This is an independent reference on early-2000s online political animation. It is not affiliated with, authorised by, or connected to Eric Blumrich, and it is not his personal site. It does not host, reproduce or distribute his artwork or animations; all works remain the copyright of their creators, and are discussed here only as documented subjects of internet media history.
Internet media history · 2003–2006
Flash-era political animation
Before social video feeds became the default route for moving images, short political animations traveled as compact files, embedded browser objects, emailed links and mirrors. This independent reference studies that moment through a documented group of works published by illustrator and animator Eric Blumrich.
The subject
A small-file medium with a large public life
Macromedia Flash joined drawing, timing, sound and scripting in a file that a browser plugin could play. For independent makers, that meant a moving editorial could sit on an ordinary web page and be passed from reader to reader. The format rewarded bold timing and disciplined file size as much as it rewarded illustration.
Blumrich’s web publishing ran through the intense political media environment of 2003–2006. It included bare pages made to hold 550 × 400 Flash pieces, a works index, later columns and lists of other online media. The series was known as bushflash. The series shows how independent political media moved on the early web.
Three lenses
The works
Thirteen works each have their own reference page. Each gives the known file facts, the labels the work carried when it was shared, and the historical context around it.
The network
Blogrolls, email, mirrors and direct file links formed a human distribution layer. Period data from Pew Research Center shows dial-up and broadband overlapping throughout the era.
The toolchain
Vector symbols, timelines, tweens, audio compression and plugin playback shaped both the look and the labor. The production constraints explain why the web page around a piece could be almost empty.
A format changed
What remains when playback disappears?
Adobe ended Flash Player support on 31 December 2020 and blocked Player content shortly afterward, as its end-of-life notice explains. A file can still exist while its ordinary viewing path is gone. Open-source projects such as Ruffle now emulate parts of the platform, but preservation still depends on rights, source material, dependencies and careful description.
This site supplies no player, media file, still frame or substitute rendition. That protects the creator’s rights.
Reading responsibly
Politics, evidence and distance
The works came from a partisan publishing environment; this reference reports their judgments without adopting them.
Distance also applies to the technology. Flash was neither merely a defective plugin nor a magical democratizing tool. It lowered some barriers, imposed new dependencies and rewarded particular styles of compression and timing. The essays here examine those tradeoffs.
This reference covers formats, circulation and public issues; it is not a replacement for any of the works.