Take a breath, relax, and have a laugh, twitterers and Twitter apostates. Comedy has got your number based on the March 20 premiere of “Twouble with Twitters,” produced by “SuperNews!” for Current TV.
As you watch “Twouble with Twitters,” consider animated content as part of a Web site, the way the comics are part of many publications. With the popularity of “The Daily Show” and its mix of news, satire, and laughs, smart, animated content could be quite a draw.
According to creator Josh Faure-Brac, the idea for the Twitter cartoon developed because “…last fall I started hearing a lot of co-workers talk about Twitter. I signed up for an account and soon realized I HAD to make a cartoon about it.” “SuperNews!” is a TV show Faure-Brac creates under contract for Current TV, he told me in an e-mail interview.
The SuperNews! team has grown to 12 people as they get ready to launch “a real deal half-hour show that will be on Friday nights at 10 p.m. with 10 episodes in the season,” said Faure-Brac.
Faure-Brac’s career path sounds like a cartoon slacker. He lived in Petaluma, Calif., dropped out of junior college and spent his twenties “skateboarding, playing in bands and working crappy jobs.”
He found his audience by moving his work to the Web. “I thought I’d attempt to be the next Gary Larson, Berkeley Breathed or Bill Watterson. I got no responses from my samples. I moved to L.A. about 10 years ago, taught myself to make rudimentary animations and slowly built a career as a writer working pretty much exclusively in animation.”
Editorial cartooning needs a boost. The 3-7 minute cartoon form that includes an embeddable player so you can place it into any page online could be one kind of boost.
Asked about syndication, Faure-Brac replied, “As far as branding and syndication, I think you have to talk to some suits about that.”
The technical details, are simple, Faure-Brac said: “‘SuperNews!’ is animated mostly in Flash. Sound design in Pro-Tools then boo-yaa: TV show!”
