Bill Plympton: King of Independent Animation

Oregon has been the breeding ground of many of this country’s strongest animators, from mainstream figures like Brad Bird and Matt Groening to independents like Will Vinton, Joanna Priestley and Joan Gratz. As Bill Plympton, the king of independent animators in the U.S. has attested, the frequent rainy days encourage aspiring film artists like him to do their work indoors.

After graduating from Portland State with an Art degree, Plympton moved to New York and worked as an illustrator and cartoonist, publishing work in The Village Voice, The New Yorker, Playboy and elsewhere. In 1988, his short film, Your Face, was nominated for an Academy Award. He was offered a position at Disney, but turned it down, giving up studio support to create his art independently. Critical acclaim grew at worldwide film festivals for his unique style and ability to marry the absurd and profound, and deconstruct animation while creating it. The shorts (over thirty by now) eventually grew into six features, including The Tune (1992) and Hair High (2004), which have been, incredibly, single-handedly drawn and financed by Plympton. Idiots and Angels, which won an award at Worldfest Houston in 2008, is his darkest, richest and most accomplished film and launched its national theatrical run at the IFC Center in New York this October.

Plympton was the judge of this year’s Independent Exposure, an annual collection of short works distributed by Microcinema International. Plympton will introduce his selections on Saturday with the added bonus screenings of his Academy Award-nominated Guard Dog and his latest work, The Cow Who Wanted to be a Hamburger.