Winsor McCay Award Recipients Announced at Comic Con, San Diego

The International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood, announced its 2008 Winsor McCay Award recipients during a private reception Friday, July 25, at the Gaslight Marriott during the annual Comic Con Convention in San Diego, California. This year's Winsor McCay recipients are: Mike Judge, John Lasseter and Nick Park (see bios below). Award recipients will claim their trophies at the 36th Annual Annie Awards scheduled for Friday, January 30, 2009, at UCLA's Royce Hall in Los Angeles, California.

Named in honor of animator Winsor McCay, best known as a prolific artist and pioneer in the art of comic strips and animation, the Winsor McCay Award stands as one of the highest honors given to an individual in the animation industry in recognition for career contributions to the art of animation.

"ASIFA-Hollywood is proud to present Mike Judge, John Lasseter and Nick Park each with a Winsor McCay Award," said Antran Manoogian, president of ASIFA-Hollywood. "Their career achievements and outstanding contributions to the art of animation are certainly worthy of being recognized with this honor."

The 2008 Winsor McCay Award Recipients are:

Mike Judge is the acclaimed creator of MTV's Beavis and Butt-head and Fox's King Of The Hill. Judge started his career as an independent animator creating several short films, including Office Space with Milton and Frog Baseball, animating them on his kitchen table. Judge provides the voices for his main characters (Beavis, Butt-head and Hank Hill) and has directed a feature length version of Beavis and Butt-head, as well as several critically acclaimed live action films. His third animated series, The Goode Family, will air next year on ABC.

John Lasseter is a pioneering computer animation director and currently the Chief Creative Officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation. Lasseter, a Cal Arts graduate, began his career in hand drawn character animation at Disney in 1975. He joined Pixar when it was still an experimental unit of Lucasfilm in 1984. He added a cartoonist's vision to the world of computer graphics, combining strong storytelling with classic character animation. After winning an Academy Award for his short, Tin Toy, he led Pixar to commercial and critical success with such feature films as Toy Story, A Bug's Life, and Cars.

Nick Park is the British clay animator who charmed the world with his Academy Award winning short, Creature Comforts, and hilarious characters Wallace and Gromit. He started his first film, A Grand Day Out, while still a student at the National Film and Television School. He joined Aardman Animation in 1985 and went on to complete three Wallace and Gromit shorts and co-directed two feature films, Chicken Run and the Academy Award winning Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit. His fourth Wallace and Gromit short, A Matter of Loaf and Death, will be released later this year.

The Annie Awards have long recognized pioneers at the forefront of animation through nominations, juried awards and certificates of merit. In 1972, legendary voice actor June Foray organized the very first Annie Awards. Today, supported by major animation studios and production companies, the Annie Awards have grown into a much-heralded industry event and are considered an important industry benchmark and a predictor of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

ASIFA-Hollywood is the largest of an international network of chapters and supports a range of animation initiatives through its membership. Current projects include an animation archive, library and museum, classes and screenings, and animated film preservation efforts.

For general information on the 36th Annual Annie Awards, visit http://www.annieawards.org or contact ASIFA-Hollywood at 818.842-8330. Media inquiries, please contact Gretchen Dixon, Dixon PR, at 562.235.0991 or Email: Gdixonpr@aol.com.

ASIFA is the French acronym for L'Association Internationale du Film D' Animation, an organization founded in 1957 in France by a group of professional animators and chartered by UNESCO in 1960 to encourage the art of animation and further international understanding and goodwill through the animation medium. Today, there are ASIFA chapters in nearly 30 countries worldwide.