If you were a kid in the ’80s or ’90s, you are probably familiar with Don Bluth’s movies. Bluth and his talented teams produced the animated classics The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail, The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go to Heaven, and Anastasia, as well as such video games as Dragon’s Lair. Recently, Bluth published Yuki, Star of the Sea, the first book in a planned series of children’s fables. BookLife named it an Editor’s Pick and praised Bluth’s illustrations. We spoke to Bluth about creativity, his writing, and the message behind the book.
Many of your projects place you as an artist first. How has your relationship to writing evolved over the years?
I am, by nature, blessed with a driving curiosity, particularly when it comes to the nature of mankind. My dad was a policeman in El Paso, Texas. He spoke often about what makes people behave as they do: nurture or nature?
I’ve always been an artist, one who pursued anything beautiful. That was my God-given talent, and it came naturally. I drew as I pleased. In college, I stayed away from the art department. I resolved to find my own way in that regard. So what did I do? I majored in English. I had no idea what I was getting into at the time, but suddenly I was overwhelmed with reading assignments, and although it was exhausting, it opened up a whole new world.
Over the years, I began to see that my drawings were void of any meaning, but the messages in the books I read were not. I put the two worlds together. My new approach to art went far beyond being just cute or anatomically correct or a wonderful graphic design. Every drawing became a metaphor or a simile for an idea.
Is there a character that you’ve created who you feel resonates just as easily with people today as they did when they were created?
Oh my, yes. I’m thinking of Dirk the Daring from the 1980s video game Dragon’s Lair. That spunky little knight is as dumb as a bag of hammers, yet when it comes to the challenge of rescuing the princess, Daphne, he somehow manages to win. Wasn’t that the formula for [Chaplin’s] the Little Tramp? What a loving character he was. I see those tendencies in my own life. What I mean is: I am both a genius and an idiot. The success of my characters, and there are thousands of them, is the fact that they reflect human nature.
Yuki, Star of the Sea is the only fiction work you’ve released. Is there a reason you haven’t written more fiction?
Old-fashioned animation is still my first love. However, when the computers moved in, the pencils moved out. I’ve spent some time being sad about this, but I’m here, and I can still communicate with my drawings. I hope 2D animation gets a renaissance, I really do. Meanwhile, I have stories in my head that need to be told and published. I will write and illustrate books.
What inspired the conservation message at the heart of Yuki, Star of the Sea?
The Earth with its ecosystem and all its creatures that live on the planet are sacred subjects to me. Everything is beautiful in its own way, and yet death is ever-present. I am saddened by the pain and suffering that I see around me, and I refuse to be a mere witness to all that. I am here to help Mother Nature. Yuki, the little whale, belongs in the sea, and not in a tank in Mexico.
Do you have any advice for artists today?
You must see yourself first as an entertainer—one who can tell a joke and people will laugh, or one who tell can tell a story and people will smile, one who can sketch a drawing and someone wants to buy it.
Inside each of us is a creative light that wants to shine. If your light is about creating characters with a pencil, then you must do more than simply want it. When I draw, I never settle for just okay. And, if it turns out to be not okay, I keep drawing until it is. I know this sounds like work, but it’s the only way, and you can apply this rule to any medium.
The book’s subtitle is “A Don Bluth Fable.” Can readers expect more fables in the future?
Funny that you should ask. Currently, I have eight books on the board. Although I am now in the autumn of my years, that creative light inside me shines on. My joy comes from seeing people smile.
Drucilla Shultz is a bookseller and freelance editor with over a decade of publishing industry experience.
