Joe Murray raises $18k for Frog in a Suit animation

Joe Murray, creator of Nickelodeon’s Rocko’s Modern Life and Cartoon Network’s Lazlo’s Camp has raised over $18,000 from direct funding through Kickstarter to start a new animated series called Frog in a Suit for a new website/portal he’s creating called KaboingTV.com. The site is envisioned to be for independant animation projects.

Describing his project and need for funds, Joe writes:

TV animation is going through a transitional time right now. That said, I feel the cartoon fan and the creators of cartoons need an alternative distribution outlet that takes the next wave of animation directly to the audience, complete with audience interaction with the artists who make the cartoons. So I want to launch KaboingTV.com. A home for quality, cutting edge cartoons and animation on the web, and a “free range” and ethical environment for the artists who make them.

In order to keep KaboingTV and my first series on the channel “Frog in a Suit” as independent as possible, I’m trying to produce the first episodes without outside funding with strings attached. Its also my wish to have you the audience, plus fellow animators be my producers rather than funding sources that don’t love cartoons as much as you do.

The first series out of the gate is my Rocko’esque insane neurotic animated comedy “Frog in a Suit”. I have already completed the first episode with my own money, and am working to finish two more 3 minute episodes. The money raised on this site will go to the completion, mostly putting outside animators to work with the final animation and color styling. I will not be using any of the money for any of my own labor or expenses, which include writing, storyboarding, animatic, voice directing and post production work. If and once funding is complete, it will be a matter of months where I can launch the site and begin to pull enough traffic to bring in advertising and sponsors. As you know, through kickstarter.com, if funding is not fulfilled in the allotted time ( in my case 45 days) the project won’t get funded. I will take that as a nudge that maybe the time is not right for this.

Now that funding is secured, Michael Jantze’s studio will be involved in the animation.