Second, I wanted this book to have a more subjective look, compared to Bendazzi's. Of course, I've tried to talk about all the important directors, even those who don't fit my personal tastes. But at the same time, as I consider that an artist can't make a masterpiece every time, I tried to help people to have a kind of guide to the artist's best works. It means that I wrote about the best works and also about the ones, which are not so impressive. It's very subjective, I know, and very dangerous, but as I'm open-minded (I like cartoon and experimental films, for instance), I think it was an opportunity to give more information and to have a better understanding of an artist’s career. That point convinced me to also give a (very) subjective list of the 50 best-animated films of all the time.

CR: I was impressed (and yes, I say this with a smidgen of self-interest) that you also included a list of the winners from all of the most important animation festivals. This is very useful and long overdue. Now, during the writing of this book, you met many animators including American David Ehrlich. Last year you wrote an interesting book on Ehrlich’s life and career. How did the idea come about? How hard was it to find a publisher? Ehrlich’s an experimental animator, so I can imagine that must have taken a pretty ballsy publisher to take this on.

Cotte tries to present a different historical point of view from Bendazzi’s influential Cartoons: One Hundred Years of Cinema Animation.

OC: During the three years I worked on the encyclopedia, I had many contacts with directors, including David Ehrlich. He's a very positive and charming person and he answered my questions honestly. After a while, I wondered if a book about him wouldn't be a good idea. The encyclopedia wasn't finished yet, so the creation of the two books overlapped. The publisher was the same. Of course, I had to more intensively sell this monograph because David is not such a 'commercial subject' as an encyclopedia. But, because Thierry loves animation, and because David helped us a lot, the project was launched. And of course, it was a possibility for me to write a bilingual book. This book was the opposite of the first — not planned, a kind of 'accident', a little bit like a lovely meeting and I still like the way it came out.

CR: It’s disappointing in a way — although certainly not unusual — that it took a foreigner to write about an overlooked American animator.

OC: Well, some Americans have written about French artists. I particularly think of Donald Crafton’s Emile Cohl biography. I don't think very much in terms of countries. I feel very much international; I belong to ASIFA and have many friends all around the world in the field of animation. I felt close to David and to his work, and that's why I have chosen to write about him. I react more in terms of sensibilities.

Cotte covered Dave Ehrlich’s career in David Ehrlich: Citizen of the World.

CR: What I mean is that there are some really great American historians and academics and yet they seem to devote almost all their time and energy toward covering every possible detail of American ‘cartoons,’ specifically this Golden Age period. It's great that these folks can find all these theoretical and historical angles, but couldn't they do the same with other countries, other animators like George Griffin, Priit Pärn, Igor Kovalyov, Caroline Leaf (to name a handful)?

OC: The cartoon, which, by the way, is a bad and inappropriate word for these films, is an important style of animation. And it's a popular one, so writers can be surer that they will find a publisher and readers, which is not the case for some other directors. Maybe it's a pity to continue to dig this way: It leaves a lot of other artists unknown. I like Canemaker's books very much because he revealed some new periods, and did a real historian’s work. His sensibility goes to classical animation and he gives a tribute to it. I think it's very honest. And he's a good director too. I would like to write about Griffin, Pärn and Kovalyov, or Leaf. Maybe one day.