Bill Plympton Quotes

I'd love to win an Oscar; that would be great. I hope to get a feature film that I've made get a wide release. I'm not sure that's ever going to happen.

People used to want to be filmmakers and animators; now they want to make apps.

I'm not as successful as Pixar or Dreamworks, and that is disappointing to me, because I think my films are as valid as a Pixar film. I think there's an audience for my films. I know there's a market for someone like Quentin Tarantino, who basically does adult cartoons in live action.

Being a talented artist is good, it's nice, but it's not the most important thing. I think being a good storyteller, having a good idea, a good gag, is probably more important than being a great artist.

My films usually start with an idea that I get while walking the streets. For example, I got the idea for 'Guard Dog' when I was walking in the park and I saw a dog barking at a bird.

Hand-drawn animation is something that I feel really strongly about. A Pixar movie may be really great, but it looks like it was drawn by a machine.

I think each film I do has less and less dialogue. It really helps a lot for foreign sales, because when I go to Europe, there's very little problem with communication. All the gags are visual. The music they can understand, and it helps communicate a lot better.

For me, the perfect film has no dialogue at all. It's purely a visual, emotional, visceral kind of experience. And I think one can create wonderful depth and meaning and communication without using words. I started out as an illustrator and a cartoonist and caricature artist, so for me the visual is primary.

America is behind Europe and Japan in terms of accepting adult ideas in animation.

I'm much better known in France and Germany and Spain than I am in the U.S. When I go to Russia, I get mobbed; I have groups of fans waiting for me out in the hotel lobby, waiting for me to come down off the elevator. In China, I almost got beat up because people were trying to get me to do a drawing for them.

Negotiating with Disney isn't like good cop/bad cop; it's like bad cop/Antichrist.

I think it reflects well on the state of animation that people are knowledgeable about it and love the fantasy and imagination that goes into it.

I'm very happy with the success of short films. In fact, for me, the short films make more money than the features.

I like the idea of seeing a film that has the artist's hand in there,a film where you can see his strokes, you can see his working patterns. It's like going to a museum and seeing a Renoir drawing. You want to see their work and you want to see how they put it together. For me to see that in animation is really fresh, it's really exciting, it's really original.