If you missed Bill Plympton at Annecy International Animation Film Festival (aka the largest animation festival in the world) last month, you can make up for it by coming down to see him at Dante’s, 1 SW 3rd Ave, in Portland, on Monday night.

Here’s Bill’s report on the festival, filed from France:

Its been 50 years since the 1st Annecy animation festival gathering in 1960. Apparently it was a small affair: 50 people congregated to watch animation and party. This year being a big anniversary year they asked some of the biggest names in the business (John Musker, Nick Park, Peter Lord, Joanna Quinn, Ed Nazarov, Alexei Alexeev, Matt Groening, David Silverman, Michel Ocelot, Peter de Seve, Raoul Servais, Marv Newland, Paul Driessen, Bruno Bozzetto, Sylvain Chomet, and me) to help celebrate. They put us all up in the fancy Palais de Menthon on the other side of the lake. It’s right on the beautiful lac d’Annecy so every morning I got to take a refreshing swim in the crystal-clear waters.

Yes, that’s two (2) Oregon animators out of a list of sixteen total invited to Anncey’s 50th anniversary. What does Bill do in France? He says he goes swimming, and here’s proof.

Bill’s caption: Ready to jump in the canal.

Bill will be selling DVDs of Hair High (2004), fresh off the presses, at Dante’s.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Bill always felt Hair High was his best film ever, and was puzzled when it was not widely seen. All the attention received by Idiots and Angels (2009) — six billion film festival awards and counting – he was expecting to get five years earlier with this (comparatively) lavishly produced high school prom ghost/love story. So here’s your chance to own a film very dear to Plympton’s heart.

Eric Gilliland and Sarah Silverman provide the voices of the young lovers, Spud and Cherri.

Another reason for celebration: Bill is looking forward to the domestic theatrical release of Idiots and Angels (2009), which should be on American movie screens before the end of the year.

For more info about Bill: Emily Harris interviewed him today on OPB’s Think Out Loud.

Bill makes sure his fellow animators and filmmakers get a shout out, and begins crediting the entire Portland animation scene in his first answer, before he gets around to talking about himself.

In so doing, he has renewed his honorary membership  in the Oregon Cartoon Institute. Thanks, and a tip of the hat to Mr. Plympton.

]]> http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2010/07/bill-plympton-dvd-release-party-dantes-in-portland-july-19-600-1000-pm/feed/ 0 http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2010/05/how-oregon-cartoon-institute-began-an-illustrated-guide/ http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2010/05/how-oregon-cartoon-institute-began-an-illustrated-guide/#comments Fri, 21 May 2010 20:15:31 +0000 Anne Richardson http://www.talltalestruetales.com/?p=7656

Basil Wolverton displays his pioneering “spaghetti and meatballs” approach to human anatomy.

As Oregon Cartoon Institute heads into its fourth year, I sat down to retrace the steps that led to its creation.

This timeline of development was originally written for Jill Hartz, at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. Thank you, Jill, for providing me with the impetus to pull this together!

1990’s in New York

As I fly back and forth between Portland and New York, I begin noticing the way Oregon press underplays the fame of Oregon’s most well received artists (Chuck Palahniuk a great example ) while at the same time New York press omits the Oregon citizenship of an artist all together. I begin to understand the way this has created a misperception that Oregon does not produce artists.

At about this same time Columbia sportswear begins showing up on the subways. The Simpsons are becoming a cultural mainstay. Elliott Smith, the Dandy Warhols, Courtney Love, Gus Van Sant — I start to feel  surrounded by Portland even when I am 3,000 miles away.

1999 visiting Portland

David Chelsea tells me about Basil Wolverton.

I knew about Homer Davenport, the Hearst newspaper cartoonist from Silverton.

I’d heard about Mel Blanc, Portland’s most reknowned voice artist.

But I am stupefied by Wolverton. How could a guy from Central Point (pop: 12,000)  influence an entire generation of  Americans? And do it via Mad Magazine ?

A seed starts to sprout in my mind.

2001, in Portland

Dennis Nyback and I teach an avant garde film survey course at Northwest Film Center. Preparing for it, I discover avant garde animator Harry Smith was born in Portland.

Smith was both the disciplined, insightful, completely original collector behind Folkways’ enormously influential Anthology of American Folk Music and a self taught, extravagantly experimental, completely original filmmaker. I never dreamt he had anything to do with Oregon.

In my previous understanding, Oregon rarely produced nationally known artists.

Now with Harry “High Brow” Smith and Basil “Low Brow” Wolverton in the picture, I am completely confused.

2003 in New York

Standing in Kim’s Video, I stumble across a footnote in a book about Robert Crumb which identifies Carl Barks, creator of the comic books which were a huge influence on Crumb, as being from Merrill, Oregon.

I turn the book over to see who wrote it — D. K. Holm, from Portland.

At this point I compile a list of living and dead Oregon cartoonists and animators and send it to John Canemaker, asking what he thinks. He calls me, excited and impressed.

He adds two new names.

He tells me Marc Davis, one of Disney’s Nine Old Men, graduated from high school in Klamath Falls

and that Pinto Colvig, an early animator turned voice artist, is from Jacksonville.

2006 in Portland

Dennis and I interview Portland cartoonist  John Callahan for The Portland That Was.

Callahan is surprised to learn that Mel Blanc, a life long hero, is from his own home town. Our intern, a graduate of Lincoln High School, the school Blanc attended, tells us she never heard of him.

About this time, graphic journalist  Joe Sacco returns home to live in Portland, bringing with him his 1996 American Book Award.

Dennis and I return home too.

2007 in Portland

We hold the first Oregon Cartoon Institute public event, a three week screening series at Disjecta of 16mm animation from Dennis’ collection. Jim Blashfield and Rose Bond come and speak. Both have conducted far ranging film careers from Portland.

Blashfield made his acclaimed music videos here, and Bond her monumentally scaled installations. Both use animation.

Our model for engaging audiences emerges  — we will use living artists as interpreters as we raise awareness about the dead ones. Chel White, Bill Plympton, Joan Gratz, Joanna Priestly, Marilyn Zornado and Will Vinton loan us 35mm prints for the final night of the Disjecta series, which takes place at the Hollywood Theater.

Second Oregon Cartoon Institute event: Dennis conducts video interviews with visiting and local artists at the Platform International Animation Festival. We put these online.

At this point, I thought we had found all the historic Oregon animation and cartooning figures there were to find.

I was wrong.

In the course of researching Oregon film history for the Oregon Sesquicentennial Film Festival, I stumble across George Bruns, a four time Oscar nominee for animated film scores, from Sandy

and Dennis stumbles across Ralph Wright, who won the Golden Bear in Berlin in 1957. He’s from Grants Pass.

2009 in Portland

Third Oregon Cartoon Institute event: we co-sponsored Bill Plympton Day at the Oregon Sesquicentennial Film Festival at Marylhurst.

Bill is as fascinated with this history as we are.

Not all our research comes from history books. Some comes from the news. Just when we weren’t looking,  Brad Bird received first one, then two Oscars.

Looking ahead:

An interview about Oregon Cartoon Institute’s next public event, which will take place in 2011, can be found online at  KBOO.fm. Conducted by S. W. Conser as part of his Words & Pictures series, this interview introduces our first artist in residence, Heather Perkins.

Oregon Cartoon Institute is all about partnerships. As soon as the details get finalized, we will announce our upcoming partnerships with others who share our goal of raising public awareness of  this state’s rich animation and cartooning history.

Proof that lightning can strike twice in the same place: animation legend Mel Blanc dropped out of the high school from which animation legend Matt Groening would later graduate.

Blanc first worked as a professional voice artist was right here in Portland, on KGW radio. He was a pit musician (eventually band leader) at the Paramount Theater.

Here’s a list of characters voiced by Blanc:

Of the many many cartoon characters Mel Blanc voiced, he is most closely identified with Bugs Bunny. He adlibbed the insouciant “What’s up, doc?” which became Bugs Bunny’s identifying phrase.

Melvin Jerome Blanc holds the #1 ranking on IMDB for number of film credits: 1,012.

When are we going to name a street – or a theater – after him?

Fox asked Morgan “Supersize Me” Spurlock to make a one hour  documentary about The Simpsons — it will air Jan. 10.

In honor of Matt Groening’s remarkable odyssey from Lincoln High School to world domination, here’s my  favorite interview with him. I love the way he turns the tables, sharing new information the interviewer really didn’t expect (as opposed to agreeing to continue to endlessly bounce empty pleasantries back and forth). His history lesson begins at 2:00.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s Matt’s first appearance on network television, 20 years earlier :

Click here to view the embedded video.

This post brought to you by the Oregon Cartoon Institute.

Whatever the mysterious forces are which bring Oregonians to animation success, they were especially powerful in the mid-1980’s, when Will Vinton made the first feature length Claymation film in Portland. The following year, Matt Groening debuted The Simpsons and Brad Bird debuted Family Dog, both on network television, and Bill Plympton, working in NYC, was nominated for an Oscar for Your Face.

All four men are animation geniuses. If you are unsure that a successful advertising man like Will Vinton belongs in this group, see The Adventures of Mark Twain to appreciate just how miraculously odd he is as an artist.

If you remain skeptical of the size of Vinton’s contribution to American film, just watch the credits. Count the names who went on to other things — animator Mark Gustafson (The Fantastic Mr. Fox) and sound editor (now a director) Kelley Baker are just two.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It was Vinton who modeled the passionate engagement with technique which paved the way for Coraline.

I hereby claim The Adventures of Mark Twain as an Oregon film, based on many qualifying factors. It was made at the Will Vinton Studios in Northwest Portland, and written, directed, produced, animated — you name it— by Oregonians.

This post brought to you by the Oregon Cartoon Institute.

First version of America’s most beloved nuclear family, The Simpsons, as unveiled on The Traci Ullman Show.

The Simpsons eventually became movie stars, but for two decades they labored away on the small screen. You may have heard of them.

Matt Groening, their Portland born and raised creator, is second generation show biz — Homer Groening, his father, was an independent filmmaker and advertising man in Portland. Abraham Groening, his grandfather, was a professor at Lewis and Clark College.

I hereby claim everything ever made starring Bart, Maggie, Lisa, Homer and Marge Simpson as an Oregon film, based on the Oregon origin of their creator, Lincoln High School alumnus Matt Groening.

This post brought to you by the Oregon Cartoon Institute, your source for Oregon animation and cartooning history since 2003.

In honor of Portlander Matt Groening’s television series The Simpsons receiving recognition as the epicenter of pop culture, I am posting this live onstage appearance of Matt with his long time chum Lynda Barry, a fellow Evergreen College alumn.

Read about the totality of Matt Groening’s conquest of American popular culture on CNN.

This post brought to you by the Oregon Cartoon Institute, your source for Oregon animation and cartooning history since 2003.

I love seeing Homer everywhere. I remember when Mel Gibson made Passion of Christ (2004), the reviewer in the NY Times sniffed that it was almost as morally profound as an episode of The Simpsons. This image was used to illustrate an online story about brain chemistry.

Ricky Gervais reveals the depth of his love of The Simpsons. “Its the only thing I’m a real nerd over.”

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