After my successful week at the San Diego Comic Con, I traveled north to Oregon for my annual summer break at my folks' place on the beautiful Clackamas River.  I was excited because we were launching the theatrical release of "Hair High" in the wonderful Mission Theatre in Downtown Portland.  Even though "Hair High" was finished over two years ago, I had failed to get a distribution that would give it a proper theatrical release.  The money I was offered was a pittance compared to the cost of the film (a little north of $300,000) and I would lose all rights to the film.  So, I decided to handle the domestic release myself.  It's not something I enjoy doing; it's a lot of details, costs, and pressure that really sucks away my energy and makes it hard for me to concentrate on new film projects.  Yet I love "Hair High", like a child, and I don't want it to be mishandled or neglected.  It deserves to be seen by a lot of people.  I firmly believe it's the best feature I've ever done.

So, the Mission Theatre was the site of my U.S. theatrical premiere.  Steve Tenhonen, my old buddy, was my press agent, and he got me a lot of interviews on the radio, television, and in the newspapers for relatively little money (compared to Hollywood).  We got the word out and the Mission was a perfect location for "Hair High" because it serves BEER!  And nothing goes better with "Hair High" than alcoholic beverages.

Opening night was a big success.  Lines were around the block and we were supported by Marilyn Zornado and The Platform Animation Festival.  We even had punk cheerleaders in the lobby to drum up that old high school spirit.  The film was so successful it was held over. 

I then returned to New York, where I hosted a rooftop party for visiting animator Bruno Bozzetto, and also began working on the art for my next feature, "Idiots and Angels". 

For this animated story, I'm using a different technique.  It's basically just a number two pencil while cross-hatching and overworking the image with maybe a little eraser now and then to correct mistakes and add highlights.  It's a style I used to draw at a very early age so it came very naturally to me.  And it's also easy to put on film, since it only needs to be scanned and composited with the backgrounds that use the same technique.  I used this style with both the Kanye West music video, "Heard 'Em Say" and Weird Al's "Don't Download This Song" with much success.  Honestly, I think this is the easiest, quickest, and most "Plympton-esque" style I've ever used.  The production on "Idiots" is just flying by; I can't believe how fast it's going.  You can watch me draw "Idiots" on my Ani-Cam on my web-site, Plymptoons.com. The story is much darker, weirder, and like David Lynch than my usual films.  It's very cartoon noir.  The graphic novel is now done and I don't know when it will be released in book stores.  I want to wait until closer to the film's completion.

Since Annecy is my favorite festival, I always plan to make a short each year for that wondrous festival, so I had to take a quick break from "Idiots", to create my new short entitled "Shut Eye Hotel".  I probably shouldn't give away the ending (it's a Hitchcock mystery ), so you must promise not to tell anybody.  I got the idea while waking up one morning and finding that my large oversized pillow had practically engulfed my head.  My pillow was eating my head! Wow! What a cool idea for a film; killer pillows that are tired of being fluffed up, battered, drooled on, and finally the pillow fights back and wants its revenge, so it EATS people's heads!  I storyboarded it while on my trips abroad and began animating in early October.  Now my studio is putting together the scenes and we'll soon add the music and sound and hopefully it will be ready for Annecy's January deadline.

One new twist is that I've added a small bit of CGI, believe it or not.  We have an intern from Austria, Anna Maria Jung, who is putting together the images for a computer-generated hotel.  I'm not proud that I used the computer in this new film, but hell, I might as well try it and see what all this fuss is about.  I hope that this film does for sleeping what "Jaws" did for swimming!

I've been going to a lot of festivals this fall.  They are hard to turn down---I'm a festival whore!  The first one was the Animation and Cartoon Arts Festival in Hangzhou,  just south of Shanghai.  I spent two days in Shanghai, and I was very impressed.  It's a wonderful, clean, park-filled, orderly city filled with magnificent new architecture.  The next day all the guests (speakers) took a bus to Hangzhou.  As we approached the Disneyland-style hotel, they had 40 costumed dancers out in the front porch, welcoming us to their city.  I've never seen such hospitality.  I was elected to cut the ribbon to the Animation Expo in front of a thousand cheering kids and fans, along with the local party Bureaucrats as confetti guns blasted paper into the air.  And then that evening the opening ceremonies were a giant three-ring circus extravaganza of little girls dressed as starfish, giant elephant puppets, trapeze artists, and a cast of thousands for our benefit. (see photos!)

The quality of the animation there is not quite up to Japanese standards yet, but with events like this to spark the young kids' dreams, I believe they will soon be making world class animations.

My next trip was to Mexico.  I was invited by Rene Castillo, the famous Mexican animator, to come to Guadalajara for Creanimax, their Animation and Computer Games Festival.  In fact, it was very similar to the Chinese event, in that it was highly financed by the local government on the well-founded hopes of spawning an animation industry in their respective countries.  So we also had to endure many speeches by local politicians and bureaucrats, but that's okay; they're the ones picking up our tab.  I was joined in Mexico by Jan Pinkava, famed "Geri's Game" animator. 

After the opening cocktail party, a bunch of us went to a bar to check out the local scene and this old man came up to our table with an old car battery strapped to his chest.  He then pointed the electrodes in our direction.  What did this guy want?  Did he want us to electrocute him or what?  Apparently, this is common entertainment in Mexican bars.  You grab one of the wires, the whole table holds hands, completing a circle of human bodies, and he turns up the juice.  It's actually more benign than it sounds, all you get is a strange tingling sensation running across your hands.  I suppose it's a way for a group of drunken gringos to bond.  I'm sure if he wanted to, the battery man could really goose the voltage and give everyone fried hair, but then he'd lose his tip.

The other great adventure was on the last night, when Jorge, our guide, took Jan Pinkava and me to Lucho Libre.  It took place in a rundown, cavernous boxing ring--on one side was a vast array of flashing neon strobe lights.  Out popped four muscular, yet over-the-hill and overweight men with masks.  Everyone cheered, especially the kids.  The wrestling itself was quite acrobatic, lots of somersaults, flips and flying men - some of the battle routines must have taken months of practice and were quite clever.  The highlight for me was when the partner of the good guy ("Buccanero") got pummelled in the audience aisle by the two bad guys.  They brought two medics with stretchers to haul the unconscious wrestler to a clearly visible and waiting ambulance.  But the bad guys went even deeper in their depravity - while the medics were loading the knocked-out hero on to the ambulance, one of the bad guys raced over and delivered some quick and brutal rabbit punches to the "unconscious" victim.  Now, that's like a scene out of one of my films!

My next venture was to Animacor, in beautiful Cordoba, Spain.  This festival is in its second year, and like China and Guadalajara, its purpose is to help the area develop a thriving animation industry.  The Animacor staff treated me very well the whole time I was there.  Fortunately, the first two days were devoted to judging all the films, and it rained constantly.  However, after we made our decision, the sun miraculously came out.  We awarded "Moongirl" by Henry Selick as the best short, 2nd prize went to "The Date From Hell" and 3rd prize went to "Hard Boiled Chicken".

I remember reading in Janson's History of Art in college about the Islamic Moorish influence on architecture in Spain.  Well, fortunately, right across from our hotel was the famous Mesquitas, the beautiful Moorish/Catholic masterpiece pictured in the art history book.  It certainly was stunning to see it up close.  They also gave us a tour of some of the Moorish palaces in the outlying areas.

Next year, enter your film in this wonderful festival, and try to go to Cordoba.  It's a jewel of a city - they also have substantial prize money.  In fact, I recommend you enter your film in all three of the festivals I attended this fall.

Between my travel plans, I was able to see some films - I hated "A Scanner Darkly" - boring!  That technique of computer rotoscoping began to wear on my eyes.  The opposite was true for "Open Season", a beautiful visual look, but unfortunately the story wasn't funny.  All the gags fell flat - I don't remember hearing any laughter in the audience.

The next big event of the fall was the New York premiere of "Hair High" - we were booked for one week at the Pioneer Two Boots Cinema.  Kerri Jaworski worked her butt off getting the word out - we felt that if we could make a strong impression in New York, then other cities would want the film.  We got the usual ads in the weekly papers - the Voice, New York Press and Time Out.  We had a co-sponsor, Soho Vespa, which was perfect since Spud, the central character, drives a Vespa in the film (like I did in high school).  We hosted an event at the Soho Vespa store and had a raffle for cool animation prizes.

One venue I wanted to try was TV advertising.  We bought 4 local ads during Adult Swim on Cartoon Network for only $1,000.00.  It was a great deal, however though we know a lot of people saw them, we're not sure how successful they were.

The opening night was a smashing success, it was sold out!  We had Anna dressed up as the Krazy Kock, humping everyone, plus Pat Smith's associate Noelle and her sister, Joy, made smashing pom-pom girls.  Eric Gilliland, the voice of Spud, was there, and he brought along Mike Myers of "Austin Powers" fame.  All the girls were a-twitter.

The after-party was at Two Boots Pizza, and everyone seemed to like the film a lot.  But the biggest surprise were the reviews.  The New York Times review was a rave, as were almost all the other ones in the paper and on the internet.  The only mediocre review was in the Village Voice, naturally.  My feeling is that a lot of the critics are getting tired of the CGI trend in animation.  After "Doogal" and "The Wild" and the entire glut of ugly, mediocre computer animal films, they were relieved and happy to see something hand-drawn.

The New York screenings were fun for me, because I was at the theater every night, giving sketches to everyone and doing Q&A sessions.  The crowds were great, and with these wonderful reviews, we're now able to distribute the film across the U.S. - so watch for it in your city soon, and if you want to be a cheerleader in your town, please let me know.  To find out more about "Hair High", please check out my web-site, www.hairhigh.com or the MySpace site.

My next project is a book of the illustrated lyrics of Kanye West, and then it's back to finishing up "Idiots and Angels", which is looking pretty good, in all modesty.  Another film is coming out this week - "Fuck, A Documentary".  I did a lot of animation for this wonderfully funny and incisive film.  Also, it looks like "Guide Dog", my new short, will be in the new edition of "The Animation Show", which will be killer.

The cartoon for this edition of the scrapbook is from page 38 of my "Sloppy Seconds" book - it's an idea that I used later on in my "Plymptoons" short.  Although I'm not a hunter, I did have a BB gun when I was a kid, and perhaps this originated as a childhood fantasy.