I flew out to L.A. for one day in February to take part in the annual Annie Awards, sort of like animation's version of the Oscars. It takes place in Glendale, California, just a mile or so away from Disney and Dreamworks. It's a black-tie affair with a lot of pomp and ceremony, and crazy animation mascots.

All the great animators were there - John Lasseter and his Pixar entourage, Chris Wedge of Blue Sky and Jeffrey Katzenberg of Dreamworks, and even George Bush made an appearance...

I was honored with a Winsor McCay award, given out to people who've made a special contribution to animation in their career. Also receiving awards were Andrew Deja and Genndy Tartakovsky.

Just before I was to receive the coveted award, as I waited backstage beside the sound and video control board - sparks and flames leapt out at me, and then the entire mass of wiring burst into flames! I yelled "Find an extinguisher!" We couldn't find one, so one of the stagehands threw his coat over the flames - I wasn't about to throw my new Banana Republic Oscar freebie jacket over the inferno. Let some working-class guy do that, I'm getting the Winsor McCay Award! Of course, when I got the award, the projector had blown a fuse and they couldn't show my career highlight reel.

I was also up for the Short Film award with my music video of "Don't Download This Song" by Weird Al Yankovic. The eventual winner was Blue Sky's "No Time For Nuts".

I also got to hang out with my good buddy (and brilliant artist) Peter DeSeve. At the after-party, I was honored to meet the great-grandson of Winsor McCay. I feel a real kinship to Winsor McCay, we both started out working in newspapers and magazines, we both were fast drawers that used surrealism to tell our stories, and we were both fiercely independent.

My favorite film program, the Animation Show, rolled out across America in January - and since my short film "Guide Dog" was included, I wanted to support the program as much as possible. Also, I like the people who organize the compilation - Rob, Rebecca, Don Hertzfeldt and Mike Judge - and the films in the program are fantastic. So, I made three appearances with the show, in Boston, NYC (the Roseland Ballroom) and Chicago (the Music Box Theater).

The audience packed houses everywhere - and they loved the shorts, especially "Game Over" by PES, "City Paradise", and Don's new film "Everything Will Be OK". While in Chicago, I met Gabe, and he wanted to put together a program with John Krisfaluci and me. So, it looks like it's happening on May 25 - John K. will do a show of all his favorite short films, with me as moderator, and on May 26, I'll be showing some of my shorts and "Hair High", with John K. as moderator. This will take place at the Portage Theater in Chicago, and it's going to be a blast! If you're in the area, stop by.

I really look up to John K., he's one of the true mavericks, a genius of animation - we were influenced by the same guys - Tex Avery, Bob Clampett and Rod Scribner.

Another one of my heroes, Marv Newland, was in town to see all the Saul Steinberg shows going on. "Marvelous" Marv was one of the guys who got me into animation. I first met him at one of his shows in Oregon in the early 80's, I think he showed "Sing Beast Sing" (a classic) and it blew me away - he encouraged me to make a short and enter it on the festival circuit, especially Annecy. I had no idea you could make a film by yourself without a big Hollywood studio behind you, until I met Marv.

While in New York, Marv did a show at Two Boots Cinema - it wasn't a packed house, unfortunately, but it was an amazing program - great stuff! Check out his Rocketship video reel (the best!) appearing soon on DVD.
We had a ball at the Steinberg show. Steinberg was such an influence on me, starting from way back in my college days. So many great graphic ideas, and such simplicity of line - a true original. I took my sketch pad to the show and stole many ideas.

I definitely encourage young animators to "steal" ideas - I've always been influenced by many artists, and you can see their influences in many of my films - but what happened over the years is that the different styles evolved into my own style, and now people think I'm a true original, like Steinberg, which I'm not - I've ripped off so many of the great cartoonists and artists, including Steinberg.

At the end of February, I attended the 2nd Annual New York Comic-Con. I heard the first year was a big fiasco - too many fans and not enough room. But this time it was much better organized. I met a lot of old friends - "Mutts" creator Patrick McDonnell, Oscar-winner John Canemaker, Mike Mignola of "Hellboy" fame, Darren Aronofsky of "Pi" and "Requiem For a Dream", and "Bone" creator Jeff Smith.

I hosted a show at NY Comic-Con of all my new work, including "Shuteye Hotel" and excerpts from "Idiots and Angels" and I got a good reaction from the small audience. Generally, I had a good time at the NY Comic-Con, but I seemed to be the only animation guy there. They need to bring in more of the animation industry, right now it's too focused on just the comics industry - but hopefully next year they'll have a larger and broader perspective - I've already ordered my booth.

One of my favorite events of the year is the NY ASIFA Festival - the unique thing about this competitive event is that every member is a judge, and we all watch the films together. They claim it's the oldest animation festival in the world - it began in the late 60's, but I didn't get involved until the mid-80's.

In the Sponsored Films category, I loved PES's new commercial for Sneaux athletic shoes - very clever and amazing, and Aaron Augenblick's "Aunt Flo" - hilarious. In the Professional category, there were a lot of very bad films - which are always fun to watch, because they're so awful. In fact, I hesitate to call "Time" because they're so inept and amusing.

I saw about 4 films in the ASIFA competition that were terrific - Pat Smith's "Puppet", a classic morality tale, David Chai's wild "Cole Needs Women", Nina Paley's "Agni Pariksha" was beautiful, and the film that got the best reaction was Signe Baumane's "Teat Beat", a hilarious sex confessional film - the audience was rolling in the aisles.

I screened my brand-new short, "Shuteye Hotel" to a good response - we're very excited that it got accepted to the Tribeca Film Festival, which will be the world premiere. (It's playing with the feature "The Last Jews of Libya".)

On Sunday, May 6, the ASIFA awards will be handed out at the New School on 12th St. Be there to watch all the winning films!

I'm falling a bit behind schedule on the new feature "Idiots and Angels" because I'm in the middle of promoting 2 shows - a limited midnight screening of "Hair High" on April 6 and 7 at the terrific IFC Center in Manhattan.

And the big event - the one-week run of "Hair High" at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in L.A., starting on April 13. Of course, I will be out there to introduce the Friday and Saturday night shows - and everyone there gets a free Bill Plympton sketch. We're hoping to have a few of the famous voice-over artists there - so if you're in the area, please tell your friends and come by.

This installment of cartoons from my "Sloppy Seconds" book is a more zen-like bit of surrealism. I've often been amazed at the similarity of clouds and trees - in shape and texture - so I wondered what it would be like to see them change places. The result is this 4 panel cartoon.