Bill Plympton

 

To watch part two click here

This week on One on One, Riz Khan explores the quirky mind of the talented director and illustrator, Bill Plympton.

His cartoons and illustrations in some of the world’s leading publications have fascinated millions of people over the years but it is his deep, adult-themed, off-the-wall animated films that make this artist so unique.

In spite of being one of six children, the young Bill Plympton kept mostly to himself, immersed from an early age in the products of his own imagination. The rainy climate of his American home town of Portland, in Oregon, kept the youngster mostly indoors where he practiced his drawing skills.

Plympton’s interest in illustration took another step forward at university, when he developed an interest in film, although his first jobs, on moving to New York, were mostly illustrating magazines, from Vogue to Vanity Fair.

He eventually started producing his own films – working on small budgets he put together, but his dedication to his craft – along with his patience for drawing literally every frame by hand himself – has helped him produce some of the most unique and remarkable animated movies around – usually with an intriguing adult theme.

As he points out with a wry smile, when he was a kid, he did cartoons for kids, now he is an adult he likes showing the dark side of people.

This episode of One on One aired from Friday, January 16, 2009.