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Benoit Chartier on the Anime Film Akira
96 Plays1 year ago
On today's episode Joe and Mark talk to author Benoit Chartier about the anime film Akira.
They begin with one of Mark's questions: what piece of technology frightens you? Benoit admits he isn't frightened by it, but he's annoyed by ChatGPT and other AI techs, because it may flood the market with crap books.
After which they discuss one of Benoit's favorite pieces of art, the 1988 anime cyberpunk film Akira, by Katsuhiro Otomo.
Find out more about Akira and Benoit on the show notes page for this episode.
Re-Creative is a co-production of Donovan Street Press Inc. in association with Mark A. Rayner.
Contact us at: joemahoney@donovanstreetpress.com
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Transcript
Fears of Technology
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello, Mark. Joe, I have a question, of course. You would think that by now I would be expecting those questions. Yes, I see they hit you by total surprise every single time. So I think this might help and be connected to our guests. So what piece of technology really frightens you? Technology frightening me. Are you kidding? Let's see. You know, the first thing to come to mind is bungee jumping, but that's not really technology, is it? That's a technology.
00:00:39
Speaker
Because I just saw a video of some guy where it snapped, and then he hit the water, and his feet were still tied to the—but fortunately he could swim, so that kind of frightens me. But that's not the kind of technology you were talking about. Well, I think that applies. I mean, you definitely don't want to lie about your weight when they ask you how much you weigh.
00:01:01
Speaker
That's not the time. Well, I'll tell you a little story about technology. I went to Ryerson Polytechnical University and I was taking radio and television arts. So there's lots of technology involved. And I was the kind of guy up to that point where I had worked at a radio station before then and I would have the guy before me who worked the ship before me, who just happened to be James Murray, who also works at the CBC. I'd get him to queue up the reel to reels for me.
00:01:27
Speaker
Because I was afraid to. I was afraid of the reels. So you're afraid of your fingers getting caught? I just didn't want to do it. It seemed like too complicated. And I was like, I was 16 at the time when I started. Yeah. So I would say, Jim, could you, he'd be, yeah, sure, whatever. You know, I'm going to go much farther in my career. I can see than you are. And it was true.
00:01:49
Speaker
We could tell that right back at the real to real stage. But at university, or the Polytechnical Institute, as it was called at the time, well, now it's a completely different name, Toronto Metropolitan University. But anyway, I decided I was no longer going to be afraid of technology.
AI's Impact on Content Creation
00:02:04
Speaker
And I never have been since. And how about our guests, Benoit? No technology really scares me, but certain technology really annoys me.
00:02:18
Speaker
Okay, so what annoys you? Right now it's the technology du jour, it's AI. The bro AI you mean? Well, basically the chat GPT slash, yeah. Yeah, nobody wants or needs. Yeah, basically the stuff that's trying to replace my writing career with really dull middle of the road stuff.
00:02:43
Speaker
Yeah. Now this wasn't supposed to be a gotcha, but I'm surprised that neither of you are afraid of nuclear weapons. Nope. Well, I guess I instantly went to like technology that I have to use and I don't typically have to use nuclear weapons. So here's a question because you mentioned chat GPT and I know a lot of people are up and earns against chat GPT. Yeah. But do you guys not think that if it's used as a tool, you know, like other technology that maybe it isn't so scary after all.
00:03:13
Speaker
Well, what I was thinking was it is a tool and everything that we use our tools. It's just that for me, it, like I said, I'm not afraid of it. It's just really annoying because I'm an indie author and the field is already fairly packed, you know, shoulder to shoulder indie authors. And that's great. But now anybody with a prompt can throw a veritable tsunami of, of more stuff on the market.
00:03:41
Speaker
And so it's not so much that I'm afraid of it. It's like, great. Now we have to contend with this assault of of really kind of mediocre stuff that's going to be coming on to us kind of thing. Well, do you think the publishers will actually accept that mediocre stuff? But they don't need to. That's the thing. If you're if you're an indie published person, you don't need to go through a publisher. You just
00:04:07
Speaker
create a cover using mid-journey or stable diffusion and you give a prompt to the computer say write me a 300 page novel on this topic and then upload it to Amazon you can you just bypass the publisher entirely and that's that's the problem to me is that like if if that's not kind of curbed then there is going to be a full frontal assault of like millions of millions of titles
00:04:32
Speaker
and you basically your stuff gets drowned out and it'll look great and if you don't have to declare well this is written by an AI then you know you're even more lost in the sea than you may have been in the past. There's only one way you're wrong. You'll be even more drowned out.
00:04:52
Speaker
Yes. Right. Because I would argue that that's kind of already happening. Oh, yeah. But that's what I'm saying. Like, there's lots of people that aren't even using AI yet. And there's just lots of garbage. No, no, absolutely. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah. So even now, there's like 14,000 books coming out every year.
00:05:10
Speaker
from everybody but you know i've already seen the tiktoks of people saying this is how to write a book guys using these two different ais and you can write a thousand a day and i was like.
00:05:25
Speaker
Take thirty seconds What's the fun in that that's not it's not really no it's it's it's a it's a it's a grift That's all it is yeah that yeah that there is no fun in it There's that I mean if you're a writer you're a writer and it's in your bones And you have to write if you're using an AI to write a thousand books a day. There's no fun in that It's not for the fun
00:05:49
Speaker
Do you think it's possible, though, just to play devil's advocate that eventually AI technology will get so good and produce such good entertaining art that will all be just like, I screw it. You know what? This is good. Let's just sit back and enjoy. Well, how are we going to make our money? I'm just questioning what happens to the human spirit at that point. Yeah. We'll need the technology created entertainment to basically keep us from killing ourselves.
00:06:18
Speaker
Oh boy, that's bleak. This has got real dark. This has got real dark real fast. And it should. I mean, this is real talk, right? Yeah, yeah. Actually, it really is real talk. I mean, I'm querying again. So I've even seen amongst agents saying no AI generated letters. I'm like, oh my God, why would you do that? Like, it's just so stupid.
00:06:40
Speaker
There's a there's a couple of magazines like analog and and asimov that they've stopped taking some submissions Exactly because of this because they were flooded overnight. Yeah with exactly what I was telling you and I mean for now
00:06:58
Speaker
AI may get good, but it's not creative. It's just basically stealing bits and pieces, right? Yeah. So it's not creating anything new. It's taking things that we think we might enjoy from a whole bunch of different places and reorganizing them to make something quote unquote new, but it's not. And I mean, the more it produces, the more it becomes middle of the road. You know, it basically evens itself out. The best that's going to happen is it's going to be derivative.
00:07:27
Speaker
And I think the best headline I've seen about this is that they described this kind of AI as a blurry JPEG.
00:07:34
Speaker
of the internet. It's basically all it's doing. It's using that as its data set and it's largely- Because I was thinking that maybe it was analogous to the automobile taking the place of the horse and carriage, but it isn't really analogous, is it? Because the horse and carriage can get you from point A to point B, but in this case, the chat GPT, it's not actually getting it to point B, is it?
00:07:57
Speaker
No. Not yet. Not yet. Well, yeah, right now they say that it's IQ is approximately 87 and it's already doing some amazing stuff. And I mean, I have friends who use it to help code. You know, you tell it, hey, find the error in my code. And that's great. Like I said, it can be a great tool. Find the errors that I made in my code. So it'll reference the stuff and find the errors.
AI and Artistic Creativity
00:08:23
Speaker
it can run stuff really easily so that you don't have to do the drudgery it's like it's kinda like having a dishwasher washing machine instead of doing everything by hand for computers which can be great but when it comes to creative stuff. It's really annoying for people who have like studied for years to become you know creatives and then all of a sudden their stuff gets stolen to entertain people who don't really care you know.
00:08:52
Speaker
Yeah, I would love to have a visual artist on the show who has had some of their stuff, essentially stolen by the AIs for their data sets, right? Yeah, like they're any of them because there's lots of people out there. And in fact, they're they're actively fighting the robots. Yeah, which is interesting. But I will say this, those things mastered hands very quickly.
00:09:16
Speaker
Like at first it was a real joke how badly they did on hands, but now they can do hands. And that's what, like less than a year. Yep. This is version five of mid journey for sure. Yeah. It's pretty, it's pretty scary how fast it goes. I dare them to produce a podcast as good as this one. Give it three months. Except they'll all talk like this.
00:09:42
Speaker
That's right.
Influences of Akira and Cyberpunk Aesthetics
00:09:43
Speaker
Okay, you mentioned creativity and I think maybe that's a good segue into what it is that we've invited you to talk about, which is to choose a piece of art or creativity and how it inspires you.
00:09:57
Speaker
Okay. So, I mean, one of the things that influenced me the most when I was younger, that really sort of veered me towards science fiction, which is what I write, was Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo, who was a Japanese mangaka. He's an illustrator. I mean, he wrote and he illustrated his entire series, and it's basically one of the most held up classic mangas
00:10:26
Speaker
in Japan and even the animation that was made is still held up as being one of the best and still most artfully produced animes from the book. I mean it's fairly true to the original story, not entirely true to it because it's a six volume bricks
00:10:47
Speaker
But the movie is absolutely gorgeous and it's dystopian. It's cyberpunk in the true sense of the word. I did not discover it. My mother actually put this in my hands. She's a huge comic book fan, but she is more into bidet, which is the European form.
00:11:09
Speaker
of comics. So Lucky Luke, you may know Tin-Tin, Asterix and Obelix, that kind of stuff. So I mean, she's got shelves at home. And that's what I was immersed in when I was a kid. And we used to travel, I come from Winnipeg, and we used to travel to Quebec to see family and she would buy us entertainment for the road and she put this in my hands, not knowing that it's not for children.
00:11:38
Speaker
I made that mistake with my, with one of my nephews. I gave him Sandman before reading it. How old was he? And is he, is he okay? He was like nine or 10 or so. Then I went out and bought it and read it and then instantly phoned my sister and said, wait, wait. No wonder she doesn't want to talk to you. That's right.
00:12:03
Speaker
But now I realize that chat gpt actually could do a better podcast in this because we've screwed up the order mark. No. I knew we missed something but that's okay. We missed the part where we ask you to introduce yourself. What do you do? Why do you like to do it? That kind of thing. But I'm just some guy off the streets. I just walked in.
00:12:23
Speaker
We couldn't get a guest. Hey, you come here. What? Coffee and a donut. Okay. So yeah, but you are a writer. You're a Canadian science fiction writer and you're from Quebec originally. Is that correct? Well, so all round about, uh, I was born in Ontario. I moved to Manitoba when I was seven.
00:12:45
Speaker
Following my my father because he used to work for the National Research Council I moved to Quebec because most of my family is from here originally when I was in my 20s and I've sort of been hanging about here ever since and I like I like Quebec actually. I love I love the province. I love the people and Yeah, it's a great place and you are bilingual. I am bilingual. Yeah, I
00:13:13
Speaker
I have a question that relates to the Asterix and Oblix books, which is, are the puns as good in French as they are in English?
00:13:21
Speaker
You know, I've never read it in English. Oh, interesting. I've always read it. When I read something since I am bilingual, I try to read it in the original language because some things never translate well. I read those books and they're hilarious. They're hilarious as a kid and then they're even really very much funnier as adults.
00:13:44
Speaker
And I always think these puns are so good in English, they must just melt your face in French. Oh, yeah. They're amazing in French, but like I said, unfortunately, I tend to stick to the original language for whatever I read as much as I can. Oh, why not? I mean, yeah. If you can, why not? You can. And that was one of your parents
00:14:09
Speaker
from France or Belgium? No, no. Both my parents are Quebecois. It's just, I guess, at some point in time, I mean, they really love their comics. And I mean, in Quebecois culture, comics are more of the European variety than the American variety.
00:14:30
Speaker
Just because they're usually from Belgium or France. You'll get a lot more of the styles that I mentioned before than Avengers or X-Men or that sort of stuff in Quebec. And it's usually hardcover books. Yeah, it's a totally different style. And large format too. Yeah, large format. Like I have a lot of them on my shelf as well.
00:14:56
Speaker
I really enjoy them. Have you ever written comics or graphic novels? No, no. I mean, I've never done anything illustrated. I mean, I have a kids book, but it's illustrated by a gentleman in Spain. That was kind of on a lark. I wanted to try my hand at a kids book. It's called The Booger Hunter's Apprentice. And how'd that go? My parents hate it.
00:15:19
Speaker
So successful. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. No, it's kind of, it's kind of half and half. Like when I do comic cons, parents love it. When I do a parent oriented show, they kind of look at me suspiciously and walk by and hold their children closer kind of. So tell us briefly about your other work.
00:15:41
Speaker
Sure. Yeah, my my science fiction series is called the spectrum series my wife is Japanese and so we we spent some time living in Japan and I go back every year and so when I was living over there for I about a year and a half when we first met I was living in a small village where she comes from and I didn't have a whole lot of people to talk to because my Japanese and
00:16:06
Speaker
let's face it, was pretty terrible and so I started writing stories to get my feelings out and every day I would go down the mountain, Ido Hazaka, 19 hairpin turns and then drive half an hour into town down the Royal Road and I would create all these stories at 7am and then I would get home after work and then I would type them all up and that's what kind of gave me the
00:16:31
Speaker
the courage to attempt a full-length novel and that's how I started my series. It takes place 300 years in the future in the vertical city of Tokyo and all of Japan lives in it, 180 million people and the city is basically the main character and it follows the adventures of various people who are living in it. So that's it. And what happens to the rest of Japan?
00:16:59
Speaker
Uh, it's, you know, mostly underwater. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. And that's basically what happened to the most of the world. Yeah. So we're, we're living in a, in a phase where the waters are starting to recede slowly in the rest of the world, but everybody's like survival mode for the most of the world, except for Africa and, and Japan. Cool. They sound good. And how many are out of those?
00:17:25
Speaker
There are three books in the series. There's Red Nexus, Blue Node, and Green Matrix. And Green Matrix came out in November of last year, and now I'm starting to write the outline for Yellow Core, which I'm hoping will be out next year.
00:17:43
Speaker
Cool. Okay, so now back to your choice. Sure. When did that movie come out? 1988, I believe. And it still holds up. I just watched it just recently. Oh, for the first time? Yes, it was. It was for the first time. Yeah. Akira is still considered one of the best masterpieces of animation that was ever made from Japan. It's just absolutely gorgeous.
00:18:08
Speaker
You could frame every single frame of that movie and put it on your wall. It's so beautiful, you know?
00:18:16
Speaker
And now, can you recap the story? Well, I mean, in true cyberpunk fashion, so there's like the powers that be, the syndicates and things like that, but that it's more of a government thing actually in this story instead of syndicates and corporations. So it's the story of two teenage boys who go to this school for orphans, I guess, and there's a huge poverty problem.
00:18:42
Speaker
and they're both bikers. Kaneda is the leader of a biker gang and he has an amazing motorcycle. Tetsuo Shima is his sidekick, if you will, and he's kind of living in his shadow.
00:18:57
Speaker
And they they drive off one time into this area that's being reconstructed for the upcoming i believe is two thousand and twenty two olympics or something like that. So that's where a nuclear bomb was detonated way back in the day.
00:19:20
Speaker
and this is thirty years after that event and so they they go onto this uh... abandoned highway they stop there and then this sort of weird small child appears out of nowhere basically there's an accident and uh... tetsuo is taken away by the army because he he gets something happens to him he gets taken away by the army and it's discovered that he's got these sort of really bizarre mental powers
00:19:49
Speaker
And it's all due to the massive amounts of drugs that they do so yeah canada spends the rest of the movie first of all trying to find his friend there is some sort of faction this revolutionary faction going against the government.
00:20:07
Speaker
that comes into play as well. There's protests in the second half of the movie. Stuff happens and Tetsuo's power come into their own and it just goes ballistic. So, yeah.
00:20:24
Speaker
Have you seen it Mark? Yes, I have. Uh, I was, you're describing him like, wait a minute. I've seen this movie. Yeah. Cause I was thinking, I was about to say, I think I don't think I've seen this cause it was only recently. It was only like within the last two years that I finally saw howls moving castle. Okay. So yeah, I'm way behind on a manga, basically. That's where it comes from. I was going to say, we have to introduce you to our former guests, uh, Tim Blackmore, because I know for a fact, this is one of his favorite movies. Oh, great. Yeah. Yeah.
00:20:53
Speaker
Yeah, and he's got a poster in his office. If you enjoyed Howls, then you will just absolutely devour Princess Mononoke. Oh, I have seen that too. Okay, good. Yeah, that's a good one. And what's the one with the fighter planes?
00:21:11
Speaker
Yeah, Poco Rosso. I also saw that one recently too and I loved it. That was such an odd movie. Yeah. All Studio Ghibli movies are amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Hayao Miyazaki. Yeah. Love that guy. The Master. Yeah. So what are the threads that like, you know, connect between Akira and sort of your own work? Like, is it sort of the dystopian Japanese?
Akira's Global Influence
00:21:34
Speaker
Well, I think at the time when I saw that I was kind of, you know, half fantasy reader and half science fiction. And that's the one that just went, okay, you're a science fiction guy from now on.
00:21:50
Speaker
like, you know, put put the other stuff aside, you're you're now a hardcore sci fi guy. So I started reading a lot of William Gibson and stuff like that. And I really enjoyed a to Nazio, who wrote radix and other stuff like that Orson Scott card. But I always preferred the sort of cyberpunk over the space faring sci fi stuff.
00:22:17
Speaker
I mean, I love my Star Wars, but for reading, I really like sort of the gritty Earthbound sort of stuff that happens because it feels more real or plausible to me. Maybe. So that's sort of what influenced me into starting to write Cyberpunk. And I would definitely point directly at Akira as being one of the major influences.
00:22:41
Speaker
William Gibson is such an amazing writer. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He's like stylistically, he just keeps getting better and better. I've noticed. Yeah. I mean, I basically I consider him like the sort of sci fi Shakespeare, if you will, just by if just for reading his earlier stuff, like his first five books.
00:23:00
Speaker
It's just so visually appealing in his words, you know, like he's very imaged. Weirdly, I have never read Liam Gibson. It's a startling admission from the beginning. It's really good. Yeah, it's OK. It's worth reading some of it.
00:23:15
Speaker
And don't ignore his later stuff because some of his later stuff is really, really good. Oh, no, they're all good. They're all good, but he changes style. He becomes narrative driven and less word choice driven, if you will. The stories are still amazing, but it's less about the words and more about the encompassing story, I think. Yeah.
00:23:37
Speaker
All right, I will do that. This podcast is basically giving us the to be read pile that we'll never do after. Oh, it's true that this every week is like more stuff gets added to the pile.
00:23:50
Speaker
Well, because at first I was relieved, right? Because I'm like, okay, he's chosen a movie that I've already seen. I don't need to rush out and see that. Oh, William Gibson. Oh, damn. Let me just add more things onto your part. Maybe someday we could have William Gibson on and then maybe we should read one of his books beforehand. Yes. Yes. Start with Neuromancer.
00:24:08
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good. That's a classic. Yeah, because we have all these guests on who are artistic people and they've written books and whatnot. And I feel like I need to read all their books. And I know this is a common conundrum that, you know, those of us who who write have that we know so many writers, but you can't possibly read all their work. How do you guys deal with that? I just don't.
00:24:32
Speaker
I used to feel guilty about it, but I've released that because it's, as you say, it's impossible. So I think the way that I kind of approach it is that if it's something that genuinely I think I'm going to like, I read it.
00:24:47
Speaker
Yeah, if it's in my house, it'd be the rule. Yeah, if it's in my wheelhouse, then I'll definitely pick up their book and, and Hey, can you sign it? And then I'll read it. And that's, that's about it. And I'm, I'm pretty much all sci-fi or, or, uh, sociological or, you know, like, and not a lot of my friends write sociology or psychology or, or history or stuff like that. So I'll get that from another source, but I'll get their sci-fi books basically.
00:25:13
Speaker
Yeah. The other thing that I would do is if someone really would like me to read their book as they're working on it, I will occasionally say, yes, I can do that for you. Oh man. Do you really want to put that in a podcast? Not really. I said occasionally if someone, and I did say a friend, didn't I? Yeah. Yeah. So like, I'm not just taking anybody's manuscript because otherwise it will not get read. Yeah.
00:25:39
Speaker
So you know everybody, Mark just said that he'll take all of your manuscripts. I will definitely cut that out of this episode. I don't have access to the files, but I'll find a way.
00:25:53
Speaker
Because I got to be honest, like it said, there's a very select few friends of mine that I will read their stuff. My time is so limited that, you know, I want to, I got, you know, a few books that I want to read for a pleasure and then my own writing and now editing a podcast. And I don't have time to read your manuscript. Yeah. Yeah. Unless your name is Jen or Tana, that's it.
00:26:19
Speaker
All right, all you gen antennas out there. You heard it. Oh, I see. I needed to be more specific. Spark up that web chat, GPT. The flood of gens in your inbox. Thousands of gens with their garbage manuscripts. Fortunately, maybe there isn't a whole lot of tannas. I might be okay on that one. Yeah, well, that's probably enough. Okay, back to Akira.
00:26:44
Speaker
What more can you tell us about Akira that people might not already know? I mean, it's a huge, huge influence on so many people. Tons of artists. My sister actually got me a book. He's reaching into his bookshelf.
00:27:03
Speaker
So this is called Otomo, it's a global tribute to the mind behind Akira, and it's like illustrations by some of the world's most talented artists who draw comics and manga
00:27:18
Speaker
and as a tribute to Otomo. So like the guy is the OG of manga, cyberpunk in manga form. So it's just absolutely phenomenal. And I don't know, just the story itself is just so original. And and it's it's actually if you if you take away
00:27:44
Speaker
the the action if you take away all of the the superficial stuff about it and you delve into what or who Akira is and what
00:27:57
Speaker
Tetsuo because you have to watch it all the way to the end to really understand What is going on? It's not it's not a cyberpunk story. It is a very very Existential sort of what created the universe kind of idea Clearly watching it once as mark, and I have done isn't enough well You should probably rewatch it it with with with the ending in mind and then going oh
00:28:23
Speaker
Oh, I see. Okay. And just pay attention to Akira and Tetsuo as he becomes something. Okay, cool. Yeah, I will because it's actually not unrelated to what I'm working on at the moment. So I might actually get something out of it.
00:28:42
Speaker
I really appreciate actually work that does that, you know, that you get to the end and then it recontextualizes everything that came before, like the work of Jean Wolfe, for example, you know, that is written with like multiple layers.
00:28:57
Speaker
I like that. I love that about works. Yeah, absolutely. And it's definitely a work of show don't tell. There might be that little bit at the end where he's kind of explaining to you what's going on, but you have to read between the lines to figure it out. It doesn't just come out and tell you, and I'm not going to tell you.
00:29:22
Speaker
This might be me reading between the lines, but is it possible that I'm thinking now about the graphic novel? That the graphic novel actually had a major influence on some North American and European writers as well? Because I think about The Dark Knight Returns and there's some stuff in that that seems very Japanese to me.
00:29:42
Speaker
Well, I mean, as for Japanese manga, it has, I mean, in the present time, Japanese manga in general.
00:29:52
Speaker
has a huge, huge influence on stylistic sort of renderings in the entire world. Like, I've noticed in the past five to ten years that lines and eyes of characters have become very Japanese-like. I mean, there's still a sort of European slash North American touch to it.
00:30:19
Speaker
But there is definitely huge influence of Japanese, maybe not culture, but Japanese sort of the illustration effect on all of our stuff.
00:30:33
Speaker
Yeah, the aesthetic is definitely, the aesthetic has definitely gone mainstream. Like there's no question that I don't think other cultures, people from other cultures are surprised by that aesthetic the way that they would have been in the eighties. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, you look at a comic from the eighties and it is not the same thing as it is today. Yeah. But that's why I was asking you about that one specific instance. Cause to me, it did seem like there was some crossover, but Oh, absolutely. I mean, everything influences everything. And I mean,
00:31:03
Speaker
there wouldn't have been Japanese anime if American studios hadn't been looking for a cheap place to get their stuff animated in the 1980s. Back in the day, that was the place to get your animation done because it was super cheap, and that basically gave the opportunity for Japan to become really, really good at animation, and that's why we have such amazing stuff today. So, I mean, everything influences back and forth. So, Otomo,
00:31:32
Speaker
he wrote the manga and then he wrote the screenplay for the film based on the manga wrote the same thing and equally effective uh doing both clearly yeah yeah um yeah i thought it was leading up to a questionnaire but it turned into not a question and i mean you had to be all excited yeah i was like what what's gonna happen now yeah i mean it was it was a tough act to follow just because
00:31:59
Speaker
It is like the greatest, you know, and he hasn't really done anything else apart from that. I mean, that was my question. That's where I was going. He did a he did another movie called Steam Boy. And it was all right, but it wasn't.
00:32:20
Speaker
It was no Akira. And he also did another short, he did another short movie that was part of like a trilogy or of some sort with two other two other animators, illustrators, and it was okay. But, you know, I think after Akira, like, how do you beat that, you know, like,
00:32:43
Speaker
Well, that's like the people who did Gone with the Wind, you know, they did this amazing spectacular film and it just took everything out of them and then they never really had, you know, anything else to, I think that happens from time to time, doesn't it? Right. I think so. Yeah. I mean, I can imagine.
00:33:00
Speaker
Even if you want to create more, you might be afraid of trying something else because how can you possibly match, you know, what you do. JD Salinger, I don't think applies to him. I think, I think he stopped writing for other reasons, but I can imagine that in, for some people, writing a book like that, that that was, you know, the catcher in the rye, that was,
00:33:22
Speaker
Yeah, so influential. And then going, Okay, now what do I follow that up with haunted by your own fame? Yeah, it's, I think a lot of musicians face that.
00:33:33
Speaker
problem with their second albums. Yeah, the whole sophomore album and the sophomore book. I think there's a reason for that. It's like you spend years and years perfecting your craft, your art, and you put years into something and it's amazing. And of course, and then you have one year to produce the next thing. It's like, okay, maybe it's not going to be quite as good.
00:33:55
Speaker
Well, there is also the fact that like, and I know this for a fact to be true for me is like, you know, after I wrote my first book of the series, I was like, I put all my best stuff in here. And then book two is like, Oh, what, what do I write about now?
00:34:14
Speaker
I'm not saying it's not as good. It's just like, it's totally different. It's a whole different beast because I had to, you know, like the book one, this is stuff that I've had trotting around in my head for years and years, right? And I'm like, okay, I'm going to use this material. And then you're trying to write the next book and it's like, oh, I got to write something that's not exactly the same as the first book. It's got to be just as fun and, you know, completely not the same. So.
00:34:40
Speaker
Then there's the phenomena of, you know, an artist who produces a number of bodies of work. And we talked about this before, Mark, where, you know, how does a book become successful? And sometimes it's just luck, you know, that it's written at the right time. Quite often, I think.
00:34:58
Speaker
Yeah, and then it becomes amazing, but it may not actually be their best work, the one that becomes most popular. I think of Douglas Adams, obviously everybody loves Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe and everybody considers that his best work, but in my opinion, his best book is Last Chance to See. Oh, I love that book.
00:35:17
Speaker
Yeah, which is an amazing book that, uh, only a small, I think, uh, portion of people who have read Hitchhiker's are probably even aware of that. I don't know that one. It's, it's a nonfiction book. It's, uh, it's him going to see endangered species around the world. Uh, the stuff with the Komodo dragons is just hilarious. Okay. Oh yeah. See, that's the thing. Like it's actually like it's a, it's important subject matter, but it's also unbelievably fun. Yeah. I mean,
00:35:46
Speaker
For me, it would probably be like Kurt Vonnegut. Everybody raves about Breakfast of Champions and Slaughterhouse-Five, but some of my favorite books are not those. I really enjoyed Slapstick and Cat's Cradle and that kind of thing. Yeah, Cat's Cradle is my favorite. Right? Yeah. I think I'm alone in this because I haven't heard another writer say this, but I love Timequake.
00:36:17
Speaker
His last, it's like his last novel. Okay. And I, I just, I got a very sentimental attachment to that book. Okay. It's worth your time anyway. Okay. Vonnegut keeps coming up in this podcast. Well, he's good. Yeah. Oh yeah. He's mentioned in, in our first episode and then we, we devote an entire episode to him and here he is again.
00:36:39
Speaker
Okay, any other thoughts then about Akira before we all go or Mary was? No, I think that it's one of those perfect movies. It's every frame counts, it's multifaceted and every character has their own personality.
00:37:00
Speaker
their own desires and they're all doing what they think is the right thing to do. I would consider it a perfect movie. In terms of your work, people should start with the first book of the trilogy. I recommend it. Thank you very much for being on our podcast, Recreative. Thank you very much for having me tonight.
00:37:30
Speaker
Yes, I forgot that we were going to do the podcast in those voices, weren't we? And now I am so glad we didn't. That's going to be a bit of a mess to clean up. Yeah. Thanks for giving me more editing, guys. You're welcome. All right. Thank you, Benoit. Well, thanks for inviting me. Have yourselves a great night, guys. Yeah, you too, Benoit. Lovely meeting you. It was a pleasure.
00:38:05
Speaker
So Mark, you and I have discussed how people can support this podcast. And one of the ways I would like to get them to support us is by, and I think you're going to like this. Bye.
00:38:14
Speaker
purchasing one of your books. Ooh, I like that. How about your books? We're going to start with your book. We'll start with my books. Okay. And today I would like to point people in particular to Alpha Max, which is a novel about the metaverse, which is kind of in vogue these days. Yeah. And it's, it doesn't take a lot of the standard approaches that the metaverse stories do. I think it's a bit more grounded. It's funny and it's a, and it's witty and it's smart and it's entertaining. Go to recreative.ca slash support and you can find your books there. Alpha Max by Mark A. Rayner.