When Nicki Met Mervy!

Our special guest, Carrington, listens to the trials and tribulations of the collaborative artistic process and gets Mervyn to confess some of the difficulties that have to be navigated working on the job (and even some of his pet peeves)!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
I'm Nicky McCoy and I'm an illustrator, fashion designer and
traditional artist. I'm Mervin McCoy, illustrator, storyteller and digital artist.
For more than a decade, we've traveled in the convention
scene from coast to coast. We'd love to share what
we've learned and are still learning on our journey. You're
listening to paper La podcast. You hear that music, she

(00:25):
stole it off the internet, just kidding.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
It's spicy beats b E E.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
T S and he hates beats.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Let's check you out that SoundCloud. We're back with another
very important episode of the paper Lab podcast or paper
Lab podcast or the podcast of paper Lab. Everyone is

(01:00):
we have a guest today and Nicole is is out,
you know, doing work while I am not doing work.
So we're here with I was going to say a
favorite nephew, but you only have one. That's not really true,
right if you don't come like, well, listen, nephews ben
coming out shapes and sizes. Nephews come in nonfamiliar but

(01:24):
non you know blood, you know, sizes and ships. I'm
still a favorite, though, Yeah, there you go, there you go.
My name is ar Karrington Blake. You remember when we
did the last podcast was like two years ago, three Street. Yeah,
that's a long time man. That was a very different show.

(01:44):
We're talking about batlen but and war machine and many
many other wonderful topics, and so here you're not really
an artist, but you do appreciate art, right Uh? And
I figured you asked another question the other day that
was a pretty cool one that I think we benefit

(02:06):
from kind of broaching here. How did we meet? How
did Nicole? I mean, Okay, it's an interesting, interesting question,
pretty simple question, interesting answer, And Nicole, yes, she's working,
but she still can look at us and steer daggers
at this, which is exactly what she was doing. This

(02:26):
answering this question is kind of important because it does
relate to the business and the fact that you know,
we right now we work as a team, and the
way the business works only works because we work together.
It would be much more challenging, and I can tell
you this much hiring someone to do these things, they

(02:49):
probably wouldn't have the same investment and we wouldn't have
the same outcomes. Not saying it wouldn't we couldn't do it,
either of us, but it would be very different. You
guys are partners are yes, yes, we are, so fifty fifty. Yeah,
it's a fifty to fifty you know, but you know
how that goes, right? You know? You know? Was it

(03:10):
whatever is whatever is hers is hers? Right? Whenever is
mine is hers? You know that I can say this
because she's not directly on the show. But no, okay,
So what's funny is just before going through the rest
of this it being fifty to fifty is an interesting

(03:32):
question because on the comic Giant Robo orient maintenance Crew,
which I work on with Nit, I'm just going to
give you a good example that's a fifty to fifty situation.
I remember when we were looking for publishers way way
back in the day. One of the challenges was that
the people were saying I should have had fifty one

(03:56):
and he should have forty nine so that I can
make like controlling the city visions I want, not right,
so I can just so we don't have to have
a consensus and stuff. And that is a very good
that's good advice business wise, sure from the more pragmatic,
uh you know, traditional business way of doing things. But

(04:19):
at the end of the day, Nathan and I definitely
have had each other's backs in that process the whole time. So,
you know, trying to discuss with this guy and say, oh,
you should have less of a stake in this thing
we both created together, it's a bit insulting. It comes
it comes off as insulting, and you'd say, well, business
doesn't require like it's not about emotions and whatnot. I

(04:40):
get that, but in this case, it's literally sowing the
seeds of something you probably don't need down the line. Yes,
it is a little bit more challenging to to to
make fast decisions because it's like whatever, But I can
say there have been various times where I said to him,
hey you can, you can. I'm giving you the the
chance to just choose whatever, right, Like, I think we

(05:03):
can have those honest discussions where it's like, Okay, we
know this is time sensitive, so one of us has
to kind of take the wheel because we're don't want
to directly doing the thing or what. Sure, you're assuming
that there will be problems on the line. It's not
as human. There always will be problems, but it's like,
what problems are you willing to to you know, tackle
which ones do you think are worth dealing with. Is

(05:24):
it worth showing discontent where your partner thinks that, well,
you're trying to you know, take away control or whatnot.
Problem as the thing before, yeah, before you came to
the agreement of the fifty to fifty. No, we always
work like that. That thing we're always we've always worked
like that. Is that a first time thing? No? But
this thing is it depends on the person and the

(05:46):
personality some people. Yes, I would. I would always be like, no, no, no,
we have to have a I have to have a
little bit more equity or I'll have less because I
don't want to have any you know, control of the thing.
There's another project, and I know we haven't gotten Nicole
and I yet, but there's another project where just to
give you different examples of how you can make arrangements

(06:07):
with people, and this one we talked about an old
podcast before on a show, but I'll give you a
rough example. So this one, the person in particular wanted
to has wanted to work work with us on some
stuff for the longest, right, And this was in COVID,
and you know COVID things slowed down, so we had

(06:28):
less stuff on our plates. So we're like, okay, we
have a little bit of the extra time, you know
what I mean, I could have been working on Nanny,
but instead I was like, you know what, since we've
known this this guy, he's been talking about this thing,
and so we're like, okay, let's let's let's work with him.
We because he didn't, he didn't he couldn't necessarily meet

(06:49):
our budget. So half this was a friend thing, right,
and we said, okay, here's the thing. What we'll do
is this, since you know or you know, you can't
really meet our rates full we all we wanted some equity.
We don't want to own the own the thing. So
this was like zero ownership. Yea. All we wanted was
a percentage and percentage of residuals and whatever else comes

(07:15):
from it, right, whatever medium, whatever type of media you
adapted to. So that was at like three percent right
of whateverever comes from it. And mind you that that
that thing fell apart by you know, by the end,

(07:36):
like the whole agreement, because he was he here's the thing,
We did the work. We didn't want to own it.
But the thing is we're still going to get credit
for it, right, And he had the nerve to come
to us when you know, we had the master copy
of the book, you know, compile and everything. We had

(07:56):
the nerve to complain that he didn't want our logo
on the pages of the concept art that we designed,
and he also wanted his name in the like designed
by and what not. And I'm and yeah, exactly, you
didn't design anything just because we it's literally written that
we don't own the things to the fact that you're

(08:17):
not insecure that writer, that's a red flag person. That's
the person who don't work with and what he's done.
We saw that. He came up with a version of it.
But because you know what I did in a whole discussion,
I was like, I mean I kind of went off
and n quote was there. She witnessed it. But in
that discussion, I was like, look, you you're a joker

(08:39):
and you're you're exploiting people. And it's like, take your
money back. I give him by the money. I said, no,
you're not. You don't use any of this, sorry, what
is it? Well he got tough because I was he
got stuff and he's like, oh wow, And I was like, well,
when will when can I expect my money back and
what I what I said is faster than it took
you to pay me, you'll get it to see it anyway,

(09:08):
you know, that was done. And the thing is is
because he's you know, a little unscrupulous the design right
of the character and it read a monster when we
first ever hung up with this guy who was at
a bar and Nicole sketch some stuff and that the
sketch that she did inspired his idea for the for

(09:30):
the thing, right, she didn't really care whatever one It's fine,
Like it's been like maybe almost a decade, him just
going on about wanted to do this thing and wanted
to work with us on it, and he's tried several
times to work with people. I guess I should have
taken that as a sign, but you know, being his
friend at the time, I was like, well, okay, it seemed,
you know, like as if you know, these things happen.

(09:53):
It's not like just because somebody can't get something finished
with other creators doesn't mean that something up with them
and two artists can be finicky, you know what I'm saying.
So I do understand that side of it. So you know,
it was just very fascinating, you know, what I mean
looking at all of that, and he well, he released

(10:17):
a version of the book, not with our art, but
he got some artists on him from abroad to work
on it, and he used her and it's still our design.
So what I'm gonna do is, I'm I have all
the pages, so I probably just released another version just
because what do you think, Nicole? She just nodded, Yeah,

(10:41):
but no, it's very shady. I don't know if you
you know, you get my point with all this, but
it's two very very you know, interesting ideas of whole
people can work if it makes you feeling. I mean,

(11:04):
if anybody listened to the old podcast, you could probably
if you go back to the early episodes and within
the first ten episodes, you probably figure out who we're
talking about. And mind you, I'm not saying this will
stay on mystery. Maybe this will be a whole episode
where we talk about how that process work broke down.

(11:24):
Maybe it could even be in unison with something on
a Patreon where we displayed the art and we talk
about the art, because we did a whole a bunch
of YouTube videos on the the art. Yeah, but it
was for Patreon. Those videos are yeah, yeah, but you're
my nephew, so I can share the videos, Vie you.

(11:46):
It was just talking about the process and he was
on there talking about it. But either way, this show
wasn't about him. It's just to give you an example
of two different types of working with people and how,
you know, using the same kind of mentality that I
used it with Nick, where I'm like, okay, we'll be
even on this, like even Nick and Nick I can

(12:06):
do the same thing to Nick. We well, we share
ownership of what we're doing, and it's like it's situations
where you know, I'll like, okay, you just you just
fired a gun on this stuff. I'm going to be
doing some other stuff. I'm going to trust you to
meta right decision, right. I Mean, we've had And here's
the big difference between set working with Nick. Nick is
somebody I worked with on c Listers. That's another coming.

(12:29):
So the big difference between said Nick and this other
person I just spoke about that I've just said take
your money back and go Goki Rocks is that there's
even one publishing issue one time where Nick went and
published because I wanted to only release the first three yeah,

(12:50):
and then and then I would and then we'd end
it with another three and then and then the release
date of the third one slipped because Nick decided to post,
not post, but the league, no, not League publish. He
published it digitally. So then because my thing, the reason

(13:11):
why I was trying to stagger things is that the
way it would be less in between. And then what
happens is when it came out earlier, and then people
you know, oh worse. No, actually I think it was
maybe number two came out earlier. Either way, one of
them came out earlier that I was supposed to sit
in everything kind of whatever. Either way, Yeah, point being though, yeah,

(13:31):
I was like, all right, I didn't that wasn't a plan.
But you know, we figured it out and we just
moved on from that, you know what, I mean, To
fix that situation, I just I did four I ended
up having to do for sooner, but it took longer
because then I tried to wrap up the story because
that story, it was just supposed to be a three
issu arc break then an a three years you arc.

(13:52):
So and he didn't necessarily have the scripts for the
four four, where he did not script for not for
the script for five and six ready yet. So what
what I'm doing is because of the times now, because
people are not waiting for the fourth one or expecting
the fourth one. I was like, all right, I'll just

(14:15):
try and wrap everything up in the fourth one and
just whatever, so to take longer then, yes, yes, which
is ironic, Yeah right, yes, ironic, Yeah, yeah, because you
know it's it's at the end of the day, it's
still a piece of art. It's still something if you
care about it, you're trying to you know, there's a
certain way you want people to interact with it. It's

(14:37):
not just you know, it's not just oh, just put
the thing on. It's not just regurgitating it. We don't
work like AI. Like AI, I can think and you know,
so you know, there there's I'd like to think there's
an artistry through how we uparate. Have you ever had
problems waiting between working together of all the time, all

(15:01):
the time, like, what what's something that you remember? What's
something I remember? Okay, if you stick up in, I
just want to say about just you know, the initial reason.
I just want to add this part us. So how
we met. You know, we met in a comic store
and as a result that was related to our work.
I think we both admired each other's art, and that

(15:23):
kind of pulled us a little bit closer. Because I
remember not to get into much detail because maybe the
whole we met can be its own specific thing. But
this is probably the first time we collaborated. She she
wanted to do color tests because I thought that she
did all these really cool water colors, and she wanted

(15:45):
to test her uh painting on my line art. And
I was like, I was so flattered, you know what
I mean, because you know, we're just like friendly at
that time. So I drew what Nicole came over, took
a smile, why you smile whatever? Anyway, Yeah, so what

(16:09):
do you call it? I remember I drew two versions
of Batman and Robin. I drew a Dark Knight Returns
Batman with Damien Wayne Robin, and she painted that one.
And then I did a Dick Grayson Batman with a
carry Kelly Robin right, and you know she painted that.

(16:31):
She did a color scheme for the Robin one because
the carry Kelly Robin and the Dick Grayson one is
technically to Robin. So she painted out with a reddish
almost pinkish shoe and then The Dark Knight returns on
with you know, uh, you know, the Dark Knight returns
Batman and the you know Damon Wayne Robin, who will

(16:52):
be just as terrible as Batman as that one. She
painted that in a dark what was it like? Dark gray? Yeah, yeah,
dark gray, But it was really cool. It was cool
seeing my colors like that, and I think that kind
of just sparks up in our heads. And we started
doing a lot more collaborations. We did, like this giant
A lot of these things kicked off our work together

(17:13):
because we did all these paintings that this this giant
dark bit or painting that everybody seemed to love at
the time, We did like a cool Kylo Wren. Uh,
these are all just like big paintings better. I can't
remember the name of the Dark Dark the work, and

(17:34):
just yeah, being in the same space, like you know,
just we respected each other's talent and skill. And the
first first thing, this is really what kind of kicked
us in gear to kind of have the business model
we have now. We I don't remember why we chose
to do this, but we did that giant comic kids drawing,
they won't even call that. Then we just did this
drawing of like Chibby verse. I did like a bunch

(17:57):
of Chibby lion art and it was like not eating
by twenty four, It's like twenty four by thirty six
right in like a frame go whatever on water color
paper or something like that. And yeah, drew that and
then and then she she pretty much painted it. And
you know what's funny is I took I had scanned

(18:20):
the black and white or like the pencil art from
the from that, and I decided, all, let me just
in this over digitally and color them digitally, and we
end up doing our little comic hid Courage from that,
like a lot of you can see the original style
of what my chibies looked like from that. And yeah, anyway,
that was the first thing we saw together, right, made

(18:41):
good money on it, and it was it was a
fun piece, and that kind of pushed just no you
actually yet, Yeah, well yes, because the first time because
I don't remember what show we saw at that. I
know we saw Elevader at a con because you have
a ton of pictures of that. But the first show

(19:05):
we kind of did together was a Megican where I
was like, yo, kind of kind of boom a ride
with you American and then because she she was going
to compete, she had like a jubilee costume. I think
you're gonna compete or something, right, and so I remember
that show. She stepped down at the table. She was tired.

(19:25):
Why Yeah, I don't know. The world is full of
mistress young man anyway, but yeah, I mean that was
it was my booth. By the way, she wasn't doing
anything that she just went to go to the competition.
So we just drove up together. And so she just

(19:45):
hanging around the booth and then she saw how my
booth was set up, and then she was like, why
aren't there prices here? Why is this here? Why is
that here? She tried to shift and stuff around because
my booth was trash, you know, And I mean I wouldn't.
I don't want to say it starts from there. We
still had separate booths for a while, Like it it
took out while, like a few years for us to

(20:05):
actually have a booth together. We would still we were,
we were dating even when we had separate booths. Is
it easier though, Is it easier having separate booths? Yeah,
or having one booth? It's probably better having one booth.
I do think their shows where we'd probably make more
having separate booths, just because you could capitalize on different sections.

(20:25):
Like there's a show that that does anime and it
does horror, and I feel like if she went on
the anime side and I went on the horror side,
we could like get very specific. But I think sometimes
it shows like that when we have or even though
we have the separate we'll try to separate the booth

(20:46):
so it looks whatever. Yeah, general still can confuse people
or they'll think you don't have one or the other
because if you're looking for something, you know, you sometimes
don't notice other things. So know, so you want to
you want to know our biggest disagreement working together. Wow,

(21:10):
that's a complicated one. Or to say, I guess challenge.
Maybe that's that's an easier thing. I mean, and obviously
we're going to have two different perspectives, you know what,
I would say, go back to what we're saying right
there with the book exactly. I can't well, since this

(21:30):
was not going to go up with the you know,
in chronologically with when we did the show I'm talking about,
I can say there are shows and there's a recent
one in particular where if you look at the like
the numbers on her side as opposed to my side, huge,

(21:51):
you know, she maintained from last year's numbers, and then
you look at mine and you're like, oh, man, you poor. Yeah,
I mean no, to be fair, now, it's not you know,
it's it's still profit. It's just you're like, oh, that's
a weird drop. But yeah, that can happen sometimes. But
that's not really an argument between her and me. That's

(22:15):
more of a challenge in figuring out, okay, how to
kind of even that out, or how to figure out,
you know, what's not being done, because we definitely have
different approaches. I you know, I do think there are
situations where, I mean, anybody could probably assume this is

(22:36):
where her approach is going to be superior to man
and vice versa. I do think, however, in terms of
an actual challenge or something that we've had disagreement on
sometimes and I know this is tale out to school,
maybe she would show up and correct, now say kind
of tip cut the tip. Sometimes when people will work

(23:01):
with us, sometimes sometimes they'll give deference to her, maybe
because she, you know, she seems she is not, by
the way, when I'm about to say she is not
any of this, she might seem like more of a
task master because she has a more serious demeanor because
you know, I'm smile up with people and whatnot, like

(23:23):
she's going to get a job done? Well is it? No,
not even get the job done. They might feel like,
you know, you know, is that a boss situation you're
the boss or teachers and teacher. The teacher looks strict
and then the laugh of joke of teachers, so you
can skip my class, get my point. So so sometimes
you know, it'll be like, oh yeah, so it's like okay,

(23:45):
so let's I'll give you a rough example so that
you know you and listeners are like, what is he
talking about? Rough? As example is commissions? Right, so we
have commissions coming in. Let's just say Nicole is like
back to back, right, she's backed up, and let's say
I am on the you know, I'm doing quite a few.

(24:09):
They will they'll sometimes get them, still get them for her,
and it's like wait, I'm like, they assume because I'm
working on stuff I can't work on anymore even though
she is backed up, and then it's still giving her
commissions down, what about man, Look, she just came in
the room to flex our muses. But here's the thing.
They also assume I'm slower than her. I am. Listen,

(24:32):
Nicole is faster than me, but I am extremely fast now.
And so because of the nature of stuff, Nicole those
crayons with hers right, Wow, she's coming in here, naked faces, Nicole,
those crayons, right, I do markers, and because you know,
and I just I take I take a different approach
to my stuff. But they assume sometimes that like I

(24:56):
cannot keep up, and I'm like, well, you can see
the results here, like I don't. Like. Also, we both
kind of, you know, know our limits. I know how
much I can pile on. There's times when I'm like,
no more, give it to her. You know what I'm saying,
And I will say it, but sometimes they don't give
me the chance. They're like, oh, it looks like you're busy,
and I'm like, no, no, no, no, just and I said,

(25:18):
that's probably one of my pet peeves working together, because
it's like, I'm like, you think I'm garbage. No, I
don't think it's like that. I'm being sarcastic. So what
do you think. What do you think? Is one of
Auntie's biggest pews of you. Oh, that would be up.

(25:39):
She would have to answer that one. I don't think
I can answer to see what you would think? What
I think? What you would that would take her off,
probably taking commissions from her, like if people like if
people come up and like she would give some eyes too.
And I rule is my whole rule is that I

(26:04):
don't think we should be talking about who get what
commissioned in front of people. Yeah, mind you, it's not
like it's contentious or whatever, but it's like we can
deal with that behind the scenes, like nobody needs to
set it. But then sometimes like say, people be working
on this, I'm like, oh, who wants this one? Is
like we did that after It doesn't matter even if
you're writher than my book. Guess what you put that

(26:25):
line through it? If it's for her or I can
give it to her, we don't need don't let's not
have that conversation. But and this is not me chastising
the people working for us. It's you know, it's a
very intense atmosphere and sometimes you just got to do
this stuff in the moment, and then you you kind
of fall back to what you're used to. So this

(26:45):
is more of like kind of you know, spreading things
out like you know you have like you know those
things where you put your paint brushes and you open
it up and you're looking at all your tools like
a tool bag. You're you're looking at all your tools.
That's kind of what's happening, and it's like, Okay, we
need to do this, we need to do that. But
like I said, and the heat at the moment, you

(27:06):
just sometimes fall back to what you know, you're you're
comfortable with. But yeah, I would say, like my I
would add that to it where it's like it's like
we don't need the people to know that, you know
who's unless they specifically want a certain style or they're
regular the actually and then say between the two of us,

(27:30):
that's probably being as pet people, and each of us
poach poach from that on like something, because for example,
someone might come to me, I'm looking at my stuff
and they're talking and they're like, Okay, I'm gonna come back.
I'm gonna come back and write like the booth number
on the car and the then the second and then
they come back and then it's like wait and Nicole

(27:51):
trying and I was like, wait, what did you not see?
You know? And vice versa. I've done it too, like
I mean, sometimes you didn't even notice. Like I said,
it's an intense environment and you know, you're just trying
to hustle. Back in the day, we'd compete when we

(28:13):
had separate boots. I remember, like like Florida Supercanos on
our biggest shows, and that's the show where we compete,
so we didn't have separate boots, right, and I would
have my friends help me, and she'd have her friends
help me help her, right, And then we'd be like
how much money a man? How much? How much do

(28:37):
you think you want that? Back up? It would vary,
and she didn't come out to overall overall, it's hard
to say. I would have to ask. I don't know.
I'm genuinely genuinely, I don't remember, because I I when
we did it, I wasn't taking it as somewhere else
trying to put her down. I know there are sometimes

(28:59):
when I'm made that significant amount, But to be fair
on her end, she did have a different type of
booth like I. I would have a booth on the
main floor and then she so it might have been
harder to sell in her area too. So if she
making money or even making more than me, that's saying
I locked about her. So maybe she's the winner because

(29:20):
she her section would be in the cosplay section sexual. No,
that's like that. You gotta just see cosplayers and stuff.
So if you know, if she making money in that
section like that, yeah, so I mean, you know, I'll
give her credit where credit. You know, if I'm to

(29:40):
put the math, you know, if I were to look
at the math than all the variables and whatnot, because
whether I make more money in her or not, the
fact is that if she's keeping up and if she's
making more, then that's saying even more. So. Yeah, it's
one of those things. You can listen to us on
all podcasts platforms.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
You can find us at paper Lab Studios on Instagram
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Speaker 1 (30:11):
And support us on Patreon at paper lab Studios. Thank
you for listening to.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
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