Hello Plympton fans - I've got a lot of catching up to do -

My first trip was to the Ottawa Animation Festival - now a yearly celebration of animation from Canada and around the world, put on by the enigmatic Chris Robinson.  I was a judge this year so I saw all the programs with famed illustrator Gary Baseman, Diane Obomsawin, and Chantal was our jury manager.  The weather was picture-perfect, and the famous picnic was the highlight.

I showed both of my new films, "Guard Dog" and "Hair High" in the large National Arts Cinema to a full house - what a great experience!  They also had a wonderful complete retrospective of Miyazaki - I loved that, he's a real hero of mine.

The judging went fairly easily - the grand prize winner was "Ryan", which was fortuitous since Ryan was there and it was a very special moment to have Chris Landreth, the creator, and Ryan, the subject, up on stage together.

I'm including some pictures from Ottawa, as well as some late pictures from my trip to France (I still use film in my camera...) 

NBM Publishing invited me to do a signing of my books at the NY Book Fair - even though the weather was a little cool, we had a great time and sold a lot of books.

G'Day, Mate - my next venture took me to the Brisbane International Animation Festival - I've been Down Under before (to the Melbourne Film Festival) and had a good time, so I thought I'd return.  It's a long flight from New York.  Trent Ellis, the festival's artistic director, met me and gave me a tour of Brisbane - it's a tropical city, lots of rainforests, palm trees, a beautiful park and man-made swimming pond right next to the river, and conveniently next to the cinema - so everyday before the screening, I took a dip in the pool. 

The first day, I visited the Las Vegas-type town The Gold Coast, a very posh hotel and gambling complex where Paris Hilton frolics when she visits Australia.  The lovely Jane Osborne gave me a tour of all the hot spots.

The programming was very good, with an emphasis on Australian and New Zealand films.  Two highlights were "Harvie Krumpet" by local legend Adam Elliot and "Love Tricycle" by Andrew Goode.  I did some lectures and workshops and generally had a great time.  One of the super things about the festival is all the weird animals hanging around - ibises, other strange birds, and crazy lizards - it's a real cartoonist's delight.  It's like Mother Nature was on drugs when she developed these creatures, or else has a terrific sense of humor.

Even though it's a long way to travel, I highly recommend the Brisbane Animation Festival for its charm and warmth.

On my return, I continued working on more segments for "Drew Carey's Green Screen Show".  The two shows I saw were very impressive - amazing, unlike anything else on TV. The combination of improv comedy and bizarre animation is completely wonderful.  I hope the audience can discover this truly magical and hilarious show.  Some of the other artists include Bill Kroyer, Eric Goldberg, Chris Hinton, John Dilworth and Pat Smith.  It's on Thursdays at 8:30 on the WB - check it out.

My next trip was to the Northhampton Film Festival, I drove up with the aforementioned Pat Smith, through the beautiful autumnal colors.  I introduced "Hair High", then went out for dinner with Pat and Jamie, a local film professor, and in my drunken rush back for Q&A, I tripped over a crack in the sidewalk and went flying.  I was still carrying a doggie bag of my pork rib dinner, and not wanting to crush it, I held the bag back.  Unfortunately, that only left me with one arm to break my fall - consequently, my face was used to halt my flight - so, in slow-motion I could feel my teeth and lips scraping across the concrete to slow my headlong dive.  It was like a scene out of one of my films!

When I got up (fortunately, no one was around to laugh at me) I could feel the warm blood running down my face - I continued my rush to the cinema, only a little more cautiously this time.  I checked myself in the mirror - I had all my teeth, but my face was a bloody mess.  I stuck on some toilet tissue and proceeded to take Q&A - fortunately, there was a small crowd in a big, dark theater so they didn't notice anything that strange -

The next day, I was off to Wiesbaden, Germany to do a show - the problem was, I did a long interview with Canal Plus (the big TV channel in Europe) and by now I had two large scabs hardening on my face.  I told them I was in a big fight over George Bush or some such bullshit.

Wiesbaden was fun, with great crowds.  Then, on to Offenbach, where I  did an all-day lecture at the University, and that night a screening in the Frankfurt Film Museum.

Early the next day, I was in the super-fast ICE train to Utrecht - I was joined by two of my heroes, Peter Chung and Joanna Quinn as judges for the Holland Animation Festival, wonderfully headed by Gerben Schermer.

Utrecht is a charming, historic city, honeycombed with canals and cute, narrow streets. The festival is well-run with exciting programming and a lot of big-name animators in the audience.  I highly recommend this festival for a great animation experience.

As soon as I returned to New York, I was roasted at Caroline's Comedy Club.  The show was part of the New York Comedy Festival, and presided by Speed Levitch and the hilarious Lisa Lampanelli.  Also, on the roasting dais was Dan Piraro, the "Bizarro" comic - Signe Baumane, the diva of New York animation, and John Dilworth, who did a hilarious take-off on "Your Face".  Topping off the star-studded roast was Eric Gilliland and Martha Plimpton, who both appeared in my new feature "Hair High".

Initially, I was very nervous about being the butt of all these jokes, but fortunately, I was able to do caricatures of the speakers on the spot, and they were projected on a screen, so there was a little graphic revenge as they skewered me.  And, to top it all off, we had the Fighting Cock from "Hair High" make a surprise visit, and hump each member of the audience who requested it.

This week's cartoon is from page 25 of my book "Sloppy Seconds", it's called "Fletcher's Wig" - something about hair is very funny, so I used my continuing character, Fletcher, to make a comment about how hair is used like another piece of clothing - I hope you like it.

Bill