Not for Elliot, the lure of a big pay packet and the opportunity to work at one of the major Hollywood animation studios.

“To be honest, I don’t like a lot of animation, especially American computer animation,” he said.

The Melbourne-based animator stopped by Albury’s Regent Cinemas yesterday on the eve of today’s national launch of his first full-length claymation feature.

The product of five years’ work, Mary and Max is the tale of two lonely pen-friends, one in Melbourne, the other in New York, whose correspondence parallels Elliot’s own long-standing pen-friendship with a New Yorker who has Asperger’s syndrome, a developmental disorder.

It follows the successful short Harvie Krumpet which earned Elliot an Oscar in 2004.

In Mary and Max, the heroine is an eight-year-old Melbourne girl who lives unloved with a disinterested father and a sherry-sodden mother, her only friends a collection of miniature wooden characters from her favourite TV cartoon show, The Noblets.

Mary’s pen-pal is 44-year-old Max who shares a apartment in New York with a foul-breathed cat, his pet fish and his own Noblets collection and, like Elliot’s friend, has Asperger’s syndrome.

“Max is the archetypal underdog, he’s lonely, he’s melancholic, and I think everyone has felt lonely at times,” Elliot said.

Mary and Max opens today at the Regent Cinemas, Albury.

There’s a review and an extended interview with Adam Elliot inside today’s Play entertainment lift-out.