Comic Con and Bill Plympton

Two of the special themes at the upcoming 35th San Diego Comic Con International (July 22-25, 2004) are animation related: the 75th anniversary of Popeye and the 90th birthday of Bob Clampett (as well as the 20th anniversary of the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award which the Con awards each year in Bob’s memory). No word yet on what special events they’re planning for these anniversaries. Also worth noting, two of the special Con guests this year are legendary voice actress June Foray and independent filmmaker Bill Plympton. Speaking of Bill, here’s a great interview with him on AICN where he offers his thoughts on the best way to get your film accepted into The Animation Show and explains the backstory of his new short film PARKING. He also offers the following quote, which serves as an elegant rebuttal to Mike Lazzo’s inane comments from an earlier post.

Bill Plympton: “Animation, for me, is the truest art form because the fantasies I have in my head really would be very difficult to do in live action. Animation seems to be the purest art form to expressing those visuals. And I must say they mostly are *visual*. I’m not a very good writer in terms of dialogue and scripting. I’m a visual person, and, for me, the subconscious of the brain really hatches these incredibly surrealistic and bizarre images.”