Jerry Beck is a noted animation historian and cartoon producer. His over 15 books on the subject include The Animated Movie Guide, Looney Tunes: The Ultimate Visual Guide, The 50 Greatest Cartoons and The Spongebob Squarepants Experience.

As a film distributor, his company Streamline Pictures brought Miyazaki’s Totoro and Otomo’s Akira to the US. A former studio executive with Nickelodeon and Disney, Beck is currently a consulting producer to Warner Bros. and Universal for their classic animation DVD/blu-ray compilations. Beck has programmed animation retrospectives and animator tributes for the Annecy and Ottawa Animation Festivals, The Museum of Modern Art and The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. And each year he presents “The Worst Cartoons Ever” at Comic-Con International.

He currently teaches animation history at Cal Arts, UCLA and Chapman University, curates a monthly “Cartoon Club” at Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema in Hollywood, and edits two blogs, Animation Scoop and Cartoon Research.