Interview with Cartoonist and Animator Alex Mancheno

My friend Alex Mancheno is a cartoonist and animator. He's yet to hit it big, but he's diligently working on great projects. Educated at The School of Visual Arts in NYC, he assisted on a professional animation project for VH1 and is producing his own independent illustrated zine.

I caught up with Alex for a chat about his artistic influences, the animated blockbuster Beowulf starring Angelina Jolie and the future of animation.

When did you first realize you wanted to be a cartoonist/animator?

I first wanted to be a cartoonist in the early 80's when my sisters and I all drew our own version of comic strip and cartoon characters. I drew my version of "Garfield" as an elongated "M" with similar Garfield eyes and a big round nose. I called him "Nutley"...probably from the NJ town though I didn't know it at the time so that was sort of my first cartoon character I named and thus "made" after a fashion.

What were your earliest true animation influences?

Some of the first animation I remember seeing were Warner Brothers cartoons, Disney, Saturday morning cartoons. The animated film "Animalympics" was my first real glimpse of a non Disney animated film as was Canada's first all animated movie "Rock & Rule." Also, there was Secret of NIMH by Don Bluth and his video games "Dragon's Lair" and "Space Ace" and his animated sequence in the film ""Xanadu."

What movie changed your ideas/attitudes about animation and coaxed you more to dream?

Heavy Metal which I saw at age 6. LOL that REALLY blew my mind. There's also Yellow Submarine with The Beatles. I was very surprised and happy when my animation tutor from Canada said he had worked on both HM and YS - those two really did jolt me out of the Disney mode of filmmaking at an early age,

In your opinion, what's the best animated film ever - in terms of quality, story - overall production?