With the Yellow Family

I spent half my morning at The Simpsons studio Film Roman, and learned one new fact I hadn't been aware of before ....

Though most everyone works on Cintiqs (see below), I noticed that layout artists were busy cutting pieces out of their layout setups and reworking them on paper. I wondered aloud why they were working with long white sheets when the Cintiq tablets were right at their shoulders. They answered:

"Rough Draft, the studio in Korea, doesn't work with the digital files, It uses paper. So we draw layouts digitally and print them out, work with them some more, cut and resize, hole punch the drawings and get them ready for shipping. It's the way it's always been with the overseas studio: layouts on sheets of paper ..."

Meantime, Bart and the rest of the brood march on through their 21st season:

On Sunday night original episodes of animated favorites THE SIMPSONS, THE CLEVELAND SHOW, and AMERICAN DAD grew significantly over their previous week’s performances.

At 8p THE SIMPSONS posted a 2.9/8 among Adults 18-49, marking a +12% increase over the previous week.

THE CLEVELAND SHOW in the 8:30p timeslot delivered a 2.8/7 among Adults 18-49, gaining +17% over the previous week.

At 9:30p AMERICAN DAD achieved a 2.8/6 among Adults 18-49, up +12% versus the previous week.

I hear Simpsons artists speculate on how many more seasons The Simpsons will keep going, and how long them might have jobs. I guess some of that depends on the next round of the voice actors' demands, but the ratings seem to be holding up.