Unfortunately, today’s programming just isn’t the same anymore and animated TV classics are sometimes hard to come by. Before you go out and buy expensive DVD box sets of your favorite toon series, you can still relive your childhood days free of charge thanks to the Web.

There are plenty of great resources available online for free streaming cartoons. Nothing beats the classics! Let’s find out how to watch them again online.

ToonJet — Merrie Melodies, Felix the Cat, & More

ToonJet is one of the best websites to watch classic cartoon TV shows. If you’re looking for a lot of Tom and Jerry, Woody Woodpecker, Merrie Melodies, Looney Tunes, and much more, this is the place to go.

The site offers live streaming marathons of cartoons via Livestream. Don’t like what’s playing? Check out the Featured section for tons of videos to watch anytime you like.

Internet Archive — Betty Boop & Popeye

The Internet Archive offers a great collection of classic cartoon TV shows all the way from the 1930’s and 1940’s. Its Film Chest of vintage cartoons includes everything from obscure characters to animation legends like Popeye and Betty Boop.

Each video includes the title of the animation, a short description, and other information like directors, producers, and production companies. Not only can you watch the classics, you can also download them! Just look for the movie files and download as Ogg Video, 512Kb MPEG4, or DivX.

The cartoons may be old, but don’t worry about the quality. According to Internet Archive, all of the videos have been transferred from original 35 film prints and digitally remastered.

Kids WB — Looney Tunes, Jetsons, Flintstones, Tom & Jerry

I’ll always remember watching Kids WB on Saturday mornings and on weekdays right after getting home from school. Thankfully, the now online network boasts an impressive lineup of full episodes available for your viewing pleasure.

There’s over 30 episodes each of Looney Tunes, The Flintstones, and The Jetsons. Other shows include The Smurfs, Scooby-Doo, ThunderCats, and Tom and Jerry.

Batman fans should definitely not miss out on Kids WB’s DC Beyond site, which offers loads of episodes from the superhero’s cartoon series. Also, be sure to check out the Kids WB on SlashControl for additional free episodes and clips.

Hulu — Rocky and Bullwinkle, Speed Racer & More

While Hulu’s Animation and Cartoons channel is mostly full of modern stuff, there are some classics in the mix. Some of the cartoon series featured include Woody Woodpecker (new), Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, The Pink Panther, and Speed Racer.

Can’t find your favorite cartoon? Your best bet would be to search YouTube for clips and maybe even full episodes if you’re lucky. It’s the only place I’ve been able to find old Nickelodeon shows online.

Where do you go to watch classic cartoon tv shows? What are some of your favorites? Let us know in the comments.

Image Credit : Walt Wabsco

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Creaza is a web based tool designed for learners and educators. But spend a few moments with it and you realize that Creaza has scope beyond that. All of it underlined with fun.

What if I gave you four tools that inspire creative, fun ideas – a mindmapper, a cartoon creator, a movie editor and an audio application and asked you to let loose your creativity. I am sure you could come up with a lot of creative and fun ideas. That’s the canvas Creaza gives you to play around with.

Creaza is a suite of four apps for making planning, creating and publishing digital content, or for the fun of it, let’s say digital stories. The four creative apps are :

Mindomo – Organize Your Thoughts

The first step for any creative process is the organization of thoughts or ideas. That’s why you need to start with a mind mapping tool. Mindomo is a Flash based mind mapper. Like any other mind mapping application, you start with a central idea and branch it out to associated ideas, linking them to each other with relationship connectors.

Mindomo is a simple but rich mind mapper which lets you add images, hyperlinks and symbols to beautifully render your thought process on screen. Like a versatile mind mapping utility, it lets you select from a variety of map style and layouts.

Cartoonist – Artwork for Your Thoughts

The hard work of putting your ideas into shape starts with the cartooning tool. Cartoonist is a simple tool with a very short learning curve. The first step lets you select your cartoon theme from the eight provided. For instance you can go for a Manga look or take the one which resembles the classic cartoons of the past. Each theme comes with its own characters, backgrounds and props.

Combine all the artwork in the cartoon editor. You can tell a whole story using sequential cartoon slides. Change the mood of the characters with a single click, change day into night, give the characters dialogues using speech bubbles or do a bit of freehand drawing – just some of the things your creativity can play around with.

The inbuilt player lets you playback the frame where each frame gets displayed for four seconds. You can print out the work or show it on the web.

AudioEditor – Sound Bytes for Your Thoughts

Podcasts have made listening to audio clips cool. The AudioEditor lets you do just that. Make your own audio clips, edit uploaded clips on the timeline or record sound and re-use it, the editor lets you do all that. The audio application also comes with a library of default clips and sound effects.

MovieEditor – Motion Clips for Your Thoughts

If a cartoon is not realistic enough for your story, move to the MovieEditor. The MovieEditor has the same feel and look as other online movie editors (except that it starts with two themes). The Library hold many default video clips as well your own uploaded bits, the Timeline where you drag film, sound, or music clips, as well as your still shots and arrange them into your final movie, and finally the Media Window is the inbuilt player to see how things are shaping up.

Sound effects and special effects have their place on the timeline. The provided media clips might not stretch your story, but the editor gives you the option of uploading your own.

Creaza gives us lots of flexibility to make our own multimedia shows. There are some limitations like the free membership on Creaza entitles us to only 25 MB of storage space for personal media files. But even that’s sufficient for publishing a few stories. The only minus is that the finished product can be shared through a URL – there’s no provision to export it as a finished Flash file.

The full version though opens up many more import and export options for the multimedia content and provides more themes.

Creaza is mostly geared as a teaching aid. The free tools make it easy to translate ideas through easier to understand multimedia presentations.

For instance, take a few cartoons or a video clip and put together a small show on global warming. The cartoon strips can be used to explain anything from eclipses to ethics.

The web application also seems to have collected some recognition for itself as a teaching aid. But its possibilities are limited only by the word we started our post with – creativity.

What uses can you put this tool to? Let us know in the comments.

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I used to draw them when I was at school a few years ago. Mostly just little characters with funny expressions when I should have been doing physics or French or something.

So the other day I had an idea for my new blog; I’d start a weekly web comic. Why not? People like them, they’re fun to make, more memorable than an average post and they keep people coming back when you post them on a regular basis.

But there were a couple of obstacles in my path when I considered how to make a web comic. The first one was that I hadn’t picked up a pencil in almost five years. The second one (and perhaps the bigger problem of the two) was that my scanner is currently out of operation. And what I mean by that is I lost the power cable and the adapter.  However, there really is no extreme need for a scanner if you’re only making a basic web comic.

So my first task. Draw my cartoon. I decided that I’d make my first strip a quick one using the same image three times. The joy of drawing cartoons is that they don’t have to be good. Just draw it big. Really big. An A4 page will make up one panel. Then, when you shrink it down and edit it a little your mistakes will become so miniscule they won’t matter. In fact, blemishes and bad effects add character to a drawing.

So I drew out my basic shapes and added some features to make a fat, round man sitting at a computer. It’s not perfect. His hands can even touch the keyboard for God’s sake but that’s what makes it a cartoon. Then I took a snap of it with my mobile phone and sent it to my PC via Bluetooth. This is what I got on my screen: not exactly the makings of a great cartoon (like if I’d had a scanner) but fully workable.

This is where technology works its magic. Send the drawing to a Photoshop program. I used Gimp because it’s free but you could also use Adobe or another program similar to that. If you need to brush up on your Photoshop skills I suggest reading MUO’s Idiot’s Guide to Photoshop.

The first thing we want to do in Photoshop is blow the picture up to 200%. This is normally found under the ‘Image‘ tab along the top of Photoshop programs. This is so the editing tools used later on will be more accurate. Then we want to highlight the different areas and separate the lines from the open spaces. To do this, lower the level of brightness and up the contrast like in the screenshot below.

This will give you red areas with deep black lines like they’ve been inked beforehand. Now it’s time to clean it all up. Using the eraser tool (on its largest setting) clean up all the spotty and blotchy areas from when I altered the brightness and contrast. Don’t try to be too perfect as you’ll be there for hours. Just get the big areas and the blemishes in noticeable places. All the bad areas will be further cleaned up as you go along and then made smaller when downsizing the image.Your image should look like this when you’re erasing all the blemishes.

Now that you’ve got all the main blemishes and marks removed, fill in the large areas with the colours and textures that you want. I chose to go with the simple ‘fill with colour‘ tool but you can use different brush styles and patterns to replicate hair, leaves, sky etc. It all depends on what style you want your drawing to be. Since I’ll be posting mine weekly to my blog I want to keep it simple so it won’t take up too much of my time.

When all of your main areas are coloured there will still be marks and the image won’t look good at all. No really I mean it, it won’t. Click ‘Save‘ and then open the file with MS Paint. The reason I’m using Paint to finish off the editing is because it has some good ‘line tools’ to make the objects look better and it’s easier to work with.

Your image should look much bigger in Paint. Use this opportunity to go around with the paint brush and fill in any missing details and white areas. Use the colour matching tool highlighted in the screenshot to the right to match the colour exactly.

Then use the line tools and the box tools to make regularly shaped objects look better. You can see how I made the table appear better by using the deep, bold lines but I’ve still left in some blemishes and crooked lines because that’s the style of my drawing.

If you’re going to use the same drawing in multiple panels like I did then select it with the cropping tool. When you have it selected, right-click on it and click ‘Copy’ and right click on the page and paste the drawing in again. Then move it into the next panel area.

Use the shape tools to add panels (don’t be afraid to experiment with different style panels – when they’re all the same it can get boring. It’s not a spreadsheet!). Finally, resize your image to a good size for your blog. Six hundred pixels wide is about the max you can hope for on the web.

The final task is to add captions and speech bubbles. You do this last because resizing text ruins it completely. Enter in the text where you want it to go in the panel. Then surround it with a shape which will form the basis of a speech bubble. Erase one of the corners, and by using two lines make a little point towards your character. You can used curved lines for this if you wish.

Here is my finished comic strip. Nothing fancy as it was largely just a test to see if I could do it.

It took me about 45 minutes from start to finish. It would have taken less if I had a scanner – that would have meant less cleaning up in the beginning.

Here are some tips for how to make a web comic on your PC:

• Make lines/shading bolder where there will be less light. I’ve done this on his back as the light from the computer screen doesn’t reach there. Do the opposite for where there is light – such as on Harold’s face in my cartoon.
• Be sure to blow your image up big in the beginning to make your tools more accurate.
• Always leave text until last.
• Experiment with different panel styles.
• Use textures in Photoshop to replicate water, sky, sand, wood etc…
• It’s okay to crop the one image and simply reuse it if you’re feeling lazy like I was.
• Make your character simple – you’ll have to draw him/her again and again – remember that!

Of course, if you have a drawing tablet you can simply draw it directly onto your PC and forget about all that cleaning up!

How do you manage to draw and produce your web comics?   Any tips you’d like to pass on?

Thumbnail Image Credit: atibens

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Sometimes, all I want to do is relax when I’m taking a break. One of the best ways, I find, to take a break while I’m writing is to entertain myself with one of my favourite freelancing shows, podcasts or cartoons. Yes, they exist. The guys at these freelance writing websites have turned their freelancing experiences into freelance gigs.

Freelance Freedom

This is a cartoon by N.C. Winters that I positively love. It’s published weekly on the homepage of FreelanceSwitch. Basically, it takes all the good, the bad, the misconceptions and daily grinding tasks of freelancing and rolls them into funny, often satirical comic strips. Perfect for a quick coffee break!

Hot For Words

This popular video podcast should not only interest writers but the nerdy and fact obsessed. Basically, it informs us of the origins of strange words which we may or may not use in the future. For example, did you know that clinophobia is a fear of going to bed?

The podcast is presented by an attractive, often scantily clad woman (maybe that’s why it’s so popular) who guides us through loads of cool words. This is a quick five minute break filler that makes you laugh, raise an eyebrow or just go “hmmm…”.

I Should Be Writing

This freelance writing website is a podcast presented by Mur Lafferty, a freelance writer. This is in audio format and gives the listener practical yet entertaining advice and insight into the world of freelancing and its many pitfalls.

The podcasts covers many different areas from the basics such as writing query letters to managing finances and organizing your workday to reach optimum levels for output. All in all, this is a good podcast if you have a while to spend listening to the musings of a seasoned veteran.

Write or Die

While this is considered a motivational tool to get writers writing, I think it’s a funny freelance writing website, and has loads of other uses such as beating your WPM record or just joking around.

Basically, it’s a word processor that times you when you write and keeps track of what you’re doing. If you slow down or stop writing for a while (i.e. you lay back and start spinning on your office chair, admiring the ceiling, etc) it will go red and redder  until some crazy, funky music starts playing and it tells you to get your fingers back on them keys! An easy to use, fun and perhaps even useful app for the procrastinating writer.

I hope that in some small, most likely insignificant way, I have cheered up a fellow freelancer somewhere who has just lost a contract, missed a deadline or is simply bored in their office waiting for an e-mail to come in and for the ball to start rolling after the weekend slump.

Warning: I take no responsibility for time wasted or deadlines missed due to your enjoyment of the above cartoon, app and podcasts!

What sites and apps do you look at on a regular basis in your freelancing breaks?

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What PimpTheFace lets you do is create a awesome face with their different body parts. You can create some really cool looking faces with this service. Drawing cartoon faces of someone is definitely a good way to kill a few hours.

Let’s take a look at how it works and then I will show you two videos on the service. First start off by browsing on over to PimpTheFace.

Once you are there, click on the paint splatter that says click here. Right after you click on that you will be pushed to a page with a Photoshop-esque editor. It might look intimidating at first but it is really quite easy to use and master.

You will see two columns on the left and one more on the right. One of those columns – the left most one, allows you to pick the body part out of the choices. This includes the head shape, hair, eyes, nose, mouth, facial hair and more.

The column closer to the middle is how you select which body part you want to add next. Select the top icon like you can see in the below screen shot. This is the faces outline or silhouette. Once you click on it, the items you can pick are on the left. Click on one of them and it will appear in the drawing window. If you want to change it simply select another icon. It will replace the one that is currently there – easy peasy.

In the above shot I added my silhouette and below you will see my head or dome type. I am really having fun with this – are you having fun yet?

Now you should have the hang of it. Once you see how it works it is pretty intuitive. Keep on adding facial items until you reach the bottom of the list and have a full face. You can go back and change any items you like until you have an image you love.  Here is the image I created in about 5 minutes.

After you are happy with your face you can let him travel the world in the form of adding backgrounds. You can do that by using this toolbar on the right: It allows you to save your face as well as print or store it online. You will need an account for these features. I just copied my face out.

Here is a video on creating a face with PimpTheFace:

And one more on how to draw President Obama using PimpTheFace.

We would love to see your creations! Post them up for us to see. Link to em’ or what ever you want but we can’t wait to see your creativeness! If you’re familiar with any other website offering easy tools for drawing cartoon like faces please let us know about them.

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Just like everything else she was only interested in it once or twice. So I have come to love the Internet for its ever changing content and have found several websites with preschool online games that my daughter visits daily and I am going to share them with you! Your kid will love you for it!

The first television show my daughter watched was on a channel we have in the United States called Noggin. Noggin has all the big shows like Dora The Explorer, The Backyardigans, The Wonder Pets and Lazy Town. For the really small ones you can run a program called Baby Smash on top of your browser to not let the baby change the page or mess with the web site. I wrote a post here about it.

There are loads more shows and they all have a mini-website built into Noggin. Each mini site contains lots of preschool online games and music as you can see below from Jack’s Big Music Show. You can see and listen to all this season’s music videos and there is a link to the last seasons videos as well.

Your kid (or you) can get lost on this page as well.

Next up on the same site is the Backyardigan’s mini-site which my daughter adores. There is all sorts of stuff, from video games to creative arts and crafts you can do at your home and even printables for parties and activities.

Next up to bat is the ever popular Sesame Street. Sesame Street has been around since I was a kid but we didn’t have an interactive website like this! Just like Noggin there are loads of games, videos and playlists. They also create a playlist for the day around a specific theme.

Below, the theme is “Guessing Day” others have been “Father’s Day” and “The Letter K”. You can get into the themed play list by hitting the green play button on the home screen after the flash intro plays. The playlist is made up of videos, games and more. If you have a really little one you will probably want to stick with the videos.

Each character has its own links. You can click on the Muppets link on the top to see the break down.

After clicking on any Muppet you will see a screen similar to the one for Elmo:

You can click on any of those links to videos, games or combo playlists all with the character of your choice!

What websites with preschool online games do you let your young ones play with? We would love to hear about them so my daughter will stop trying to find new ones on Google!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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One thing that I’ve learned over the years, is that anime is heavily underrated. A lot of people associate ‘BeyBlade’ and ‘Pokémon’, with anime – which it is, but anime includes so much more!

All kinds of stories exist in the anime world, both good and bad ones, serious and funny series, traditional and frotiering.

Today, we’ll take a look at a number of anime websites on the internet. These sites are, in our humble opinion the best anime sites on the internet for a particular site.

The Best Anime Info Site

How do you get to know new series? Through friends or family? Or perhaps via magazines. But there are also some great places on the internet to find information on anime. On these particular sites, you’ll be able to find plots, reviews, captures, and more on nearly all anime in existance.

So who do we think is the best anime information source, and why?

Anime News Network

The Anime News Network is one of the most complete sources of anime information.

Besides extended reviews and news articles, the site hosts in-depth information profiles exist for almost any anime you can possibly think of in their Encyclopedia and many anime trailers in their videos section.

You’ll also be able to find various lists here, like the most underrated or most viewed anime series.

Runner ups

These are also great sites, nominees for ‘The Best Anime Info Site’, but they did not win.

Anime-Planet

Also a nice place to get to know new anime. The site uses a ‘recommendation system’ to rate the anime series and also features a lot of reviews.

AnimeNFO

A big internet anime database, with all kinds of information on the anime series, characters, and such. You’ll also be able to find release dates, reviews and various lists.

The Best Place to Watch Anime Online

Once we know the good anime from the bad, we will – of course – go watch some of them. There are basically two ‘ways’ to do this.

The first one is to watch the anime online, in a web-player (youtube style). This allows you to watch anime the second you feel like it and is also better for your bandwidth. On the other side, watching anime online often results in poor quality, and all the bandwidth you put into it won’t allow you to watch it again another time.

ZOMGAnime

Anime That! is one of those websites. The website hosts tons of different anime series, and countless episodes and movies. If the anime you’re looking for can be viewed online, the chances are pretty good that you’ll find it here.

Though they’re hosted on some of the popular online video sites, the videos are streamed from within the site itself, in their own player. Loading times are decent and registration is not required.

New anime is added constantly, and there’s a forum for the socialisers among us. An anime top 100 is also available, so you can get ‘inspiration’ without leaving the site.

Runner Ups

These are also great sites, nominees for ‘The Best Place to Watch Anime Online’, but they did not win. Most of the runner ups are nearly as, or equally good as ZOMGAnime, because there isn’t much difference between these sites.

Anime Crunch

Anume Crunch is my second favourite one. Hosts tons of videos as well and doesn’t require registration. Streaming is pretty similar to ZOMGAnime.

Anime Fuel

Also a great site, and perfectly worthy as a runner-up. If there’s a video that you can’t find on the above sites, you can always take a look here.

The Best Anime Download Sites

Like said above, there are basically two ‘ways’ to get your hands on those anime series (DVD import and friends excluded). The first one was to to watch it online, like discussed above.

The second way is – obviously – to download the anime directly to your computer. This will most often result in great video and audio quality and allows you to watch it again, or after some time – hereby not wasting your bandwidth.

On the downside, the downloads can take a while (especially on computers with a slower internet connection), so you can’t click-’n-watch. Also, downloading the anime series to your computer will probably ask more of your bandwidth.

We will make another distinction in this category, between direct-download (also known as: DDL/HTTP) and torrents.

Zone Anime (DDL)

Zone-Anime is one of the biggest direct-download databases available. All download links are provided by the staff and website users, and the site requires no sign-up.

On one side, this explains the number of series available (over 600), but also because of this none of the files are available on the private server. About all downloads go through file hosting sites, like RapidShare or MegaUpload, which means that you’ll probably encounter waiting times. If you want DDL from a private server, check realityLAPSE in the runner ups.

You can browse through the anime by name, but also by genre, or by using search queries.

Next to anime series, you can also go to Zone-Anime for your daily dose of anime music and manga.

Runner Ups (DDL)

These are also great sites, nominees for ‘The Best Anime Download Spot(s) – DDL’, but they did not win.

realityLAPSE

My second favourite site to download anime. All the files are listed on a private server, though they have a much more limited collection and require registration. Several other limitations apply to free users, like slower downloads, and only one at a time.

Anime A

A wonderful site. It’s also pretty similar to Zone-Anime, as it doesn’t host anything private either, but has a somewhat more limited collection.

AnimeSuki (Torrent)

AnimeSuki shows a very complete listing of anime releases, gathered from tons of different trackers. If you can’t find it here, the chances are small that you’ll find it anywhere else.

You can either search the site for anime torrents, or browse through AnimeSuki’s releases or series.

Keep seeding the torrent after your download is completed to let other people enjoy as well.

Runner Ups (Torrent)

These are also great sites, nominees for ‘The Best Anime Download Spot(s) – Torrent’, but they did not win.

BoxTorrents

Another public anime tracker. Also hosts a great deal of torrents, but requires registration for advanced browsing.

DownloadAnime

You can expect to find about all anime releases here, but the site lacks advanced browsing. In short, a great site to discover and download new anime, but not so great if you’re looking for something very specific.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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With the rise of the internet came the ability for everyone and anyone to self-publish. ‘Webcomics’ is a term that came to refer to any cartoon published on websites and archives.

While many conventional cartoons are also published on websites like Comics.com, Webcomics developed a unique and definable style which differentiates them from print media comics.

To give you a sample of some popular Webcomics I’ve chosen just 5 which are my favourites. Don’t get too worked up over me omitting your favourite comic, it was hard narrowing it down and there were quite a few more I would have liked to put in.

Dinosaur Comics

Dinosaur comics is a WebComic that has also made itself into print media and a selection of strips have even been published in book form.

The format consists of just one set of 6 panels which contain exactly the same art each day but are accompanied by a different series of dialogue.

The characters consequently remain consistent throughout the series; T-Rex, Utahraptor and Dromiceiomimus. Occasionally other characters will interact with T-Rex but only through dialogue and stay off panel.

A Softer World

It’s hard to ever truly explain a Softer World. It’s humorous, sometimes, even when you’re not sure why. It’s thought provoking, which isn’t always a good thing and often it’s just plain disturbing.

Every strip contains three panels displaying one photograph by Emily Horne and several captions by Joey Comeau. It’s released three times a week and one book of selected comics have been published.

On the Softer World website hover your cursor over each cartoon for an additional sentence which often provides the text what could be a 4th panel.

Garfield minus Garfield

Barely 6 months old Garfield minus Garfield is already gaining rapid popularity and success and has been featured in numerous publications such as Time and Rolling Stone.

“Garfield Minus Garfield is a site dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle. It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb.”

In fact Garfield creator Jim Davis likes the idea so much he’s even publishing a book juxtapositioning the originals against the modified ones.

Garfield creator Jim Davis was intrigued by—and pleased with—the concept. “I think it’s an inspired thing to do,” Davis said. “I want to thank Dan for enabling me to see another side of Garfield. Some of the strips he chose were slappers: ‘Oh, I could have left that out.’ It would have been funnier.”

Possibly the first original idea to come out of Garfield for 20 years.

Gaping Void: Cartoons on the Back of Business Cards

I don’t really know if this is a ‘web-comic’ as such, it’s published on a website so that is good enough.

Hugh Macleod draws cartoons on the back of business cards and yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like.

In recent times he seems to have branched out a lot more and does giant squiggly patterns to sell to New Yorkers to hang in their apartments. He also wrote an incredible article on “how to be creative” which is one of the best pieces of writing I’ve read.

He posts his business card cartoons on his blog as well as his work in progress and his thoughts on technology and marketing in general.

ToothPaste for Dinner

A minimalist hand-drawn WebComic consisting of single self-contained panels which cover strange, ironic and surreal topics.

Do you know of any good webcomics that I have missed out that you would like to recommend? If so, post the URL in the comments and let us know why you like it! Or maybe you have your own webcomic you would like to show us?

(By) Laurence John was born naked, screaming and utterly helpless at some point in the last century. He currently blogs about heroic failures and the development of Windows 7.

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