ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 5.01 - APRIL 2000

Creativity After Hours: The Visual Evolutions of Michel Gagné
(continued from page 4)

Gagné published A Search for Meaning: The Story of Rex in 1998, followed by The Mystery of He in 1999 and The Great Shadow Migration in March 2000. He found that writing, illustrating and publishing his own stories is his "ultimate" means of expression, for several reasons.

The cover of A Search for Meaning: The Story of Rex. © Michel Gagné.
The cover of The Mystery of He. © Michel Gagné.
The cover of The Great Shadow Migration. © Michel Gagné.

"There's the storytelling aspect, the visual aspect, the control that I have because I self-publish," he says. "There's the fact that I can basically do all the artwork for the book in two to three months. It's not like spending three years in doing a short.

"It's not like a sculpture or painting," he adds. "If someone wants to own the original, it's a lot of money. Then you cater to the rich, but that's not what art is about. A book is accessible. If somebody wants it, they can afford it, and that is very appealing. I like the fact that I don't have to cater to the rich. I want to cater to whoever likes my work."

According to Gagné, he has no specific audience to whom he addresses his work. "It's really every type of person," he says. "I've tried to form the demographics of the book and I can't. It's too varied. I have people who buy it for their kids. People give them to their grandmothers. People who are 50 years-old buy them for themselves. People buy them as gifts for their 30 year-old friends.

"A lot of people bought the first two books for their kids. When they read The Great Shadow Migration, they don't buy it, because they don't think it's for kids any more. And they go, 'Wow, you're really cutting yourself out of the market with this book.' The Great Shadow Migration is obviously not for kids. Although I do believe that the kids will love it. They'll love the mystery of it. They'll like the visuals. I actually think kids will 'dig' it. But, you know, it's not [aimed] for kids."


The fox atop a mysterious flying beast in The Search for Meaning. © Michel Gagné.

Rather than calling them "children's books," Gagné prefers to think of his stories as "illustrated poetry books."

"As a matter of fact," he says, "if I call my books children's books in front of my wife, she gets really upset. She says, 'They're not children's books. Don't say that.' It's really tough, because when I go to children's bookstores, they're not that interested in carrying the books. I have better luck going to places like Golden Apple [a Los Angeles-area comic book store chain] or Bud Plant [distributor] or Amazon.com.

"It doesn't matter. I'll find my audience. I have enough people that like the books that, to me, justifies it. I was bringing some books to Gallery Morpheus, and the guy who was there said, 'I love your books. I gave A Search for Meaning to my sister at Christmas and she read it and was crying.' And to me, that makes it worth it when I hear that. It's amazing. Like I can't believe somebody is crying reading my book.

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