Adventure

No figure today in animation demands a documentary treatment more than Bill Plympton.

It could be argued that he's the most the important single figure in the past 25 years (moreso than Lassiter, Keane or MacFarlane) -the previous 25 belonging to Bakshi, the 25 prior Hubley, Walt Disney before him all the way back to Winsor McCay.

Adventures in Plymptoons had it's sneak premiere at the Museum of Moving Image yesterday before it's grand unveiling in Annecy next week.  There's plenty of material within the film to support the idea that the Plympton story needs to be told.

Beyond the technical issues -like it or not, fuzzy mattes and noisy audio which may be acceptable in an issue documentary become an issue in documentary about film -the serious flaw was hinted in director Alexia Anastasio's introduction.

She recounted a funny story about trying to "get" Kanye West for the film.  His appearance was foiled after his infamous Grammy Awards episode sent him to a self-imposed media exile.  Sure the pop star worked with the animator on a music video, but really, who cares?  What sort of insight could he offer on the man or the work?

There lies the fatal flaw in Adventures in Plymptoons, the viewer is treated to an constant stream of interviewees who seem chosen for some sort of celebrity appeal with few offering more than a line or two of hagiography.    Most stories are enjoyable -"Weird" Al Yankovic, for instance, is a personable and funny as you'd expect- but the cumulative effect is a white noise of talking heads.  Voices who might have otherwise broadened the scope of the film -Signe Baumane who senses a touch of misogyny in one particular scene, Ron Diamond on Bill's relationship to the commercial world -are given equal or less time than a voice actor who had maybe three hours interaction with the subject.

The talking head format fights the contrapuntal "quirky" approach.  Some of these segments are surprisingly rewarding -Bill Plympton serenading Troma's Lloyd Kaufman with "The Nose Hair Song" is one particular highlight.

Casual fans will likely enjoy some of the anecdotes (many are also recounting the excellent Independently Animated).  The uninitiated will see some great work though they might not fully understand why Bill Plympton is such a big deal.  Those looking for something more might be a little disappointed.

George Plimpton on Bill Plympton

While reviewing the Bill Plympton book, I pulled an old collection of his caricatures off the shelf.

Medium Rare was published by Holt Rinehart Winston in 1978, several years before he embarked on his full time animation journal. 

The illustration contents are terrific and speak for themselves.  Had Bill decided to stick with caricature he may have given David Levine a run for his money.  Animation, I guess, requires just as many lines but used over a few dozen more drawings.

Young David Levine worked at Terrytoons.  Maybe Plympton's career is like Levine in reverse.

The introduction by George Plimpton is very funny and worth sharing.

I have always envied those who practice the art of cartooning, and are good at it.  The one drawing I ever had published -when I was the editor the Harvard Lampoon and had the power to put my own material -was printed upside down, a state which my staffers, who were probably responsible, assured me was an improvement on the original concept.  Indeed, as I turned the magazine around a few times I was inclined to agree with them -though I did take exception to on of the Lampoon people who preferred the caricature lying on its side.  Since that time I have become only slightly more proficient, as the drawings on the next page might indicate.  In case the reader does not immediately recognize them as U. S. Presidents, I have identified which is which.

The reader will notice my hats.  I have trouble with the tops of heads, so I invariably put hats on them.  I am not bad at hats, sometimes I draw them lying around at the feet of my caricatures (or rather the foot, since I am incapable of drawing a pair legs on anyone en profile).  It will be noticed that I am not all that bad at drawing the balloons to contain the words the cartoonist's characters have in mind to say.  My trouble is with the words to put in the balloons -as is demonstrated by what I my two Presidents saying... their comments lacking a certain je ne sais quoi.

All of this is preamble to an expression of my admiration for the craftsmanship and the wit of Bill Plympton.  He is not only an admirable artist (he has no trouble with his legs at all) but he finds very funny and very perceptive things for his people to say.  How rare it is to find an artist adept at both these requirements of the great caricaturist-cartoonist.  Some are good at finding things for their characters to say, but deliver them through uninspired child-like stick people; others are draughtsmen with skill but little wit.  Plympton, on the other hand, combines artistic skills (some of his caricatures reflect a close study of Honoré Daumier) with a lively sense of his function as an artist-commentator in these parlous times -namely to present his work as a correct to social inertia.

What follows is a selection of Bill's best strips and caricatures since 1975.  Some of them ran originally in The Soho Weekly News, others  in a small-press paperback titled Tube Strips.  Many published here are new -an added fillip for those familiar with Bill's work as they commemorate the pleasure they had first discovering it.

Odds and Sods.

I have a review of Independently Animated: Bill Plympton up for The Comics Journal.

CLICK HERE

It's an excellent book.  Very well produced and very personable.  It fills a gap in the animation library.

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Anthology Film Archives has program this afternoon which includes Leger's Ballet Mechanique and other short experiments from the 1920s.

These bits of history may not be exciting in the same ways they were 90 years ago, but they're still exhilarating.

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The Tribeca Film Festival has announced it's slate.

Carol Channing: Larger Than Life will be premiering there.  We've done several short segments in the style of Al Hirschfeld for the film.

They also announced their program of animated shorts. (CLICK HERE)

I'm unfamiliar with all of the films and all of the filmmakers in the program.  It's good that such a high profile festival isn't bound to play the old standards.

Here's the list:

The Beaufort Diaries by Drew Jordan and Alex Petrowsky 

Not Over Easy by Jordan Canning

Year Zero by Richard Cunningham III 

Preferably Blue by Alan Dickson

Just That Sort of a Day by Abhay Kumar (looking like India's much anticipated answer to Don Hertzfelt from the promo still)

A Lost and Found Box of Human Sensation by Martin Wallner and Stefan Leuchtenberg

Harmonium Mountain by Clifford Ross