MyToons: Showcase Art/Cartoons/Animation On The Web

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2007

MyToons is the type of website that hits close to home for me. Back in the 90’s in middle school, I was a cartoonist and created a comic called Hugh.

It wasn’t really published or anything, but I just distributed it to students around my classroom… The teachers got mad at me for distracting other kids.

I think one of the reasons why students couldn’t get enough of it was because it had a little bit of toilet humor and I personified things like the toilet, shower, mirror, etc.

Lincoln Peirce, the creator of Big Nate featured my comic for a day on Janaury 30, 1997. I had family friends in India calling me to tell me that they saw my cartoon. For a middle schooler, things like this felt great. Here is the cartoon:

Shortly after that, I was introduced to the world wide web and then got into it. Cartooning as a hobby began to diminish for me. Viewing HTML source code and creating my own websites was my new hobby.

Back to talking about MyToons… What is MyToons? MyToons is the place for animators to showcase their work. Like the website mentions, its for “seasoned industry pros to rabid animation fans” and also for that middle schooler drawing cartoons on their free time searching for new ways to promote their work.

To become an active user, there are a few necessary steps. Since the service is still in Beta, you have to sign-up for an invitation to the homepage. Once and if you get the invitation, then you register. The registration forms are all AJAX and scroll as you go through each step.

Users prove that they are humans and then are eligible to upload artwork. So, what can users upload? Artwork and animation. Artwork file types: JPGs, GIFs, and PNGs. Animation file types (after installing the ToonUp plug-in): most video file formats.

There is a messaging feature and users can add friends. Users can join sort through most viewed, top rated, most discussed, recent uploads, and categories of animation. Users can also browse through similar categories for artwork. Once logged in, users can also browse people by most discussed, recently joined, random people, and browse through their own friends. Lastly, users can also browse through most discussed, recently created, random groups, categories of groups, and look within their own groups.

Every video and artwork has tagging features as well to make it easier to browse within groups. Here is a screenshot of the tagging features. After that, users can decide whether they want their artwork to be public and whether it is for mature audiences or not. Then you reveal your secret sauce; the way you designed the artwork. For example, what software you used or whether you hand-drew artwork with pencil and paper.

After your artwork is uploaded, users can critique your work. MyToons also utilizes profile picture features (aka avatars) as well. Mine is an M&M that resembles my physical appearance.

I am definitely looking forward to MyToons opening to the public and I encourage people to showcase their art. MyToons is the artists’ paradise.

Although I do not have the detailed information regarding the founders of the company, but I did find on Mashable that the President, CEO, and co-founders’ name is Paul. Another feature is that “You can embed ANY animation from mytoons.com into ANY site that allows it. Just look on the ‘Share’ button, just below the player. You can embed in three different sizes, with the best player in the industry. Take a look!” mentioned Paul.