IN CONVERSATION: HELEN MCCARTHY

Helen McCarthy is a renowned figure in the world of Anime and Manga. Having been the first person in the English speaking world to write books on the subject, Helen has also had the privilege of meeting most of her heroes; including Hayao Miyazaki, of which she was the first to write a book on. She has appeared on the BBC, in Time magazine and spoken at many Anime conventions around the world.

In conversation, Richard and Helen discuss this hugely influential genre, Miyazaki and the direction of Erth Chronicles.

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RJ: Welcome to Erth Chronicles Helen.

HM: Thanks. I’ve had a lot of fun looking around the site. It’s interesting to see so many people getting involved in developing the visuals and the details and playing around with ideas. How do you feel about this, since it’s basically your world they’re playing with? It’s fun to see others playing in your world but it can be challenging if they take your creations in new directions.

RJ: I’m very lucky to have had a great deal of respect from the artists who have contributed so far. Although I have a very clear vision of my world I’d hate to be surrounded by too many ‘Yes men’, and hope that those who wish to develop ideas further may do so. I could potentially end up dismissing a strong idea if blinkered too much. On the other hand, if I feel that something needs raining in and strays too far away from what I have set up already, then I will art direct as much as possible. Most artists understand the themes clearly laid out in the Erth guide, first novel and what exists on the official site so far. It’s interesting to see different artists’ interpretations from all over the world.

What part of the world are you from and how has this imprinted on your work?

HM: I grew up in a small town in the North of England, but I suppose the main influence on my life was growing up in an Irish Catholic family. Matriarchy was the natural order of things for me. My mother, aunts and grandmother were amazing women with a wide range of interests and talents, but their main focus was the family, and I’ll always be grateful for everything they gave to me. I was educated by nuns too, so it wasn’t until I got to university that I’d ever encountered a society where women didn‘t make most of the rules and have most of the authority.

I suppose it’s because I grew up in that kind of setting, where being female was a positive thing and growing old was seen as a process of gaining wisdom and dignity. It didn’t seem absurd to me to write about anime, even though I was almost three times the age of the average Japanese fan when I published my first book. I grew up believing that the only barriers were the ones I made for myself.

RJ: You have written a number of definitive books on Anime and Manga - The Anime Encyclopedia and Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation to name a few. What was the defining moment of being exposed to eastern animation?

HM: It’s really hard to say because it was such a gradual process. First of all, when I was in school I was set a history project comparing bushido with the European system of chivalry, and I was fascinated by feudal Japan. I never really thought about modern Japan until I met my partner, an illustrator who’d fallen in love with the energy and style of anime and manga. As we started to look for more information on these wonderful new hallucinatory art forms together, I got more and more involved and more and more angry that there had never been a book about anime in English.

RJ: The style is often dismissed by those who consider it a lower form of art - why do you think this is?

HM: There are three reasons why people dismiss things, and I think this applies to any area of life. First of all, they’ve never seen the thing they’re dismissing, but they’re not comfortable with anything unfamiliar. That’s bigoted and stupid, and it makes me very sad, because if you're willing to dismiss things without giving them a hearing or viewing, you're closing off your mind and restricting your own growth. Secondly, they’ve seen it but didn’t understand it, or see enough examples, or give it enough attention and thought to evaluate it. That’s awfully wasteful; if you’re going to spend time watching something or reading something you should at least be open-minded enough to try several different titles. I mean, you might say you didn’t like one comic artist’s work, but to dismiss all comics on that basis would be crazy.

The third reason, the only one I can really respect, is that the person is a creative artist himself or herself, and has evaluated the medium and found it wanting by creative standards. I can’t quite see how that could happen as it’s so diverse, but anyway, I very rarely hear truly creative people dismiss an entire medium. They might have personal likes and dislikes but they’re aware of the huge possibilities inherent in all media. Anime and manga are not in themselves lower forms of art, although it’s true of any art that not all practitioners are great artists.

RJ: Do you feel Anime is the last of the great 2D animation we will see?

HM: I don’t think you can ever really proclaim the death of a mode of expression. Someone, somewhere, will always resurrect quirky old techniques or styles or give them a new spin. Old crafts like taxidermy and cross stitch are moving into cutting-edge art galleries, retro styles are perennially popular. 2D animation is a way of seeing things and telling their stories that works magnificently in certain contexts and for certain projects. While that’s true, there will still be 2D animation. It may be mixed up with other forms and styles, but as long as it can serve a purpose for the artist it’ll exist. Of course, with commercial animation some studios will be driven by cost, or fashion, or what their audience is responding to right now. For little children, for example, the bright flat colours and simple shapes of some 2D animation work beautifully, while for many art-house animation aficionados the 3D style doesn’t have a lot of appeal. Creators, whether individuals or studios, will use what works best for them.

RJ: What excites you about the art form?

HM: The diversity of both visual and storytelling styles is amazing. There are literally no barriers for the creator. If you can imagine something and draw it, you can put your story across to others. The whole scene is so energetic – there’s a huge fan scene, a solid underground base where fans and those who may not want to go pro can sell their work directly to its audience; then there’s the professional market; and now a new world of Internet and handheld device distribution is opening up.

Of course that also feeds in to what you're doing here. If it weren’t for the Internet you couldn’t develop Erth Chronicles in this way, and the way you're working means that there are a lot of options for it in future, both in print and online. What do you find most interesting about working like this? Has it got any unexpected advantages or disadvantages?

RJ: Your right, the internet opens up a huge potential audience and enables you to communicate with people quickly, and at times more efficiently. There is no way I could have come in to contact with most of these artists if it wasn’t for the power of the internet – but a great deal of it is also due to the renaissance of SF & Fantasy art. This has led to the publication of ImagineFX who have certainly seen a gap in the market and exposed fresh, new talent. Most of these artists I have managed to network with and connect further via sites such as deviantART.

The advantages are that my world and ongoing story is obviously being taken seriously – the difficult part is in raising our voices a little more. The internet is a vast, endless sea of information that many projects can become lost in. As much as I love the internet, I still prefer to hold a book in my hand and maintain my traditional routes.

I guess Anime is a strong example of animation that is always conscious of this - do you think it’s time to return more to such a traditional style?

HM: I think it has to be up to the individual creator, or the studio for commercial work. I love traditional animation – I can still remember the absolute thrill of watching Disney’s Sleeping Beauty with my Dad and my sister in our local flea-pit, when I was a very small child. That film re-set my perception of what you could do with colour and line. The animation was traditional, in the best sense of the word, but the ideas and images were astonishing. Apparently my crayon drawings were really strange for months afterwards!

Continued in Part 2

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