When it comes to the work of Bill Plympton, there is often a lot to unpack. In some instances, it’s sometimes better to just dispose of all the luggage in general, since dissecting every frame of his striking animated films is a fascinating, but incredibly challenging task – but for anyone with as twisted a sense of humour as the famed cartoonist, as well as a taste for the wildly absurd, his work will be undeniably potent, and all the more entertaining for those who can find the humour in his surreal musings. In both his short subjects and feature-length films, Plympton draws from a very distinct arsenal of skills, using his unique style and sardonic approach to comedy to handcraft magnificently strange films about a range of issues, none of them having a particular narrative thread, other than being bound by weaker stories that just doesn’t do his strange animation style justice, meaning that any attempt to describe his work is impossible, since he’s one of the rare artists that works better when we experience his films first-hand. I Married a Strange Person! is considered one of his major works, a bold and ambitious comedy about a man who is able to influence the world around him through the use of a tumour growing at the back of his neck – he can force any human, animal or object to do his bidding, manipulating them in fantastical ways, which naturally gets him noticed by the media, who hope to exploit his skills for their own personal gain, going to any lengths to harness is bizarre powers. This is about as straightforward a description as we’ll ever get, since the premise ventures into some wild territory that just simply doesn’t lend itself to the kind of analysis that a more convention film would. However, it’s in this renegade approach to his storytelling that Plympton proves precisely why he is such a cherished, valuable filmmaker, and a true original in the world of animation.

The world of animation is impossible to pin down to a particular set of qualities – over time, we’ve seen countless filmmakers establish their own unique vision, with as much variance in the style and stories of animation as there are films overall. However, if we have to reduce it to some base-level aspects, perhaps it can be that an animated film often has three functions – the first being to entertain (the most common, consisting of the majority of animated productions), the second being to educate, and the third (and by far the most interesting), to shock. What makes Plympton so compelling is that he is someone who works in the third category, while genuinely believing himself to be part of the first – and it’s in this undying conviction that we find a director who is capable of doing absolutely anything, creating entire worlds from the most pedestrian concepts imaginable. His approach to filmmaking is one that is profoundly fascinating in a variety of ways, whether it be through how he employs his peculiar sense of humour – where else can we find as abstract a concept as someone being able to manipulate the world and cause chaos by way of simply being born with some mysterious tumour? – or his distinct style of hand-drawn, colourful animation that takes the appearance of elaborate doodles at some points, but never comes across as unartistic (quite the contrary – it seems absurd to imagine anyone could watch a film like this and not be in complete awe at what the director was able to do with relatively sparse materials). It’s beautifully deranged, and totally unforgettable, and we’re always being provoked in new and exciting ways by this film – and despite running at a paltry 72 minutes, Plympton’s film is able to package dozens of bizarre ideas into a relatively short period of time, keeping us constantly engaged, and fully captivated by the delightfully capricious world he creates.

Whatever the impetus for the creation of I Married a Strange Person! was, there is something so wonderfully bizarre about it which keeps us engaged throughout. This is undeniably not going to be a film that appeals to everyone – it’s far from your garden-variety animated comedy, with its ribald humour and gratuitous sexual content and unhinged violence making it quite a bewildering experience at best. Plympton has always been very honest about the fact that he doesn’t make films for the mainstream, and instead of attempting to break into the homes of a much wider audience, he prefers to remain independent, making films on his own terms – and this is all very much reflected in every frame of I Married a Strange Person!, which centres on a man with a very vivid set of skills, and his refusal to “sell-out” to the wider media. The constant refrain of “we are the SmileCorp Corporation” is a thinly-veiled allusion to the bigger media empires that seek to harness every bit of potential creativity, turning artistic expression drawn from originality into just another product. This film manages to still have a social message embedded under the layers of demented comedy and graphic sexuality and violence – and in many ways, these aspects of the film only serve to bolster the more meaningful core, since it shows something far more complex is possible, even when it comes in the most absurd, ridiculously bizarre form, which is an enormous understatement for a film like this, where the very thesis statement is to be as outrageous as possible, testing to viewer’s patience and determining whether they have handled an hour of the most unhinged, strange imagery imaginable. It’s certainly an experience like no other, and proof that Plympton is an artist whose fierce independence has allowed him to explore some fascinating narrative and creative territory, without the constraints of needing to meet a particular set of criteria, as if preconceived notions indicate success.

Combining his very simple but striking animation style, with a darkly comical sense of surreal humour, I Married a Strange Person! is one of the few true litmus tests for Plympton’s work in general – if we are able to surrender ourselves to his vision here, and come onto his very peculiar wavelength, we’re more than likely going to be adherent to absolutely anything he does – its not his darkest work, nor is it his most outrageous. Instead, it’s one that is distinctly his own, a daring and provocative animated masterpiece that goes to places none of us would expect from an animated comedy. Films like I Married a Strange Person! tend to be the most interesting, since not only are they incredibly entertaining, they’re different enough to demonstrate, with absolute sincerity, that something can easily break from tradition and still be thoroughly worthwhile. This isn’t the work of someone experimenting with the form, but rather an intrepid demonstration of a director with a singular vision, and the tenacity to put his ideas into practice, gradually unravelling his perspective through the guise of this brilliantly demented and undeniably striking work of pure, unhinged artistry. Somehow, through the process of being unimpeachably itself, I Married a Strange Person! becomes a film that combines all three of the elements I mentioned previously – it is certainly a very shocking film, and will bewildering as many viewers as it captivates. However, for those who fall into the latter category, this film will be a dose of much-needed entertainment, as well as one that conveys a particular message, even if it is one concealed beneath an endless array of bizarre images and questionable narrative choices. It all converges into a film that dares to be different, and becomes something truly special in the process.