The Indie Animation Boom Continues in 2022

In August of 2021, I wrote about the boom in indie animation, consisting of almost exclusively crowdfunded animations. Earlier this month, I expanded on that and wrote about various indie animations, specifically noting Hazbin Hotel and Wild Card which are in development. As storyboarder Amber Avara put it on January 7, “2022 is the year of sick indie animation, let’s make it happen!” Various creators are making it happen. Due to the number of indie animated series being produced, it is near impossible to mention all of them. Despite that limitation, this article will highlight over ninety indie animated series, giving you a snapshot into the existing boom of indie animation at the present time, with particular notice to those currently airing.

On January 27, the fourth episode of Gods’ School, a French indie animation about Olympian gods and Greek mythology, will air on YouTube. The series is created by one animator, Gaylord Cuvillier Philippe Libessart, on his own! In 2018, the series received support from the French National Center for Cinema and Animation, which gave Libessart the “opportunity to start the production and make the pilot episode.” The first episode aired in January 2019, telling the story of Eris, a goddess trying to find her place among gods and goddesses on Mount Olympus. Gods’ School has been described as having animation as “gorgeous as classic Disney,” and it is adorable, really cool, an addicting and amazing cartoon that should be more well-known, and praised for its talented voice cast. Some have drawn fan art of the show’s characters. As of the writing of this post, three episodes of the series have aired.

Other indie animated series currently airing include Wisdom Nunn’s Bob’s World, Vivienne Medrano’s Helluva Boss, and Nico Colaleo’s series, Ollie & Scoops. Helluva Boss also includes several LGBTQ characters: Blitzo is pansexual, Moxxie is bisexual, Stolas is gay or bisexual, and Sallie May is a trans woman. In the latter series, there was an episode in October 2020 centered around a teacher, Binnie, admitting she liked a fellow teacher, Wendy. Just as prominent is Eddsworld, a long-running animated series which began in December 2004. It continues to rack up millions of views on its YouTube channel, even with its Eddsworld Beyond season, which began in 2021 with Matt Hargreaves as a showrunner.

Additional currently airing series include the spy mystery series SCP Origins, where incompetent spies try and take down villains, an adult animated comedy named Nora and Zin, and an ongoing series named The West Patch which describes itself as “a dark look at the side effects of consequence-free children’s programing.” For the latter series, at present, there have been two episodes so far. There are spinoffs also like Space Triage and The Following Call. Also currently out for viewing are the Instagram clip show Ronzilla, an original animated web series in which all the characters are dolls with the name of Project Infinity, and a murder mystery series named The Marvelous Adventures of Danny DeComp. The majority of these series air on YouTube. This again makes clear the preference of the video sharing platform as a place to share series, making it even more popular than somewhere like Newgrounds.

In January of this year, non-binary Argentine artist, Moon, creator of the sci-fi series in development, Indigo, asked indie series creators to promote themselves. Many people responded. Georden Whitman shared news about his animated pilot in development, Port by the Sea, which focuses on two kids (Umi and Port) sailing the seas to “find pieces of their broken moon, before an ancient deity swallows the world in ocean.” Matt Acuña shared information about The Garden Age, a series in development focused on “cute bugs on their journey to stop a lawnmower from destroying their world.” Andre Grandpierre noted that he is developing Long Way from DelArte, an animated series about friends traveling around the world, in hopes of “achieving their artistic dreams.” Some said that they were developing hand-drawn animated films or animated series, all in distinct stages of development. [1] Of these creators, some had some prominence in the animation industry. For instance, Whitman is the creator of Nomad of Nowhere and Acuña is the Production Coordinator for Bob’s Burgers.

There is more “indie animated goodness,” as Whitman termed it. This includes series in development with a focus on magic and adventures like Warlocks of Wrath High, Century Park, True Tail, Stars Align, Wimp Witch, and Evelynne Doom. There are many other animated series in development. [2] One example is a series about a non-binary sheep who is making their way through high school titled Sheepish. Another is a cop buddy show between an ace cop and a succubus entitled Succubus Cop. Two others, Band of Mythix and Stellapie are action series, with the former a musical series as well.

In addition, Mugshot & Pollen is about two best friends hanging out, Starmakers, an action/adventure series, is about a bisexual girl named Astra who joins a guild and teams up with people to fight monsters after escaping those who want her as a “source of power.” There is a sci-fi, comedy, and horror series with the title The Heroes of Tomorrow and a series about wolves called Wolves of Cecila. It is one of the many wolf-related series out there, with those in development including Demon Soul, the concluded series All Lone Ones, and The Shadow Marked. An animated “homage to 8-bit retro gaming” named Bit Wars and a sci-fi series which may be released in June titled Monkey Wrench are just two more examples of potential upcoming indie animated series.

The creators of The Descendants said they would pitch their show this year. The series Lumi and the Great Big Galaxy had a fundraiser while the show was in pre-production. Amber Avara, mentioned at the beginning of this article, continued working on an indie anime named Nocturne, sharing information about the character, images of color tests, and character sheets with her followers. Alpha Betas is going ahead, according to its Twitter and listings on its YouTube page. It appears that Long Gone Gulch, by Tara Billinger and Zach Bellissimo, is also going onto the next stage of its development, either by submitting the pilot, or becoming an indie animated series beyond the pilot. It’s hard to know where Long Gone Gulch goes from here, whether it will stay on YouTube or end up on a major network.

The indie, adult murder mystery series about lawyers set in a Boston where “elite legal universities rule the legal system,” titled Wild Card, keeps moving forward. A pilot episode is in development and there was even a webcomic created on Line Webtoon to generate interest in the series and tell some stories using certain characters. The series’ official Twitter account, and additional social media accounts associated with the series, shared news, test animations, and music in the series. The show features LGBTQ characters like the show’s bisexual protagonist, Jack, based on show creator Alex Bahrawy (who is also bisexual), and a non-binary character. Some called the series, which has been in the works since 2016, “one of the coolest indie productions,” and “really cool.”

Since my last post, Cartoon Connect‘s series Little Ron Ron, Gotta Be Mo, Lumen, or Loyalty High have not been continued. He appears to be working on a new animated series called Kenny Quick, asking for voice actor auditions in November 2021. The same is the case for Brandon Wright – it looks like his animated series Silver Lin is unlikely to continue. The same appears to be the case for Guardian Instance. Despite this, Diver appears to be on track, as a video this month noted that a new episode was being developed. The Quickening, with a pilot airing in July 2020, and Ascendants, a series which appeared to be in development, are dead in the water. [3] While those shows may be ending, unless something miraculous happens, Howdy Cloudboy, a Western genre series with a main cast who are “all black lqbtq+ folks,” is being developed by a Black and Queer led studio named Faeduck Studios.

The Far-Fetched Show, created by Ashley Nichols and Dave Capdevielle, who both previously worked on Hazbin Hotel, has gone ahead. The official account put out a call for more animators and clean-up artists at the beginning of this year. Far-Fetched is a horror comedy about Rue Cervello (voiced by Nola Klop), a young woman who loses her chaotic canine, Kira (voiced by Jazmine Luevanos), and joins a bunch of musical misfits (Quinn, Griff, Piper, and Warren) who are part of the band Sesamoid. They work together to fight and survive in a place where science clashes with the supernatural. There are two villains: Drain (voiced by Michael Zekas) and Blair (voiced by Lauren Landa).

At one point last year, there was a post of the show’s official Twitter, showing the characters holding LGBTQ flags. Rue holds a sweater saying she is questioning, Quinn Hickley (voiced by J. Michael Tatum) holds the demisexual panromantic flag, Griff (voiced by Jacob Takanashi) holds an asexual flag, and Piper Stubbs (voiced by Dani Chambers) holds a lesbian flag, while Kira and Warren Webber (voiced by Jonah Scott) are allies. This was clarified by Nichols. The show’s current route is to fully fund the pilot themselves, then launch a larger crowdfunding campaign and merchandising to give the series “longer episodes” and make additional “bonus content.”

Presumably, shows like Satina, a dark comedy, will include LGBTQ characters. Hopefully, Satina will premiere this year. Like Satina, which continues to be in development if anything can be gleaned by creator Hannah Daigle’s YouTube channel, once the episodes of Far-Fetched are finished, they will be on YouTube. Comics of the show’s characters will likely be released.

A show I learned about recently is LimeLight. It started development in January 2021 and is created by a small production team that is part of the Uphoria Animation Studio. It is about a young Black woman named Ashira GoldenFire (voiced by Jazzy Greene) in New Orleans who tries to make it in the music industry. She is helped by her friend Cheryl Stone (voiced by Zoie E. Absher). Both go through “hardships and the evolution of music” as they try to achieve their dreams. But her path becomes harder after she brings Carter Sillver (voiced by Jack Kelly Savage), a Voodoo man, into her life. It is, as the show’s official website describes it, a series with a “twisted love story and adventure.”

The series, which has crowdfunding campaigns on Indiegogo and Patreon, already has a talented cast. Apart from those already mentioned, the cast is diverse, with various Black and Brown actors. Most of those on the crew appear to be first-time actors as the page on IMDB for the show indicates. The series is created by Hannah I. Johnson, who serves as writer, director, and producer.

Apart from Johnson, the show’s team consists of over 30 people, headed by a voice director, production manager, animation director, and editor. It includes various character and creature designers, background artists, writers, storyboarders, animators, and musicians. Johnson, known as MoralSky on Twitter, is the head writer on Samson, described as a “modern take on Robin Hood,” a producer of Robert J. Preston’s Fighting All Odds, an indie coming-of-age animated series about a deaf girl named Jackie, and founder of the Uphoria Animation Studio. Johnson has said, some time ago, that she’d like the pilot of LimeLight to be released in Winter of this year or early 2023.

LimeLight is not the only indie animated series about music. Far-Fetched, which was discussed earlier, focuses on a band, as does Battle of the Bands, a 2d mature animated series created by Allissoon Lockhart, a producer of Studio Meala, supervisor at Netflix, manager of the Qbomb band, and a drummer, with Parker Simmons as the co-showrunner. As it turns out, the lead character designer of Battle of the Bands, Max Monroy, is also the lead character designer on Far-Fetched!

Simmons was previously the creator and executive producer of Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart. The show, Battle of the Bands, is an adult action fantasy. It has Arin Hanson, Game Grumps, Hunter Peterson, Matthew Di Panni, and Hunter Burgan as producers. It looks like it will  come out some time this year. Hanson, Di Panni, Erica Mendez, Sarah Natochenny, Erika Ishii, and Imari are voice actors who are part of a band called Heat Seekers. Already character sheets and bios about the show’s characters have been posted, it has been said there will be a lot of LGBTQ characters, and amazing art about the show has been shared as well, along with the show’s music score. Lockhart has been very active in answering questions and talking about the show on Tik Tok, Twitter, Twitch, Instagram, and elsewhere, including noting the female musicians among the show characters, since the show was created in 2017.

LimeLight, Battle of the Bands, and Band of Mythix make me think about a Metal Family, a Russian indie animated series focusing on a heavy metal-loving family, I recently reviewed. Similar to Metal Family, Battle of the Bands, Band of Mythix, and LimeLight will be released in some form on YouTube. Unlike Metal Family, the aforementioned series are primarily English language series. Although the Metal Family is originally in the Russian language, it has a different voice cast for English dubbed episodes.

On an unrelated note, it’s exciting to see that the show, Road to Friendship, has changed into a show named Corrupted Memories. That series is created by Jocelyn Saravia, a deaf Latinx storyboard artist, and they are collaborating with their friends on the show. This new show is about a mysterious stolen experimental drug which causes “tension between the group of college students.”

Not every indie animation can survive the process of development. Some series are abandoned or ended for a reason or another. One recent example of this is Rain: The Animated Series, based on the soon-to-end webcomic of the same name by Jocelyn Samara DiDomenick which has a trans protagonist named Rain Flaherty, a bisexual aunt of Rain named Fara, a gay man named Aiken Flaherty, a lesbian named Maria Strongwell, a pansexual girl named Emily Caston, and a trans woman named Jessica Li, along with additional characters. The official YouTube channel described it as a “story for boys, girls, and everyone in between.” In September 2021, it was abruptly cancelled before the series premiere. [4] However, the video of the cancellation was later updated to say that while the attempt to “adapt the full comic” has ended since “many of the old cast and crew have moved on,” videos will presumably come in the future. This was further confirmed by a comment saying that while the comic is no longer being animated, there will be “more shorts and videos.” This means that the passion project can continue, but not as a full-fledged animated series. Even so, such an animated series is still possible. One comment said it is only “canceled for now.” Another said that the original push for an animated series fell apart. [5]

There are additional series I could talk about, like Rogue Metro, a 2D animated “post-cyberpunk science fantasy series with medieval inspirations,” and the S.A.L.E.M.: The Secret Archive of Legends, Enchantments, and Monsters series which has a non-binary protagonist named Salem, along with Oliver who is gay, and Petra who is asexual. Its release date is unknown. The show’s official Twitter account has been silent since April of last year. In exciting news, however, this upcoming April, the series Interstellar Ranger Commence will be released on the official YouTube channel of Browntable, the production company for the series. This independent anime show will release episodes on a monthly basis, and is already set for a season 2!

In the end, I am optimistic that the boom in indie animated series will continue this year and for years to come, bringing joy to creators, artists, voice actors, and viewers alike.

Notes

[1] Of note are animated series in development like Re: Quest, The Alyssian, Don’t Touch the Props, Bloop and Friends, Gadzooks and the Cryptoid Kids, Project: Tideaway, Please Stay Tuned, Finding Alyx, Bleating Heart, Marabelli: A Scoundrel’s Tale!, Accidental Gehenna!, Hockey, Love, and Guts, The Crystal Eden, Dragon Falls, The Incredible Adventures of Detective Cat, Blackwater Creek, Defender Squad, Framed, Violet, Revamped, Destination Unknown (to be re-imagined), Broken Hearts Club, Alfred the Alien, Zeyka, The Cosmos in Your Eyes, Captain Zero, The Fantastic Warriors (tentative title), Sorein (working title), Royal Pain, Atomic Horseman, Swift Spark and the Defense Five, Space Landers, Crescent Fire, Dark Pages, Crash in the System, The Crystal Eden, and Aleph Stars. Additionally, Final Frontier, a sci-fi/dark satire webtoon may be turned into animation if there is enough support. While I would include Fruition of the Damned, the creator of that series, JrRMack, strongly supports NFTs, a morally corrupt cryptocurrency scheme which is harmful to the environment and the livelihood of artists. So, I cannot, in good conscience, support him or his series. The same applies to Roads to Rome, which is also funded by an NFT. Compare this to Whitman, who has said publicly that “NFTs are garbage as is, and you wont find my work involved in them,” as did the official account of Wild Card and the account of Faeduck Studios, which is producing Howdy Cloudboy.

[2] Century Park is said to include Indigenous characters. Christopher Wade noted his film, in development, The Will of Monsters. Jenn noted their indie animation studio, Sunflower Club, and their animatic pilot for The Figments. It is not known the progress of Dark Harvest, with the official account saying that the episode is 45% done, and the show’s creator calls himself an “expert procrastinator.” The same can be said about Aisle99 which has an inactive YouTube channel, but semi-active Twitter, or CriTORA. The social media accounts for animated series like Harri’s World, Dirt: The Series, Romancing Roslyn Cherry, Phantom Hollow, Deranged, Zoolaplex, Cabiria Intermezzo, Here We Are, and Demonic Crepes (created by Bubblegum Cartoons, and has a pilot in 2019) are inactive. While there is a listing of those working on the show Mayhem by Magpie V. Raven’s website, she is stepping back to pursue her own projects, like the Kina’s Adventure series while Sir Mayhem / Paul may continue the series after the animated film Mayhem Zombie Oblivion premieres. Raven is also an artist for Lackadaisy, Mystery Skulls, Ollie & Scoops, and more. The pilot episode of Stars Align has been written, and it will “premiere when completed on YouTube,” with characters redrawn, people cast for roles, in a series with The Owl House and Infinity Train vibes. It is possible that Sara Eissa’s Astur’s Rebellion might be pitched somewhere again, as that animation is now under a company named Toon Cave, according to the updated website.

[3] It is not unique in this. The series Ghost Friends has ceased production, Monstracity seems like it has ended, as does Maine Events, All the Lone Ones, Magic Time Wizards, Kooky The Keukegen, Tales of Dawn, Namo, Renegades, The Macron Show, Ghosts on the Haunt, Quack Man, Good Guys for Hire (possibly), Therapy Dog, Bloody Bunny, Dyes of the Soul, The Journey For Our Lives, Espionage Actors, Second Light, Squabs, Bunker City, Bussin’, Painquin, Fairy Foxes (reportedly it will be continued), Apples & Dogs, Loki IRL, Tales of Alethrion, Transformers Alliance (fan animation), Arbor Square, Quest Infinite, Harvey Beaks (fan reboot), Foreign Contact, Subway Surfers, and Bunny and Caramel. Additionally, there haven’t any new episodes of DREAMophrenia for a while, Dreamcatchers seems a far way off, as does Pigbog’s Kingdom, Stick-Ers, and Orbit Buzz. Nautiboys seems like a one-time thing.

[4] The author of the webcomic based on the series, Jocelyn Samara DiDomenick, said that there was a number of reasons for the series ending, but said that “the very short answer…is that things just kinda weren’t working out” and called it “a bummer,” but is trying to look at the positive here.

[5] Cirque Du Monstro (CDM) is an additional series which fell apart, but for different reasons than Rain. The CDM Twitter account was deleted. The YouTube channel is empty. The creator, Krisis, seems to have scammed those who wanted to work with them, and sexually assaulted (and harassed) people, according to animators and storyboarders. For information on the latter, see Céline Heijnen’s thread beginning here, Bakakoujin’s tweet (and tweet thread), Antonia Pinnola’s Facebook post, and other tweets. Even a month before the tweets in December 2021, various animators promoted the show. According to a private tweet of Krisis‘s account, M0nsterParent, on December 8, 2021, the “CDM crew has been officially disbanded” and the animation is no longer being made. This is unfortunate because I felt that the project had some promise. Animators like Shou Tuzi (creating Tallyho!) stepped away from any affiliation with the show or the company producing it, 3M Productions, as did voice actor Mark Allen Jr.