In July, I went up to the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal. It's a regular event I've been going to for a number of years. I like it a lot because they always show great films (especially sci-fi and animation), the audiences are fantastic and it's a wonderful city. "Idiots and Angels" showed there to a very enthusiastic and packed house. Also I was able to see a great vampire film from Sweden called "Let the Right One In" by Tomas Alfredson. It's an excellent modern-day vampire film. I believe it opens up at the end of the month here in the states. The title is very confusing and has little to do with the story; I believe it should be changed.

The popularity of fantastic film is now worldwide. Already in Europe there are a number of fantastic film festivals. Spain has two of my favorite festivals, Sitges and San Sebastian. Just recently, there was the fantastic festival in Austin Texas ran by Tim League who operates the Alamo Ale House.

While vacationing in Oregon and seeing all of my old friends, I took a three-day detour to San Diego for the great Comic-Con. Unfortunately, I couldn't stay for the entire festival because I had to attend a family wedding in Oregon. At Comic-Con, I was able to have a partial screening of "Idiots and Angels" to a very large and appreciative audience. Then that night I hung out with Ralph Bakshi, one of my all-time heroes. In the 1970's when there was nothing but crap available in animation (example: Hanna-Barbera and Scooby-Doo), he was creating great adult films and getting great box office numbers. Unfortunately, I missed the infamous Museum of Modern Art screening of "Coonskin", where a young Al Sharpton and his followers attempted to halt the screening but Ralph took them on and the screening proceeded. I'm very sorry I missed that historic event. For someone like myself who makes animation that can sometimes offend people that would have been a transforming experience. So anyway, I had drinks with Ralph in San Diego at the ASIFA Hollywood party. Then he and his editors from Rizzoli Books went to a screening of his film "Wizards". Afterwards, we crashed the posh Warner Brothers Animation party only to find out we were the only animators there. It was all executives and buyers. Typical!

Upon returning to N.Y., I had a meeting with the editors of Simon and Schuster and Kanye West (along with his entourage) about the book we're working on. Apparently Kanye liked the art but wanted the design changed. So, dear readers, you may have to wait a little longer for the much-anticipated release of our book. The title has been changed to "Heard 'em Say", so watch for it soon.

Before the next festival, Richard Williams and his talented wife Mo invited Patrick Smith and me up to his hotel in New York City to talk about animation. It was great to hear his old stories about the golden days of animation. Richard is so generous with his encyclopedic knowledge of animation, he should write a book.

The next big festival was Deauville. It's a very important festival because it's an opportunity for me to do a lot of publicity in France. I need "Idiots and Angels" to be big in France because it helps tremendously to start the buzz that it's a commercial film. E.D. Distribution (Manuel and Fabrice) met Biljana and me at the Charles DeGaulle airport and we drove up to Deauville, a beautiful old town on the northeast coast of Normandy. There are lots of old tudor-like cottages and architecture. The hotel where we stayed, called The Normandie, is a magnificent ancient resort hotel right on the beach. The first activity was to present ourselves before the press. The handlers guided us through a maze-like tent to the back room, where there was a bank of photographers yelling "Beeel! Beeel! Beeel!". Of course, I had to keep it visually interesting, so I pulled out my new sketchpad and did an impromptu drawing of Angel. Joining me on the platform was Biljana Labovic, my producer, and Didier Carmier, one of my great musicians, who now lives in Paris. After that experience we went to introduce the film, but unfortunately, it was an afternoon screening so there was not a big audience. However, the small audience was very enthusiastic and loved the film.

The next night, I attended the tribute to Parker Posey. Biljana and I walked the red carpet in the rain and after the tribute I joined Parker, Zoë Cassavetes and Hal Hartley in the green room for champagne. Back in 2000, I wanted Parker to do a voice for "Mutant Aliens" but after reading the script she felt that the character Josie was too sexy for her. Anyway, she was very friendly and it was a fun but short reunion.

Upon my return, I went to the Martha's Vineyard film festival. I brought along fellow animators Signe Baumane, Pat Smith and the twins, Joy and Noelle Vaccese. This festival is one of my favorites of the year. It's a beautiful town, Vineyard Haven, and the audiences are great. Each year Richard Paradise and Nevette put together a great collection of films. This year I designed the festival's poster and organized the "best of" animation program, called Animation Lollapalooza. Our screening was overflowing and the twins did a wonderful opening title sequence. We got to hang out with Ellen Kuras (a great cinematographer) and John Anderson (one of the best film critics).

The only downside to the festival this year was that it started raining the day we arrived and didn't let up until the morning we departed. It's too bad because it's such a beautiful spot. I hope to return next year to sunny skies.

I've never been to Greece before, and I've always wanted to visit, so when I got invited I jumped at the free trip. The Athens Film Festival is a very lively well-attended festival. They have a great lineup of films, plus they did a career retrospective of my animation and I also got a plaque from the city of Athens (the cradle of democracy), which was very exciting. I always wanted to swim in the crystal waters of the Aegean, so when the festival director, Petros Antoniades, invited me out to his house on the island of Kea, I jumped at the chance. It's a beautiful old island about an hour's ferry ride from Athens, with a quiet fishing village , picturesque churches and seafood restaurants. The only problem was that the rain from Martha's Vineyard followed me to Greece and the storm made it very difficult to enjoy the beautiful beaches. On the last night, I premiered "Idiots and Angels" in a driving monsoon but we still had a standing room only audience and they loved the film.

One strange aspect to the Greek cinemas is that halfway through my screening they stopped the projector. I though "Oh damn, the film broke!" but everybody filed out of the room to get a coffee and a cigarette. Apparently that's common for all Greek movie houses. I guess it's great for the concession stand. I hope to go back to the festival in the future and finally go swimming on a romantic Greek island.

The Florida Film Festival in Orlando has expanded the Enzian Theater to include an outdoor restaurant and bar. Siggy, Philipe and Alex Tiedke had asked me to create a large mural for the bar. I'm trying to concentrate on making films but I have such a great time at their festival and they're such good people that I couldn't turn them down. I created the artwork in August and the muralists were almost finished, so I flew down to Orlando to give an OK to the painters. The theme is the Garden of Eden and it has a lot of jungle and swamp animals ala Henri Rousseau. Anyway, it looks great and it should be unveiled in October. Alas, I'll be out of the country during the ceremony. If you are ever in the area, check out the Enzian Cinema in Winter Park and tell them "Bill sent you", and order the special Bill Plympton drink.

I'm a regular at the Woodstock Film Festival. Signe Baumane and I program the very popular animation show there every year and we brought up Pat Smith (judge) and Joy and Noelle Vaccese. We were also joined by my (sadly) ex-employee Lisa LaBracio. This festival, despite the lack of hotel space, seems to grow larger every year. Thanks to the wonderful direction of Meira Blaustein and Laurent Rejto, many local and national celebrities populated this festival.

One of the highlights was the annual BMI dinner, hosted by the charming Doreen Ringer Ross. It was great food at Oriole 9 surrounded by tons of celebrities, documentarians Barbara Kopple, Morgan Spurlock, Ron Mann, Leon Gas, Woodstock music festival organizer Michael Lang, Ellen Kuras, Haskell Wexler and special guest Donovan. I remembered as a kid loving all of the Donovan songs; "Colors", "Hurdy Gurdy Man" (guitar by Jimmy Page), "Mellow Yellow", and "Season of the Witch". So it was a gas to finally meet the great troubadour.

I stayed in a very generous local's home while I was there and I would walk to the festival, which was about a mile, and I would get offers for rides. Coming from New York City, I'd often be suspicious of these offers. Are they looking for money? Are they lost and want directions? Or are they roaming sexual pervs? No, I'm in Woodstock silly! They're just being "green" and generous!

While in Woodstock, I saw "Tokyo" a very nice and imaginative compilation with Michel Gondry, Bonj Joon Ho and Leo Carax as as contributing directors. The "Idiots and Angels' screenings were packed, a very nice audience - they loved it!

But the closing night party was the best. First, there was an intimate directors' dinner where I got to hear John Sayles, David Strathairn and Haskell Wexler exchanging old cinema stories. It was great! Then we all moved to the large awards ceremony. I presented the animation award to "Bernie's Doll", by Yann Jouette. James Schamus got an award from Ang Lee. But the topper was Kevin Smith's acceptance speech for his Maverick Award. He went on for twenty minutes and I was crying tears, it was so funny. The partying went late, but I had to get back to NY because I was flying off to Romania the next day.

The festival crew met me at the Bucharest airport with many large "Idiots and Angels" signs and on the drive into the city, we were immediately stuck in traffic. Bucharest is a strange city - the people walk in the streets and the cars are on the sidewalks because there are too many cars and no parking. But the people are so nice they have a great attitude. I got to see "The Three Brigands" again. It's a delightful film from the book and style of Tomi Ungerer, one of my big influences. I got to meet Hayo Frietag, the director and we spent a lot of time talking about animation and cartoons. Oddly enough, I met him 23 years ago at one of my very first festivals in Treviso, Italy. He had a short called "My Brother" and I had "Boomtown".

Then I did my famous master class at the American Cultural Center. It was a very strange experience because all of the participants had to be x-rayed and patted down. Then there were the large photos of Bush and Cheney looking down on me as I did the class. The "Idiots and Angels" screening was a great success. Even though the cinema was very large (over 1000 seats) it got very violent as people fought to enter, needless to say the film was a big hit.

The next day the directors took us on a tour of "The People's Palace". It's supposedly the second largest office building in the world - a megalomaniac ego fantasy created by their nutso dictator Nicolai Ceausescu. I found the building amazingly beautiful and compelling, although it's a big "white elephant" that stands basically empty except for a few offices and an art gallery. I believe they could market this thing like Versailles in France and it would be stormed with tourists. Especially if they played up the whole Nicolai Ceausescu angle, showed his torture chamber, recreated his offices and his wife's extravagant collections of clothes and knick-knacks. They have to accent the Communist extravagance in the face of unbearable poverty throughout the rest of the country. I stood at the famous balcony where Michael Jackson greeted the crowds of fans with the greeting, "Hello Budapest!" D'oh!!

I flew from there to the famed Sitges Fantastic film festival, hosted by Angel Sala (no relation to "Idiots and Angels"). It's the second largest film festival in Spain. I was joined by my good friend and translator Dori (who was at Animadrid to pick up my first place prize). The "Idiots and Angels" screenings were packed with lots of rabid fans.

Finally, the weather cooperated and we were able to go swimming in the nude beach right next to the hotel. Thank god the paparazzi didn't follow me there or you'd see my bare ass on all of the scandal sheets.

I was able to see the new Miyazaki film "Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea". He produced it but didn't direct it - however you can certainly see his creative leadership in the film. It's not as visually stunning as some of his earlier films but it's a super delightful story similar to Hans Christian Andersen's "Little Mermaid" with a tsunami thrown in. I'm sure it will be a big success.

I got the chance to hang out with a few friends while in Spain. Dennis Tupicoff stopped by on his two-month tour of Europe with his wonderful film "Chainsaw". We talked about country-western music. Then I also hung out with the famous actor and director Larry Fessenden. He was there with his new film, "I Sell the Dead".

I got to sneak into the green room to see "Synecdoche, NY" and there sitting all alone was Charlie Kaufman of "Being John Malkovich" fame. I tried to talk to him but didn't know if I should be surreal, clever or normal. There was an awkward silence and he says that he worked on the same Fox show I did called "The Edge" by David Mirkin. And that was the end of the conversation. Anyway "Synecdoche, NY" is a very strange ambitious film that I believe will go down as a classic.

On my way to my screening of "Idiots and Angels", I ran into a lot of zombies wandering the street. I wondered what the hell was going on? Were zombies invading Sitges? Well, it turns out that they wanted to break the Guinness World record for the largest zombie march - or parade, or stagger, or whatever zombies do.

At the closing ceremonies, I got to sit next to Ed Sanchez of the "Blair Witch Project" fame. He was there for the ten-year anniversary of "Blair Witch". He is a very nice guy. I didn't win a prize, however Jennifer Lynch won the grand prize with her film "Surveillance", and they asked me to accept it for her. So I gave some kind of lame speech. I was hoping to present it to her personally but I think she lives in LA, so no luck.

The next trip kicks off two busy months, for me part of the process of making a feature film is selling the damn thing. So this entire autumn Biljana Labovic, my producer, and I are making appearances around the world to try and make sales to distribution companies.

If you check out my schedule on my website you'll see that I'm racking up the sky miles to do business. I must say, most of the places I'm going to are a lot of fun and it's a real adventure. But never in my life have I spent so much time away from home and in so many different places. I'll let you know in the next installment if I'm burning out on travel.

This edition of a cartoon from Sloppy Seconds appears on page 45, It's called "Suicide Cowboy Style". It's kind of similar to "Mafia the Early Days" where the cowboy's horse blows up. I don't think this one is as successful, but it's still funny. See you in a couple of months.