Cartoon Network Interactive

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A Brief Exchange
With Xeth Feinberg

Ed, Edd n Eddy

1999-2009

Xeth Feinberg is an independent animator most working in Flash animations who was a writer for the first Ice Age film. Working in Icebox.com for the first online web shows like Queer Duck or Hard Drinkin' Lincoln, I taked to him for questions.

February 22, 2014 and February 23, 2014

JXP: hello mr. feinberg. i am a big fan of your work and i would like to ask you a few questions
   XF: eh? wha? huh? who? I mean, thanks...

 

JXP: You worked on Ice Age. Correct?
   XF: yes, for a brief time, in the Story Dept.

 

JXP: How long have you been an animator?
   XF: Goes back about a decade and a half I guess. Hows about you? You were/are at cn?

 

JXP: I'm trying to be the best cartoonist I can be and maybe do some future revivals in the far future like Secret Squirrel.
   XF: Well good luck. Everyone needs a dream... even if it's reviving Secret Squirrel. I recall he had a nice hat/eye cover thing.

 

​

JXP: Back to you, you were a flash animator. You worked on Queer Duck for icebox.com starring Jim J. Bullock?
   XF: I was the director... I did all the art for QD.

 

JXP: What was it like working with Jim J. Bullock? How did you hire the actors? Did it cost you any money?
   XF: I wasn't actually involved with the casting or recording. It was done through the writer and the production company of the time. I designed and animated and directed. They got paid something, but people are willing to do a lot for a chance to get involved with something that might pan out.

 

JXP: Why did they decide to make a Queer Duck movie?
   XF: They thought it might pan out!It basically ended up being a victim of corporate scheming and less than good luck, as far as being seen goes. That's showbiz (as you know or will learn!)

 

JXP: Why airing it on Showtime? How come the movie didn't air?
   XF: I don't know. The rights to QD were ultimately owned by Viacom and what they did with it was out of my hands. It came out of DVD, etc.

 

JXP: You did work on Cartoon Sushi?
   XF: I got a few early things on... just before the show was canned. You ask many questions, my friend.

 

JXP: It's for my cartoon website. I ask cartoonists some questions; so I can gather information. Plus, it helps me with my art skills from knowing how it's done by professionals
   XF: That's cool. I like your name... sort of like "Einstein DiVinci"

 

JXP: Was Icebox.com your first gig on animation?
   XF: I went to your youtube page. Well, I really just started doing my own animation... BULBO was an early character. I had a batch of various gigs before that... but Icebox was a good break, while it lasted. You just try to make things and get them seen and go from one thing to the next, pretty much.

 

JXP: Thanks for going to my youtube page. What do you think? [Note: this interview took place years ago back when my channel had some gosh-awful quality mouse drawn cartoons.]
   XF: Well, I support you just going on and doing what you do. The art is obviously very primitive. Seven minutes is an eternity to watch, sometimes. But there are endless paths forward. I'm just xeth feinberg, not seth macfarlain so whaddoiknow?

 

JXP: Surprisingly, being an animator, you hardly work on projects now a days. Why?
   XF: I've been doing assorted web animation production gigs mostly lately... I don't really promote that sort of work as my own even if I do a lot to pull the projects together. Several shows for SHUT UP Cartoons for instance. And admittedly, after ten years or so my interests and ambition has changed. I have some new personal creative projects floating around and with any luck hopefully some of them will get a bit noticed, or at least done. Sometimes I find it as rewarding to make a quick comic as a whole animation. This is one of them: http://hardwoodcomix.tumblr.com/

 

JXP: Have you ever worked for TV cartoons?
   XF: No. Never got there.

 

JXP: How come you dont work for TV? only web? is TV too much for you?
   XF: Well, in my experience TV is mostly about working on somebody else's show at their studio, if you're lucky. When I've had the choice I was more interested in being an independent animator. It is much harder now (to make any money at it) but for a while it was easier to get noticed and have control by doing your own work... which often lead to other opportunities. For better or worse, though the technology has never been easier it is harder today to stand out... or to get paid when you are competing with a million cat videos uploaded every minute. For instance, I worked at Blue Sky and at Icebox because people first saw my own stuff online.

 

JXP: Well, Bill Burnett and Larry Huber worked together to make Chalkzone. Donovan was fresh out of college and came up with 2 Stupid Dogs at the very last minute when Hanna Barbera bought it. Joe Murray turned his poor comic into Rockos Modern Life. Why can't you do the same? Pitch a tv show to a channel and have other people work at your command?
   XF: I've pitched. I've networked. I still do. But the landscape is always changing. For every guy you mention above there are a zillion who didn't get their show going. I know some great artists and talents who have toiled away for years on hit shows... even they can't make what they want happen. But I'm not being defeatist... just a realist. Sometimes you can spend all your time pitching shows to executives and end up forgetting to make cartoons or art you might have done otherwise. That is actually a common thing in the industry I think (and actually something I also did more than I should have perhaps.) Of course, the ultimate other direction is somebody like Bill Plympton. Who has always just made his own stuff and charted his own course.

 

JXP: Bill Plympton also guest animated for an episode in Chalkzone on Nickelodeon. He animated the 1950s chalk drawings and the couples; Pompo and Dora [voice of Jess Harnell and Kath Soucie]. First recognition of that artist.
   XF: He's done a lot of things. But it all comes from him doing his own thing first. Of course, nobody can duplicate anybody else's situation, talent, luck or history.

 

JXP: Would it be possible if you helped animate a project for me because i'm in need of new hands.
   XF: I'm sorry, AM, I really do have too much on my hands already.

 

JXP: That's ok. Some other time then. What animation projects are you working on now?
   XF: Some flash and aftereffects production gigs and some still in the works personal stuff. But not ready to babble about.

 

JXP: Did you do a voiceover for a project once?
   XF: I do voices and music when I can. That's part of what makes animation fun.

 

JXP: Can you do impressions?
   XF: I guess it depends!

 

JXP: Like a William Shatner, George Takei, Chris Walkin voice mimic type of thing...
   XF: Not those in particular...

 

JXP: Ever composed music?
   XF: I do some stuff...

 

JXP: Cool. Working hard on my goals.
   XF: Good luck with it!

 

JXP: What do you think about that?
   XF: I dunno.

 

JXP: I hope I do good.
   XF: It's fairly impossible to predict how anything will play out. You can only do the best you can and hope others want what you are doing.

 

JXP: Let's hope for the best.
   XF: Lemme know how it progresses.

 

 

-After which, my chat with Xeth Feinberg ended since I got disconnected.