In animation, he's top drawer

Fourth in a series of interviews with filmmakers, actors, and others involved in the inaugural Plymouth Independent Film Festival that begins July 21. For screening locations and times, visit www.plyfilmfest.org.

Ever since MTV brought his cartoons to the masses, Bill Plympton has become a leading figure in the world of animation.

The New York City animator, best known for his twisted imagery and offbeat sense of humor, has always been drawing cartoons. At age 14, he applied for a job at Disney. The folks at Disney wrote back and said his drawings showed promise, but they would not hire a teenager.

The Oregon native later graduated from Portland State University, served in the National Guard, then moved to the Big Apple to study at the School of Visual Arts. He began his career as an illustrator for several magazines, and in 1975 launched ''Plympton," a political cartoon strip that ran for 10 years and was syndicated.

Plympton began making animated films in the 1980s. For one of his shorts, titled ''Your Face," he asked a former band mate in a country and western band, Maureen McElheron, to score and sing the soundtrack. He slowed her voice down to match a man's contorting face. The captivating short film caught the attention of critics, and ''Your Face" received the 1988 Oscar nomination for best animation.

Since then, Plympton's work has been shown at film festivals all over the world.

He recently completed ''Hair High," a dark high school comedy that features the voices of Dermot Mulroney, Martha Plimpton, Sarah Silverman, and Beverly D'Angelo.

In January Plympton received his second Oscar nomination for his short film, ''Guard Dog." He is now working on a sequel. He was interviewed via telephone recently about ''Guard Dog," which will be shown at the Plymouth Independent Film Festival next month.

First, some basic questions: Where do you live, and how old are you?

I live in Manhattan, in Chelsea. I was born in Oregon in 1946. . . . That makes me 59.

You have some local ties to Massachusetts. . . . Did you grow up here, or have family living here?

The Plympton family originally settled there. We would go to these family reunions every four years in Sturbridge, and visit the little towns in the area where Plymptons had become pillars of their communities. I hung out and took pictures of Plympton Street in Boston.

Are you related to Martha Plimpton?

I met her at the reunions. She did voice for ''Hair High." She was instrumental in bringing in big-name talent. I knew her mother, Shelley, before, and met her first, because we're closer to the same age. [Shelley] was in ''Hair." When I saw her on stage, I thought to myself, ''There's another Plympton!" (Despite the spelling variation, they are distantly related.)

Tell us about the film that will be shown at the Plymouth film festival.

Do you know about ''Guard Dog"? Let me tell you. It was nominated for an Oscar. The last time I was nominated was 18 years ago, so I was excited to go there. It's about this dog that barks at all these innocent creatures. I always wondered why dogs do that, and what they're so afraid of. In the film, I went inside a dog's brain to show these paranoid fantasies that dogs have, which makes them bark at pigeons, squirrels, blades of grass. . . .

Where do you make your films?

I work out of my house, my loft in Chelsea. My technique is very traditional; pencil on paper, colored pencils on paper. Hand drawn, like it was done 80, 90 years ago.

Keepin' it old school.

Yes. (laughs)

What kind of music do you listen to?

I like country western. . . . Emmylou Harris, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash.

When did you first start drawing cartoons?

I was 4 years old. I started selling cartoons in college, for the yearbook. When I moved to New York City I became an illustrator. I sold cartoons to Playboy, Penthouse. . . . It wasn't until 1983 that I got into animation. I'm a latecomer. I should've started earlier.

When you were a kid, did you watch cartoons on TV?

I was obsessed with them. Disney stuff, of course. . . . ''The Wonderful World of Disney," I'd watch that religiously every Sunday night. Then there was Warner Brothers. . . . Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck. . . . I think that's where I got a lot of my humor from.

If you hadn't become an animator, what would have been your next career choice?

I probably would've been an illustrator, a political cartoonist.

What is your definition of independence . . . more specifically, your definition of independent film?

It's the power to wake up every morning and make whatever . . . you want to make and not have anybody tell you what to do. Clearly that's a function of financing my own films. Very few people have that. It's very rare to have complete control.

Would you work for a big studio? Or, would you rather not have people tell you what to do?

If the money was right, I'd work for a big studio, sure! People are afraid of me. They think I'm obsessed with sex and violence. But I've done films for the Cartoon Network, PBS, . . . quiet, sentimental little films, believe it or not.

What are you working on now?

I'm finishing up the sequel to ''Guard Dog." It's called ''Guide Dog." He leads blind people around to their death -- inadvertently. It should be out around Christmas.

What inspires you to be creative?

Two things. One is boredom. I don't like being bored. Creating characters and stories is a good way to avoid getting bored. Two is fear. Fear of being a failure, not succeeding, not making enough money to live. And hearing people laugh is a great incentive. Hearing people laugh at my films in a theater is inspiring -- it's something that makes me want to create.

Emily Sweeney can be reached at esweeney@globe.com. For more about Bill Plympton's films, go to www.plymptoons.com or www.hairhigh.com.