Guess what? We finally finished "Idiots and Angels", so I can catch up with my scrapbook. I know it's been a while, so there's a lot to talk about.

I also finished the Kanye West book for Simon & Schuster - I delivered 12 massive pieces of art, illustrating 12 of his favorite songs. Then I did the cover art, which apparently the editors did not like, so they're sticking a photo of Kanye on there instead. Here's a picture of the proposed cover illustration, and their final cover - which do you prefer?

In any case, the book comes out in the fall, it's called "Through the Wire" - look for it, it's a fun book. I may be doing a publicity tour with Kanye.

In other book news, one of the programmers for the Tribeca Film Festival, Sharon Badal, wrote a wonderful book called "Swimming Upstream: A Lifesaving Guide to Short Film Distribution", and she asked me to provide a chapter on how I make money on short films. It's a very wonderful comprehensive look at the exciting and ever-changing industry of short films.

I wrote about how most filmmakers believe that the only use for short films is as a calling card, to get a big, fat Hollywood feature deal. Well, I disagree. I believe that shorts are a wonderful art form themselves, and not only that, they're a great way to make money.

Speaking of short films, I was invited to judge two famous short film festivals this winter. The first was the legendary Ann Arbor `Film Festival, one of the oldest festivals in the U.S., and even though it was mid-April, we were hit with a huge blizzard upon my arrival. But that's OK, because there were many films to watch in the magnificent old Michigan Theatre.

It's a very rigorous festival, many programs of experimental films - after two programs of very challenging and deep shorts, I felt my brain turning to putty - and there were five programs a day!

Then, I moved on to the justly famous Aspen Short Film Festival. The judging there was much easier and the films were more entertaining - it was a much more pleasurable experience for me - and the parties were great, everyone was so friendly.

I heartily recommend both festivals - Ann Arbor for more personal films, and Aspen for entertaining shorts.

Now that "Idiots and Angels" is complete, I can take advantage of more festival invitations. So I did a tour of European festivals, starting with Dundee in Scotland. Cold weather, warm people, and good films - I saw "Free Jimmy", a wonderful dark CGI film about a drugged-up elephant's search for freedom and a drug-free life. It's a very outrageous, twisted story that some people, especially women, found disgusting - but I loved it!

Then, I went to the Trondheim Festival in Norway - it's famous as the home of the Vikings, who were on their way to discovering America. The festival was a nice mix of features and shorts. I got to hang out with John Sayles and visit his lecture - very informative about the life of an independent filmmaker.

I got to watch a sneak preview of "Horton Hears a Who!" by Blue Sky - since there had been no promotion, it was sparsely attended - mostly by kids who spoke no English. Yet, the audience went crazy for the film, and so did I. It is a wonderful story by Dr. Seuss, with a great visual style, especially on Whoville, and it's charming and funny. I think it should win the Oscar this year.

My next trip was to Lille, France. It was more of a comics and manga convention, but they brought me there to do a retrospective. What amazed me was the massive crowds for Japanese manga and anime - why are these big-eyed cartoons and giant robots so popular with kids around the world? It's a mystery to me why these stories are so universally dominant. The only answer I can come up with is that the 12 to 16 year-old age group has been historically neglected when it comes to animation and comics, and anime has now targeted that specific audience.

It's kind of interesting that exactly 3 years earlier, I was in Lille when a volunteer was guiding me to my hotel and he casually asked me what my next film was going to be about - and off the top of my head, I said, "An asshole guy wakes up one morning with wings on his back." And the kid said, "Yeah, that's a good idea!" I agreed, and that night in my hotel, I started making character sketches and plot outlines of the film that would later be completed under the title "Idiots and Angels".

After Lille, I went to Dunkirk, and walked along the famous WWII beach, as seen in "Atonement", and then went on to Calais, where I did a wonderful show at the historic Alhambra Theatre.

Upon my return to New York, I went to the Children's Film Festival screening of "Nocturna" - this is a wonderful Spanish film I've been following for a while, because the artwork is so beautiful. It was a packed house, and the film went over very well - but I had problems with the story, it seemed a little flat and had no real emotional drive and no conflict.

Also upon my return, I got the great news that "Idiots and Angels" had been accepted into the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival - so we immediately started the publicity machine, with Catherine Branscome as my agent and the ball-of-fire Phyllis Bishop doing P.R. I've been to Sundance numerous times, and as much as I like that festival, it's a huge pain to do business there. The snow makes it impossible to get around, the restaurants are all packed, and the condos are super-expensive.

So, it's my feeling that since Tribeca takes place in New York, the home of so many distributors, it makes it so much easier to do a "deal".

In the middle of all the Tribeca craziness, there was the huge 3rd Annual New York Comic-Con. Again, John Holderried and I had a table to present all my stuff to the fans, and I hosted a promotional presentation of "Idiots and Angels" there - I only had an hour, so I couldn't show the whole film. I projected the first 20 minutes, and even though it's not supposed to be a comedy like my earlier films, the audience when nuts laughing for it. I've never had such a great response - it made me feel so good that after three years of hard work, it's something that people will love.

All of our screenings at Tribeca were sold-out shows, and the last one was a real love-fest - people wouldn't stop clapping. The reviews were through the roof, the topper was a great review from Variety. So, we're pretty optimistic that the film will get a good distribution deal.

So, dear readers, if you know of any distributors who are looking for a hot animated film, please bring them to my attention. It's a unique time in New York City animation - for this single year, 2008, there are three animated or partly animated features coming out of New York: my film, Nina Paley's beautiful and charming "Sita Sings the Blues", and Emily Hubley's wonderful "The Toe Tactic".

First, it's very rare to have an animated feature produced in New York. The Fleischers did one 60 years ago, my hero Ralph Bakshi did a number of them in the 60's and 70's, and of course I did a number of them in the 90's. But never have there been three independent animated features produced in one year! It seems that there is an explosion of independent animation coming out of this city: Alex Budovsky, Nina Paley, Deb Solomon, Signe Baumane, Carolyn + Andy London, Pat Smith, and Arthur Metcalf, among others.

And that brings me to one of my most exciting events of the year, the ASIFA-NY Awards Show - I had two films up for prizes, and they both did fairly well - my Bonnaroo trailer captured 2nd Place in the Sponsored category, while my new short "Hot Dog" got First Prize in the Independent category, which is really cool because it was still sort of unfinished.

Afterwards at the party, everyone from the animation community was there, and it was great to see all my compatriots.

Currently, I'm trying to finish a short film for the 2008 Beijing Olympics - it's a comic animated look at crazy Olympic sports - my section is called "The Luv Race." You can probably imagine from the title what's it's about. Suffice to say, if I ran the Olympics, there would be a lot more love in the world.

My next big event will be the MoCCA Art Festival, where I will be honored as Cartoonist of the Year. It's a great event, and I'll be there to sign copies of my books and DVDs. It's June 7-8 at the Puck Building in New York - be sure to stop by and say hello!

This scrapbook's cartoon is page 43 of "Sloppy Seconds" - it's called "Sonograms", a very sick look at the birth-death life cycle. I have no clue where the idea came from. I was probably watching someone's sonogram and thought, wouldn't it be weird if you could watch the whole life cycle that way. This is one of my favorite cartoons.