In the romantic animated short Paperman, an office worker tries to get the attention of the woman of

In the romantic animated short Paperman, an office worker tries to get the attention of the woman of his dreams by sailing handmade aircraft across the canyon of a bustling Manhattan street from his skyscraper to hers.

Paperman is a hybrid that fuses the dimension and depth of digital animation with the abstract warmth of traditional line art. The result is a world seemingly sculpted out of sketches.

The technology used to create the short, which debuts Nov. 2 in front of Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph, could be the first step in a long-overdue comeback for hand-drawn animation.