A linchpin of my childhood was the out-there, twisted world of MTV’s “Liquid Television.” The show that brought the Generation-Xers “Aeon Flux,” “The Head,” “Beavis and Butt-head,” and many other staples of the ’90s would often feature the works of Bill Plympton. Plympton made his name as a cartoonist featured in Rolling Stone, Vogue, The Village Voice, and Playboy, among many other noteworthy publications, and found a new audience for his unique, pencil-sketched on MTV.

Now, with his new feature film, Cheatin’, Plympton has brought his traditional style full circle into a twisted love fantasy. We jumped on the phone to talk to Bill about the film and some of the ins and outs of indie animation.

Does a film idea come through a story you want to portray, or does it start off more as images you want to [create] and evolve from there?

It’s almost always a theme; an idea I think is full of potential for conflict and humor. The most successful film idea was I Married A Strange Person. In that film, this guy has the power to create anything he imagines. That was definitely a lot of conflict. I thought that was a funny idea because as an animator, that’s what I do: I create these worlds out of my imagination. So I thought, What would it be like if some guy really had that power to do it every day? That’s generally the pattern I follow in all my films.

Your characters in general always had kind of an American feel to me, but this story specifically — and maybe the settings, as well — had a very European feel. Is this something that you’re self-aware of when making it?

I think the music definitely is European — the operas, of course, and then the music by Nicole Renaud, as she is French.

But generally, I thought the visuals are American … I thought the costumes are kind of ’40s, ’50s Hollywood noir. The setting was kind of southern border town. The architecture, I wanted kind of a “Touch of Evil” deal with a lot of sun and a lot of shadows… And the art picture has a lot of arcades and columns and balconies and things like that.

It’s kind of a mix of different influences. I like that. I don’t want it to be a specific place. I want it to be an imaginary place. To me, that’s important because it’s a land that you want to go to that you’ve never been to before; a land that’s sort of a Never-Neverland. But I want you to like it; I want you to feel comfortable there; I want you to feel curious about it. Sort of like the Star Wars films — it’s like an imaginary place, but you’re really fascinated to go there. That’s what I wanted.

It’s fleeting, so if someone doesn’t pay attention, [they might miss that you] reveal Ella and Jake’s names. Was it important for you to have that distinction there for the characters, instead of just “man and woman?”

I think simply if [people] want to talk about the film, it’s good to give them names. Obviously, you never hear their names because there’s no dialogue in the movie. I didn’t want to put dialogue in the movie. I wanted the film to be more poetic, more about the visuals and the music and the gestures and the facial expressions. I wanted to try and tell a film without dialogue and see if it would work, and I think it did. No one has complained to me yet that there’s no words in the film.

While it is easy to grasp onto the tale of romance and heartache between two characters, the film really is more about Ella being able to open herself up to a world she was hiding from. I would never tell anyone to stay away from reading a book, but she needed to take her head out of that fantasy world to experience something real.  Am I delving too deep here with what your intentions were?

I think to me, the essence of Ella was the fantasy sequence when she’s sitting on the park bench. She’s searching for her heart, trying to find her heart. It’s very tiny and small and undeveloped. This is where this little cherub of a guy comes by and helps her discover her heart. They try to let it grow and let her fall in love with this guy, Jake. She’s very afraid of Jake because he’s a Marlon Brando; an animalistic Marlon Brando guy. She needs help to fall in love. Once she falls in love, it’s total commitment. It’s total passion — 100% passion. That’s the essence of the story. This couple is so in love with each other, and they still want to kill each other, but they still want to have sex. They still want to enjoy each other’s bodies.

This has been the first feature length animated film to be crowd sourced. What was that experience like for you?

For Kickstarter? It was a great experience. I did not run the campaign. It was run by Adam Rackoff. He has experience doing that stuff. I obviously did the trailer and I did the promotional animation. I did some interview for it. But the day-to-day running of it was Adam Rackoff, and it was a delightful experience. Simply because in the past I’ve always had to go out to Hollywood or go to a big studio and beg for money. Now, all I need to do is talk to my friends online, and social media. That way, people who love my work and who want to support me can send in money, rather than some jaded Hollywood bigwig who knows nothing about animation. I should go to people who do like it. That’s where I get my money, and that’s the way it should be.

Any project in any medium doesn’t get made one one day, then come out the next. Cheatin’ has been in development for a long time. Does it feel weird still talking about it as if it’s new, right now?

That’s a good question. It has been a long road. 2009, I started working on the film. I did the outlines, the storyboards, and then I started animation. Then these two French producers came in and said to stop working on it because they wanted to give it a couple million dollars to help finance it.

I stopped working on it. I did a couple other projects in the meantime — did a blog and a TV show. Then, I got tired of waiting, so I said, “Screw you. I’m going to make it without the millions of dollars.” I finished it in I think 2013. Then we did the festival circuit through 2014 and were hoping to get a distributor. We weren’t able to get a distributor. It was very sad. We decided to distribute it ourselves and hopefully get a lot more money. That’s our plan is to make our money back. So it’s been a long process.

The people who did get involved in Kickstarter are probably wondering, What’s going on? I gave you money a year ago and the film’s still not out yet. We told them to be patient — it’s worth the wait. It’s going to be a brilliant film. Now they can see it on April 3, 2015 at the Village East Cinemas, here in Manhattan. The next week, I travel across America, promoting the film in cinemas across the country.

Then, on April 21st, it comes out on video On Demand. We’re very excited about that. We hope that’s where it makes us money. In conjunction with that, all of my earlier films are coming out on iTunes through Shorts Intl. We’re very excited about that too. We think that’ll help raise the visibility of my work.

Do you feel that anybody who makes a name for themselves in a certain field are then obligated to keep that field their main focus, so that the art doesn’t die?

The only rules that I have are to do projects that make you happy. If you want to get into music and start doing music, or develop games… I’ve never been concerned that much about making money. You heard me turn down a million-dollar offer from Disney because I wanted to make my own films. Those are the rules I have are to just make projects that give you pleasure. That’s all you need to be a success.

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For more information and to view the trailer of Cheatin’, go onto cheatinmovie.com.