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INDUSTRY NEWS FOR VISUAL STORYTELLERS

Jun 12, 2026

The Final Cut · June 12, 2026

Storyboarding · Animation · Comics · Pre-Production · Tools & Pipeline

Happy Friday, and welcome back to The Final Cut — your weekly roundup of what’s moving in the world of visual storytelling.

This week feels like two conversations happening at the same time. On one side, there’s Floyd Norman — 86 years old, the first Black artist ever hired by Walt Disney, and as of Thursday the recipient of an Honorary Oscar from the Academy. It’s a recognition that’s been a long time coming, and there’s something genuinely moving about the industry finally making it official. On the other side, the Art Directors Guild had to put out a public statement this week pushing back after Martin Scorsese lent his name to an AI storyboarding tool — which is exactly the kind of thing that sends a chill through a room full of working storyboard artists (unfortunately a rare breed these days). Both stories tell you something true about where this industry is right now. Plus: Pixar just dropped the first teaser for Gatto, Enrico Casarosa’s follow-up to Luca — and it looks nothing like what you’d expect. Annecy is also mid-run this week (through Saturday), so keep an eye on Cartoon Brew and AWN for awards coverage as it comes in.

Grab a coffee. Let’s get into it.

Animation — Industry

Floyd Norman, First Black Artist Hired by Disney, Voted an Honorary Oscar by the Academy

The Academy’s Board of Governors voted on Thursday to award an Honorary Oscar to Floyd Norman, 86 — the first Black animator ever hired by Walt Disney Studios, where he joined in 1956 and worked on films including Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmatians, and The Jungle Book. He went on to work at Hanna-Barbera, Filmation, and later Pixar, where he contributed to Toy Story 2 and Monsters, Inc. — and was still showing up to the Pixar campus as a salaried employee into his 80s.

Norman has also spent decades writing and speaking about animation history, and was the subject of the 2016 documentary Floyd Norman: An Animated Life. The Honorary Oscar will be presented at the Governors Awards in November. It’s a long-overdue recognition for someone who spent most of his career proving that talent wins out — even when the system wasn’t built for you.

Source: Cartoon Brew

Tools & Pipeline

Art Directors Guild Fires Back After Martin Scorsese Endorses an AI Storyboarding Tool

The Art Directors Guild issued a sharp public statement this week after Martin Scorsese lent his endorsement to an AI-powered storyboarding tool — calling it a direct threat to the livelihoods of storyboard artists, set illustrators, and graphic artists the union represents. The ADG’s response confirmed via tweet that they were responding to real professional harm, not hypothetical future concerns: storyboard artists are already losing work to tools being pitched partly on the credibility of filmmaker endorsements.

The story cuts to the heart of a tension that’s been building for years: AI tools designed for visual development workflows are increasingly being sold not just to studios, but to directors — with the implicit message that human illustrators are an optional step. When a director of Scorsese’s stature puts his name on that pitch, the ADG’s job is to make the cost of that visible. The DGA’s own contract expires June 30, which means this conversation is about to get a lot louder.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Feature Film — Pre-Production

Pixar Drops First Teaser for ‘Gatto’ — and the Painterly Look Is a Real Departure

Pixar released the first teaser for Gatto, the next original feature from director Enrico Casarosa (Luca). The title means “cat” in Italian — and the teaser reveals a visual aesthetic that’s a deliberate departure from the studio’s polished photorealism. The look is more painterly and illustrative, with visible texture in the lighting and a softer, more hand-crafted quality to the surfaces. Whether it holds up through production remains to be seen, but as a teaser it signals that Casarosa is leaning into what made Luca distinct rather than away from it.

Casarosa has been one of the quieter success stories inside Pixar — a director who came up through the story department, who made his short La Luna, and who brought a genuinely Italian visual sensibility to Luca that felt different from anything the studio had done before. The fact that Gatto appears to be pushing further in that direction rather than reverting to type is encouraging.

Source: Cartoon Brew

Animation — Stop Motion

Mackinnon & Saunders Teams With Nihil Declarandum to Develop Gothic Stop-Motion Feature ‘Heads’

Mackinnon & Saunders — the UK puppet-making studio responsible for the armatures and silicone figures in Corpse Bride, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Frankenweenie, and dozens of commercial productions — is partnering with debut feature studio Nihil Declarandum to develop Heads, a gothic stop-motion animated feature. The collaboration involves developing new puppet construction techniques specifically for the project, which is currently in development.

Mackinnon & Saunders has long occupied a specific and essential role in the stop-motion world: they build the puppets that directors dream up, and the technical depth of what they do is rarely seen by audiences who watch the finished films. Their involvement in a feature from the ground up — rather than as a fabrication contractor — is a different kind of move, and the fact that they’re developing new technique for it makes Heads worth watching closely.

Source: Animation World Network

Comics & Illustration

Archie Comics Is in Legal Trouble — Private Equity Dispute Threatens Ownership and a Universal Movie Is in the Mix

Archie Comics is facing a cascade of legal problems tied to a private equity ownership dispute that has created genuine uncertainty about who controls the company. The situation puts at risk not just the publisher’s day-to-day operations but also a live-action movie adaptation in development at Universal — the kind of IP deal that typically signals a stable future for a comics company, not a messy ownership fight.

Archie has survived multiple near-death experiences over the decades — usually through creative reinvention (the Waid-era revivals, Afterlife with Archie, the CW’s Riverdale) more than financial stability. But private equity entanglements have a way of turning creative properties into collateral. If you care about Riverdale’s original residents continuing to exist as a creative concern rather than a licensing asset in receivership, this is worth keeping an eye on.

Source: The Beat

Animation — Labor

SAG-AFTRA Ratifies New 4-Year Deal With AI Provisions — DGA Contract Expires June 30

SAG-AFTRA members voted to ratify a new four-year contract that includes AI consent and compensation provisions — covering performer likeness rights, synthetic voice regulations, and required approval for AI-generated versions of union members’ performances. The ratification closes one major labor negotiation cycle while another is about to open: the Directors Guild of America’s current contract expires June 30, putting the DGA’s AI language directly on the table.

For the animation and visual storytelling community, the DGA negotiation is the one to watch. Directors, including storyboard artists covered under some DGA agreements, will be negotiating protections for work that AI tools are increasingly being positioned to replace or assist. The ADG’s public response to the Scorsese AI tool story this week is a preview of the arguments that are going to shape that conversation over the next several weeks.

Source: Variety

From the Community — Worth a Restack

Two recent posts from visual storytelling Substackers that are worth your time this week.

Animation Obsessive · 72,000 subscribers

Slow Stories Don’t Have to Be Boring

A deep historical look at pacing in animation — tracing the tension between Miyazaki’s deliberate, breath-taking approach and the Katzenberg-era pressure for non-stop entertainment. The piece makes a real argument: that slow storytelling builds the kind of emotional investment that action and spectacle never can, and that audiences actually want it when they’re offered it well. Essential reading if you work in story or storyboarding.

Published June 7, 2026 · 150 likes, 21 restacks

Creating Comics · K. Woodman-Maynard

ICE Out Comics: From Minneapolis to Germany

Woodman-Maynard reflects on how her diary comics practice — a simple set of constraints: four panels, one shade of blue, one hashtag — sparked an international movement. Nearly 300 cartoonists contributed. The work is now on exhibition at the Erlangen International Comics Salon in Germany, and she was part of a virtual panel at the festival this week. It’s a compelling case study in how craft constraints and community can make work that travels further than you expect.

Published June 7, 2026 · 71 likes, 21 restacks

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