Bill Plympton at the San Diego Comic-Con

Excerpts from a David Apatoff post in Illustration Arts.

From Santa: The Fascist Years (2008)

I encountered Bill Plympton, the famously independent animator and illustrator, sitting at one of the few tables (at Comic-Con) without a ten foot full color banner of semi-nude space nymphettes. If his booth had a Dolby soundtrack, it was out of commission during my visit. If Plympton brought a funny barbarian hat, it was nowhere in sight.

Plympton has become justly famous for his offbeat, highly personal, subversive animation:

There is an excellent book about Plympton's life and career. His description of Disney's lucrative contract offer rivals Faust's meeting with Mephistopheles:

I was hoping that I could work on the Disney projects during the week and during my off-hours and weekends I could work on my own weird offbeat projects. "Sure," the lawyer said. "That's fine, and you have our permission but we'll own whatever you create." 

"What about if I tell someone a funny story?" I rebutted. 

"We own that," he said. 

"What if I have a dream?" 

"That's ours too."

Plympton walked away from a lot of money in order to save his work from the corporate de-flavorizing machine.

 

The full article here.