When Qoheleth/Ecclesiastes breathed that there were "no new things under the sun," no doubt he stole it from someone before him just as I steal this thought from a voice before mine. Things aside, there are always new combinations and imaginings under the sun.

In animation there are fewer fresh voices every year. With state support in decline, it is more difficult to carve out a career as an independent animator. Increasingly, we see one great first film followed by nothingness. The newcomer moves to a studio where they fall under the spell of 18-hour days hacking away for 'steady' pay.

Under my sun newcomers are those who've managed to make at least three films and meet with some degree of critical and popular success (i.e. win shining trophies). With this in mind, let's meet a quartet of the newest, hip, happenin' coolsters.

Rejected, Hertzfeldt's Oscar nominated short. © Bitter Films.

Don Hertzfeldt (U.S.A.)
Don Hertzfeldt has been drawing since he smashed Lacan's mirror. He's self-taught and when he did go to school, he went to a sanctuary for eggheads (Santa Barbara) where talking about a film was more important that actually making one. However, the school did have an animation camera. For four years, the camera was Hertzfeldt's best friend and together they made a film each year.

Like Bill Plympton, Hertzfeldt self-finances his work using profits from his past films. "I made Ah, L'Amour in 1995, the first thing I ever shot on film. Spike 'n' Mike picked it up and turned it into a giant cult hit." L'Amour funded Genre (1996), which bred Lily and Jim (1997) and…you get the idea. "I've never lost money on a film and have never had to have a traditional job, never had to do commercial work out of necessity."

At 24, Hertzfeldt's already an animation veteran and the landscape has changed since his school days. The biggest change he's seen is the onslaught of technology: "When I recently told some students I made cartoons, they immediately asked what kind of software I used. I said I didn't use computers, I shot them traditionally. They looked at me bewildered. That's a scary thing."

No, a scary thing is the thought of Don Hertzfeldt not being able to make films. Be very, very happy that he's an animator. His films drip violence. His stick figure characters often stab, saw, beat, shoot and gut each other. My initial tendency was to write Hertzfeldt's work off as an empty and juvenile celebration of violence. I was wrong. Hertzfeldt like Michael Dudok de Wit, Igor Kovalyov, Michele Cournoyer or any other supposedly legitimate artist is simply working through internal emotions and thoughts. Hertzfeldt's characters (Genre, Ah, L'Amour) are anguished souls simply longing to be accepted, to be loved, to be. The fierce frankness of these violent emotions are legitimate feelings. Hertzfeldt's work shares a strange sort of kinship with the writing of Hubert Selby Jr. (The Room, Requiem for a Dream) in their unearthing of the rage of existence that creeps and crawls within each of us. There are times when it howls to be unleashed upon the world. Often it spurts out in a small shout, a dirty look or a middle finger. It's never enough, so we find caged releases through exercise, alcohol, drugs or art. These are spaces where we uninhibitedly articulate the beasts within, where we let them out to play in a confined area to examine, confront and understand. Some do it in a bar. Some do it on a hockey rink. Don Hertzfeldt does it on a piece of paper. Thank Christ, because to paraphrase the words of that same Christ, "If you don't shit, you're gonna blow."