is the publication that covers this field with genuine depth and a long enough track record to be reliable.
