Creativity After Hours: The Visual Evolutions of Michel Gagné

Creativity After Hours: The Visual Evolutions of Michel Gagné
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What's Next?
As for Gagné's future projects, he says, "People have asked me to work on projects with them for the Web, so I definitely see the potential there. When Osmosis Jones finishes [Warners currently has no feature films slated afterward], I might very well investigate that.

An image from Gagné's upcoming The Bird, The Spider and The Octopus. © Michel Gagné.

"I do know I want to make Prelude to Eden available on the Web for people to download in high resolution.

"The Web for me is great, too, for my books. I can have Web sites put in links on my books and let Amazon.com do all my selling for me. I definitely see it as a way for the independent to reach the world, because now the independent can go out there and be all over the world. Which is great. I love it.

"At this rate I am going to publish a book a year. I'm already wrapping up book number four right now. It's called The Bird, the Spider and the Octopus. It's three stories. It's an anthology. That one has been in the works for a couple of years, now. But I'm going to wait until next year to release it, because doing two a year is more than I can handle.

"I have a graphic novel called The First Day. That's my big epic that I want to turn into a movie. It's kind of like Miyazaki's Nausicäa. It's been in the works for quite awhile. And I have another book that deals with the theme of creation that will probably follow The Bird, the Spider and the Octopus. I've already roughed out the pages on that," Gagné says.

For those who are interested in self-publishing their work, Gagné offers the following advice: "I've learned that no matter what you do, you are going to make mistakes and there's just no way around it. Don't be depressed if you make mistakes. Don't get discouraged. Every artist has to make those mistakes in order to keep going, because a mistake makes you learn something. So you use that knowledge to keep going up."

As an example, Gagné says, "I used to send original artwork to the printer. Now I scan the artwork into computer files and I send a jazz disk with all the artwork and the page layout. So I have learned that, yes. Some of my artwork has suffered because of that lack of knowledge.

"There's actually a good book, The Self-Publishing Manual: How to Write, Print and Sell Your Own Book, by Dan Poynter. My wife and I read it and that helped us.

"You just have to basically be willing to learn about it. The Net is great. There's documentation out there that will tell you how to do it. So it can be done. You just have to be willing to spend a lot of cash up front. It takes awhile to get started, but if you believe in your book enough, eventually you get picked up more and more. I have an account with Amazon.com, and they sell quite well."

As a self-publisher, Gagné has to publicize the books himself, as well as distribute copies to bookstores. "Basically I pack my books in a box and do the rounds. I get rejected eight times out of ten. But that's okay, because the people that get the books really want it and it usually does really well so that's great," he says.

Changing Times
Currently, the animation industry is in a state of flux, which Gagné believes is "exciting."

"There's all kinds of movies being made using different techniques, so I actually think animation is a very exciting place. I have friends that tell me that the industry is in really bad shape. And I go, 'No, it's just different. It's in films like Stuart Little.' So there's animation being done. The 2D animators think it's bad from their perspective. If you look globally at the animation thing it's not bad at all. It's in really good shape. There's a lot of exciting things happening.

"If you want to be a traditional paper animator, I'd say, ‘Yeah, right now is a very tough time.' The tools are changing. I still believe there is paper animation going to be done, even when everything is computerized. It doesn't matter. It's a style. It's like stop-motion will never really die. But it's probably going to be more of a niche.

"If mainstream animation now turns out to be a niche, then there's way too many people for that niche. I'm sure the numbers would be very different for CGI animators, because there's CGI animation being done all over the industry. Those people are all working."

Interestingly, Gagné doesn't necessarily recommend 2D animators switch to CGI.

"I'd say listen to your heart," he says. "I thought I was going to starve to death when I went into animation. I didn't know how much it paid. I didn't even know what the job situation was. I didn't know anything. I just wanted to do animation. I went to Sheridan College for three years and I said to myself, 'I'm going to do something that makes me happy.' To me that's more important than making money. I really wasn't thinking in terms of money, ever, when I got into this. I listened to my heart. I've done that all my life and I have always landed on my feet. Always."

Bob Miller is an animation professional who has written extensively about the industry for Starlog, Comics Scene, Animation Magazine, Animato!, Animation Planet, Comics Buyer's Guide, and APATOONS. He served on the first season of Courage, the Cowardly Dog as storyboard supervisor and is currently working at Film Roman storyboarding episodes of The Simpsons.