Cartoon Brew is primarily an animation-biz news blog, but it usually has the latest trailers and previews of upcoming toons, theatrical and TV, and most of the best shorts to go up on YouTube or Vimeo. The blog for sci-fi publisher Tor has a weekly feature called "Saturday Morning Cartoons" that is a good source of great shorts, and IndieAnimator.com puts an 'Animation of the Day' on its front page, with the archive of past dailies at a separate Tumblr address. Also good secondary sources: the illustration blog Drawn often has good animated content, and Gawker's Sci-Fi blog io9 covers all kinds of 'genre' media, including cartoons, well enough that it makes me forget the Gawker Media Empire is Evil. (It's 'Saturday Cartoons' feature is all about upcoming TV toons - with clips)

I am considering starting a blog about cartoons & comics myself (I have a semi-perfect domain name reserved), but I'd mostly be stealing from those sources. And yes, "Paranorman" looks good, and what they're saying about it on the sites I've linked suggest it's as well-written as it is well-animated.

Woo! Thanks :)

ooooooooo That Looks Awesome

Thanks for reminding me of Drawn, swellfoop; I used to visit there daily. Really, I need to quit staring at other people's art and make more of my own, though. I'd enjoy your 'blog. As far as 'toons go, though, I think it's a shame these days that the great ones (Foster's Home, Samurai jack, Powerpuffs, etc.) seem to go very few seasons then end up on Boomerang (which I don't get).

Glinn, you can always hook up with people in the biz on Facebook. I'm FB friends with new and old art, animation, and comics heroes of mine, although they're sometimes surprisingly shy about hyping their work (and sometimes the opposite).

There are also websites and people on FB who 'blog about these things and you can Like them and receive regular updates. I get a kick out of Blake Northcott, who might just be a comics/geek-blog rising star.

Oh, also, there's vimeo.com, which I think you can surf by animation category.

You can find some fantastic new animated shorts by looking at the websites of various film festivals, reviewing the animation category, and then searching them out on YouTube or the creators' sites -- many of the videos already exist on the Web even if they're "premiering" at the festivals.

Also, check the Web for sites dedicated to programs like Flash and even Z-Brush. Many artists post new art and animation and discuss them there. I found a Z-Brush (3d modelling program) yesterday that's mind-blowing, with 2D art you would swear is actually 3d sculpture, action figures, or sometimes real life (maybe I'll post it here later), and programs like Z-Brush often are used to create characters and wire frames used later in animation.