🔸 THE FINAL CUT 🔸
INDUSTRY NEWS FOR VISUAL STORYTELLERS
Happy Friday — welcome back to The Final Cut.
Big week. This installment of The Final Cut is a bit weighted towards Animation, but that’s just how the week’s news panned out.
California just opened its film tax credit program to animation for the first time in the program’s history, and studios apparently had a lot of pent-up opinions about that — applications jumped 400% in the first window. Also, 9,000 creators showed up in Burbank this week for AfroAnimation Summit 6.0, which is either deeply inspiring or deeply exhausting depending on where you fall on the introvert spectrum.
In other, less positive news, Disney just axed nearly the entire Marvel visual development team — the artists who built the look of the MCU — and replaced them with a freelance contracting model. And separately, Warner Bros has made the decision to finally release the long awaited movie Coyote vs. ACME which was originally shelved in 2023 as a tax write off.
Grab a coffee. Let’s get into it.
The Week in Visual Storytelling
Storyboarding · Animation · Comics · Pre-Production · Tools & Pipeline
April 24, 2026
Animation — Industry
California Finally Opens the Tax Credit Door for Animation
For the first time in the history of California’s Film & Television Tax Credit Program, animated features are eligible — and three major productions are already in. Governor Newsom announced on April 23 that 38 film projects will receive a collective $193 million in credits, including inaugural animation recipients The Simpsons Movie 2 (20th Century Studios, $21.9M), a Phineas and Ferb feature (Disney), and an untitled DreamWorks Animation feature ($24.7M), each qualifying for a 35% refundable credit.
This matters beyond the specific titles. California animation studios have spent years watching productions leave the state for Georgia, Canada, and the UK in search of incentives. The expanded program — which now also covers animated TV series, competition shows, and short-form content — is a direct response to years of industry lobbying and a 2025 economic study documenting the scope of that exodus. Applications for the new program jumped more than 400% in its first window.
For working animators and visual storytellers based in California, this shift could mean more local hiring, more projects staying in the state, and more stability in a production landscape that’s been contracting since 2020.
Industry — Film & TV
Disney Guts Marvel’s Visual Development Team in Sweeping 1,000-Person Layoff Wave
Disney announced approximately 1,000 layoffs across its divisions under new CEO Josh D’Amaro — and Marvel Studios took some of the sharpest cuts. Nearly the entire visual development team, the group responsible for designing the overall look and feel of the MCU, has been let go. The model shifts from full-time staff artists to per-project freelance contractors; some of those departing have been there for a decade or more. The studio maintains this wasn’t AI-driven, though individual artists have noted that AI visual generation is already being used internally on some projects. For working concept artists and visual development professionals, this is a significant structural shift in how the industry’s biggest player intends to operate going forward.
Source: Comics Beat
Animation — Industry
Cannes Directors’ Fortnight 2026 Selects Animated Films — Including Honami Yano’s Eri
The 2026 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight lineup includes several animated works, most notably Eri by Japanese animator Honami Yano. The hand-drawn short follows a Holstein cow who falls in love with another female in a world that only values cows who bear calves — a quiet, pastoral, and quietly devastating piece. Yano works entirely outside the commercial anime industry, and her selection signals a continuing appetite for independent animation at the highest levels of the film festival circuit. A broader set of animated shorts and one animated feature also appear in the full Fortnight program. Cannes runs May 13–23.
Source: Cartoon Contender
Animation — Industry
Coyote vs. Acme Gets Its First Trailer — the Shelved Looney Tunes Movie Is Actually Coming Out
In 2023, Warner Bros. shelved the completed Coyote vs. Acme as a tax write-off without ever releasing it. In 2025, Ketchup Entertainment acquired it. And this week, the first trailer dropped — the film opens theatrically August 28. The live-action/animation hybrid stars Will Forte as a personal injury lawyer helping Wile E. Coyote sue Acme Corp, with Looney Tunes cameos from Bugs, Daffy, and Tweety. Directed by Dave Green, it’s a rare Hollywood story about a completed film that was discarded, rescued, and actually getting its shot. Whether it holds up is another question, but just reaching theaters at this point is genuinely remarkable.
Source: Variety
Animation — Community
AfroAnimation Summit 6.0 Puts 9,000 Creators on the Same Floor
This week in Burbank, AfroAnimation Summit 6.0 is underway (April 23–26), drawing more than 9,000 artists, animators, technologists, and storytellers to what has become the largest four-day gathering in the US dedicated to non-traditional creators in animation, gaming, VFX, and emerging media. Studios present include Disney, Netflix, Marvel, DreamWorks, BBC, Nickelodeon, and Warner Bros. — not just as sponsors but actively recruiting.
Summit co-founder Keith White is presenting his lecture series “Margin to Mainstream: The Evolution of Black Animation,” a multimedia deep-dive covering Black animators from 1956 to the present. The series — which White has been touring at colleges including USCBAC, Academy, and SVA — examines pioneers whose contributions shaped the medium but rarely receive industry credit. The April 25 Creative Job Fair is a new addition this year, alongside an Artist Alley and a Graphic Design Interactive Lab.
If you’re in LA this week and haven’t found a way in, there’s still time. For everyone else, White’s documentary project documenting this history is also in development — one to watch.
Animation — Storytelling
Aubrey Plaza’s Kevin Is the Adult Animated Comedy Worth Watching Right Now
Six years after Aubrey Plaza and her then-boyfriend Joe Wengert first started developing it, Kevin arrived on Prime Video on April 20 — and it’s the strangest, most interesting animated debut of the spring. The premise: when couple Dana (Plaza) and Dan (Mike Mitchell) break up, their rescue cat Kevin (Jason Schwartzman) decides to walk out on them. The show follows Kevin adjusting to life as a solo cat in a fictionalized New York City, voiced by Schwartzman in full neurotic mode.
What makes it worth attention as a storyteller is how the premise flips the default protagonist POV. The show’s emotional logic — the anxiety, grievance, and confused loyalty of the cat — is consistently held to Kevin’s perspective rather than the human drama playing out around him. The result is something genuinely odd: a show whose emotional stakes are small but felt, with an animation style that emphasizes posture and pacing over spectacle.
The supporting cast (Whoopi Goldberg, John Waters, Amy Sedaris, Aparna Nancherla) gives it texture without overwhelming the central thread. Eight episodes, all available now. The first two are worth at least half an hour of your time.
Animation — Feature Film
Nathan Greno’s Swapped Drops a Trailer That Earns Its May 1 Spot
Skydance Animation’s third feature, Swapped, releases on Netflix on May 1 — and the official trailer that landed this month gives a cleaner picture of what director Nathan Greno (Tangled) has been building. A small woodland creature (Michael B. Jordan) and a majestic bird (Juno Temple) involuntarily trade bodies and have to cooperate to survive: a premise that’s been done, but the execution looks genuinely fresh. The character design work and the use of scale — the size difference between the two creatures, and what that means when reversed — is doing interesting visual storytelling work.
Greno has been talking in interviews about the team’s approach to naturalistic animal reference: studying real behavior and movement before making choices about what to abstract or amplify. There’s an Animation Magazine feature this week with exclusive art and behind-the-scenes detail from the team on that process — worth reading if you work in character animation or pre-production.
Produced by John Lasseter, Jennifer Magee Cook, David Ellison, and Dana Goldberg. Score by Siddhartha Khosla. Runtime 1h 42m, rated PG. One to watch on May 1.
Comics & Illustration
Illustrate Ishiguro: The Folio Society’s 2026 Award Is Open
Entries are now open for the Folio Book Illustration Award 2026, and this year’s brief is genuinely compelling: create an original illustration based on the opening chapter of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. The Folio Society describes the opening as “quiet, unsettling and deeply human” — which is an accurate characterization, and also a useful constraint. The scene is set in the seemingly pastoral world of Hailsham, where memory, friendship, and something unnamed just beneath the surface intertwine.
The award is free to enter, open internationally to anyone aged 18 or over who hasn’t previously been commissioned by The Folio Society. The winner receives a £2,000 cash prize, a £500 Folio voucher, and — most significantly — their artwork featured in a future Folio edition. Five runners-up each receive a £500 voucher. The 2026 judging panel includes Folio editorial staff and 2025 winner Dawn Xintong Yang.
Deadline is May 26, 2026. If you illustrate, this is exactly the kind of brief that produces a portfolio piece worth keeping regardless of the result. Full submission details at foliosociety.com.
From the Community
Recent posts from visual storytelling Substackers worth reading — and worth restacking.
The Forgotten Art of Visual Storytelling
A one-person newsletter from a production designer working across film, animation, and cross-media projects. If you work in pre-production, this is the kind of close, practical thinking about boards and visual narrative that’s hard to find in broader industry coverage.
Substack — Pesto Comics
Predicting Indie Comic Trends for 2026
A thoughtful breakdown of where the independent comics market is heading — audience shifts, distribution changes, and what creators need to think about to find readers in a noisier landscape.
Substack — How To Draw (RJR)
An Exercise in Visual Storytelling: Adapting Your Favorite Films to Comics
A practical exercise using film adaptation as a way to study visual language — how shot selection, panel rhythm, and composition choices translate (or don’t) from one medium to another. A useful framework for anyone who works across both.
“The Process Is the Art”
Animation Obsessive · April 19, 2026
This issue centers on animator Coleen Baik, who is animating on paper and reflects: “In the era of ‘let the machine do everything,’ I’m increasingly drawn to do more of the labor myself.” Also covers Glitch’s Amazing Digital Circus ticket presales and Honami Yano’s Cannes selection. One of the best animation newsletters running.
Newsletter 4, 2026
Cartoon Movement · April 2026
Cartoon Movement covers editorial cartooning and political illustration with genuine craft conversations — this issue includes work from Pedro X. Molina and discussion around their long-form DELIAH project. Essential reading if your work touches illustration, narrative art, or sequential storytelling.
“Animation First 2026 Festival: How Animators & Composers Surprised Me About Making Comics”
C. Merritt Houghton · April 2026
A firsthand account of the Animation First festival at Alliance Française in New York, with honest observations about the unexpected crossover between animation craft and comics making. Short, specific, and worth a read for anyone working across both disciplines.
And that’s a wrap for this week. We’ll be back next Friday with more industry news.
Beyond The Process is a newsletter for working creatives in visual storytelling — storyboarding, animation, comics, illustration, and film pre-production.
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