{"id":378803,"date":"2026-04-02T20:35:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T20:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/378803\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T20:35:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T20:35:07","slug":"harpercollins-partners-with-ai-powered-animation-house-toonstar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/378803\/","title":{"rendered":"HarperCollins Partners with \u2018AI-Powered\u2019 Animation House Toonstar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article\">HarperCollins has announced a multi-year partnership with Toonstar, an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.toonstar.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cAI-powered\u201d animation studio<\/a>, to adapt a slate of the publisher\u2019s titles into original YouTube series.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article\">The first project planned for development is Friendship List, based on Lisa Greenwald\u2019s popular YA series of the same name, with HarperAlley to publish an accompanying graphic novel based on the animation. HarperCollins was not able to provide a timeline for the project.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article\">HarperCollins and Toonstar will co-produce the animation franchises, which will consist of episodes falling around two to 10 minutes long, depending on the series. According to John Attanasio, CEO and co-founder of Toonstar, the company employs human artists and channels their work through the firm\u2019s proprietary production technology, Ink &amp; Pixel, which \u201cenables fast, high-quality production at scale\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"article\">HarperCollins said the process will be \u201ccreator-led,\u201d per the announcement, but declined to address how authors will be involved and whether they will receive royalties. <\/p>\n<p class=\"article\">The announcement comes just a couple of days after Harlequin, a division of HarperCollins, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.publishersweekly.com\/pw\/by-topic\/industry-news\/publisher-news\/article\/100043-harlequin-announces-slew-of-ai-generated-microdramas.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">inked a similar partnership with Dashverse<\/a>, a tech firm that produces AI-generated shortform animated series. Shortly after that partnership was announced, some Harlequin authors whose titles were selected for adaptation said <a href=\"https:\/\/www.threads.com\/search?q=Harlequin&amp;serp_type=trends&amp;trend_fbid\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">on the social platform Threads<\/a> that they hadn\u2019t been notified of the deal in advance, though Harlequin claimed they would receive royalties.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article\">\u201cHarperCollins has always embraced innovation that serves our authors and readers by finding new ways to bring great stories to readers wherever they are,\u201d said CEO and publisher of U.S. trade Liate Stehlik, who was promoted to the head role <a href=\"https:\/\/www.publishersweekly.com\/pw\/by-topic\/industry-news\/publisher-news\/article\/99677-liate-stehlik-promoted-to-ceo-of-harpercollins-u-s-trade.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">in February<\/a>. \u201cToonstar\u2019s proven ability to translate beloved stories into engaging animation, while keeping artists at the center of the process, makes them the ideal partner to bring Friendship List and other popular titles to new audiences in formats today&#8217;s families love.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HarperCollins has announced a multi-year partnership with Toonstar, an \u201cAI-powered\u201d animation studio, to adapt a slate of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,3468,10935,218,219,740,47917,288,47918,22782,7379,47919,47923,61,60,22781,22535,29791,47920,47921,47922,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-378803","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-amazon","10":"tag-amazon-com","11":"tag-artificial-intelligence","12":"tag-artificialintelligence","13":"tag-book","14":"tag-book-publishing","15":"tag-books","16":"tag-digital-books","17":"tag-e-books","18":"tag-ebooks","19":"tag-financial-reporting","20":"tag-houghton-mifflin-harcourt","21":"tag-ie","22":"tag-ireland","23":"tag-kindle","24":"tag-penguin","25":"tag-publishers-weekly","26":"tag-random-house","27":"tag-simon-schuster","28":"tag-simon-and-schuster","29":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}