While continuing to slug it out in the live-action game, independent producer Tom Lynch is looking to draw up additional business.

The creation of Beverly Hills, California-based Tom Lynch Co. Animation marks the first time the producer of tween programs such as South of Nowhere, The Secret World of Alex Mack, and Romeo! has cast an eye to toons.

Class of 3000, the new division’s inaugural production, debuted on Cartoon Network this month. The 2-D-animated show was created by Lynch and Outkast star André Benjamin for CN. Benjamin voices Sunny Bridges, a superstar who gives it all up to become a teacher at his old music school.

Lynch, however, is well into devising the next steps for his fledgling animation company and believes its future resides on-line. ‘It’s what I like to call an experimental platform,’ Lynch says. ‘Basically we are investing millions on webisodes.’

Wanting to sidestep the traditional model of raising capital for development by hawking show bibles and demo reels at market, the plan will see Lynch and his small creative team fully developing five 10-episode series over the next two years for the company’s own website, putting them up and seeing what sticks. ‘If they pop and attract an audience, then we will go and talk to distributors and networks,’ he explains. The first one currently in production is comedy-adventure series VOKI, aimed at kids six to 14 years old.

The end goal is to put one series into production per year for a major broadcaster. ‘We’ll be in a position where if we have an idea we have to make,’ he contends, ‘we will have the wherewithal to do it.’ GR