To all the young, STORY-LOVING illustrators...

The animated film medium is in Europe, I must sadly admit, very boring and unsophisticated, looking at it from a purely artistic perspective. And by that, I don´t mean that European illustrators and animators are bad - on the contrary, I have seen some very interesting and beatiful artwork here and there. It´s just that no one seems to love a good story. As we all know, the leading European country in the "artsy" branch of all drawn storytelling art, is of course England. Oh, how I´ve loved and lived with graphic novels like "V For Vendetta", "Watchmen", "Sandman" and all the other remarkable examples of how you can tell a story intended for adults with only the spartanious use of pen and paper. Why doesn´t this transmit to animated films?! Of course, it´s always the money issue, but there´s money to be found if there are people making good stories that people want to listen to and see, right?
Look at Japan and the thousand animated stories that have been made there; Tell me you didn´t love "Akira", "Cowboy Bebop" and "Princess Mononoke" while keeping an honest face and I will pack my bags and serve as your personal butler for the rest of my life. "Fist of the North Star" - we loved it, didn´t we all? Why aren´t aspirations to make such powerful stories treated with respect over here?
Who will be the Alan Moore of animated film, and when will such a person step forward?
As I sit in front of my computer in my one room apartment in Sweden, I can´t help but think that the script I´m working on will all be made in vain since there´s no market for intelligent animated films anywhere in Europe (or anywhere else in the Western World for that matter).
But I do think that it doesn´t just have to do with the market; there seems to be too few people who do it for the pure and true love of it. After attending some art-school, you make the effort to find yourself a job at some commercial-developer, and you´re happy with it, because you have a job, which is more to be said than for many of you´re colleagues.
I am now currently writing on a script which, if I go about things the right way, could develop into something really extraordinary, I really believe that (but of course; don´t we all believe that about our work?). In a not too distant future I will be looking for illustrators and storyboarders who are willing to join me in bringing this drama-political-thriller-action-sci-fi-adventure to reality, because I believe that the best thing to do and the best way to go about things is to work on it independently, thus keeping the artist´s love for the story as the top priority. And when you have a firm base and enough work done on it to show to other people in the business, you start handing it around and scraping up money all over the place. It´s better than to just drop it to some company who makes you give up all the rights and turns it into crap. Am I right, people!? :)
So, if you´re a young illustrator who really loves to give flesh and blood to ecxeptional stories and is willing to wait for things to start happening on the financial side, let me know. Just have a fun time doing what you love is all.
I don´t know if I´m misleading any potential artist by making myself seem more experienced than I really am: I´m 21 years old and live in tiny Sweden, my only reference is one year at a screenwriter´s community college, I´m so broke Wolkswagens tease me, and I live with my mom. But I love to write, it´s all I´ve ever been doing, and animated film is the most exciting medium to tell epic stories with today. I´ve watched a lot of manga and animé, and take great inspiration from it, though I wouldn´t call this script manga. It´s just a big story, that´s all. Big, unique and beautiful, so if you like those qualities in a movie, post a reply.
By the way, my name´s Ben and I´m glad to be part of this forum, It´s a good thing.

(Hm... hope I didn´t sound too big-headed...)

"I LOVE LEARNING, BUT I HATE TO BE TAUGHT" - Winston Churchill

benake216