February 18, 2025 • 21 mins
We're about to learn about Mervyn's secret artist origin, straight from the horse's mouth! From his childhood shenanigans to how Mervyn almost became something other than an artist, the rundown is about to be revealed.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi, I'm Nicki McCoy and I'm an illustrator, fashion designer,
and traditional artist.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm Mervin McCoy, illustrator, storyteller and digital artists.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
For more than a decade, we've traveled in the convention
scene from coast to coast.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
We'd love to share what we've learned and are still
learning on our journey.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
You're listening to Paper podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
You hear that music? She stole it off the internet,
just kidding. It's spicy beats b E E T S
and he hates beats. Let's check you out that SoundCloud.
(00:46):
Did you want me to say that?
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Have you ever have you ever like had some water
and it's just like it's like the feeling of like
coolness just kind of like spreads like arondic your entire
body because you were just like that.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Well, Nicky, you see that feeling comes from No, this
is not a science podcast. I yes, I know the feeling,
but I I don't.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
That was my very like non scientific description of like rehydrating.
So so yeah, so I know that, Like last time
we had discussed sort of my secret origins. So what
would you say your secret origin was for becoming an artist?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Ah? Wow, it's a loaded question, but I guess along
the lines of me, I was drawing from the age
of three. That's what I was told that I was
drawing since I was three, and I never stopped, and
you learn one of the consequences in a future episode.
I was just drawing. I also was really inspired by
(01:46):
my my sisters because I would see her notebooks and
folders from school, and she'd have her little doodles in
the corner and she draw like Ziggy, though it looked
like Kilroy. I don't know, only Ziggy and kill Ry
are the same person. I know Ziggy is in a
comic strip. Wow, yeah, that's old school. Wow Did I
(02:07):
date my Did I just docks and date my whole my?
Speaker 1 (02:11):
My sister Ziggy is like a for those of you
who may not know who Ziggy is, because that took
me a hot second, a little cartoon character with a
huge nose.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
But he's he's cute. Yeah yeah, yeah. She would just
draw it, and she'd do like little graffiti things and whatnot.
And she even did a calligraphy class back in the day,
and she got the pens and the books, and I
just so admired the artistry that was going on. And
then my pops was an engineer, but he would draw
plants and stuff, and I thought that was so cool.
(02:42):
And my mother would make like drapes for people sometimes
and sell them, and you know, there's a lot the artistry.
My brother then would draw because I would draw, and
I think the funniest thing was the competitive spirit of
having uh I guess like a family of artists where
the two kids could draw, but one was I was
(03:04):
definitely into drawing. I don't know if he was into
drawing or if he wanted to draw just to show
me up. So I would draw my little weird sticky
figure type things. But then, you know, we're kids, and
you know, I think one of the first things ever
traced was like a Conan comic. So I would try
to draw muscle people, right, So he drew his dudes
(03:25):
and then and no, this is all me. I guess
this is like a a I'm on the psychologist chair,
a psychiatrist chair or whatever, because now I'm working some
stuff out, because now something makes sense, because he would
draw his dudes with like like twenty muscles, so years
would only have ten. Well, yeah, exactly. But it was
(03:45):
just funny, like why are we, like, why are we
as little kids? Why are we so I think I'm
talking about us, I'm not talking about all kids. Why
are we so obsessed with muscles?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Like what? Like?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I remember I remember that Conan comic too, specifically because
it had him going through all these different environments. But
I was like, Yo, this dude is in a in
a fur dress with with with a sword in like
the snow and in the desert and in the jungle,
and and like he's so cool and he has his
horn helmet and blah blah blah blah. And I was like, yo,
(04:16):
this is this is neat. But and it prompted him
to draw and trace, and then my sister and I
drew a little comic of this. Funny enough, my sister
would see me tracing a lot and then she said, uh,
why are you tracing? Like, just draw it yourself. Hence
why I ended up doing my mediocre sticky figury drawings
with you know, minuscule muscles that my brother wanted to
(04:37):
compete with. But anyway, that evolved and in you know,
my mother were dolo comics here and there, and uh
what ended up happening was, you know, I would see
these comics, and obviously I wanted to draw more, and
you know, and the later day for the show, we'll
probably go into this. So I'm not gonna do a
whole you know, background and all this. But what's funny
(05:01):
is i would make my own comics at that point,
so I'd take my notebooks. And this might be a
part where it's a little tricky because I don't know
if you guys in the States had the same kind
of notebooks as we did in Jamaica, because we had
the regular ones that like the composite is that what
they're called, composition composite.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
The.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Edumacation, the composition notebooks. We had those people, yeah right, yeah,
but we also but we had these other ones. You
saw me buy one when we were at a bookstore
in Jamaica and it had like a hummingbird, but the
cover was more cardboardy oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, So
it's so you can rip it off. So I'd rip off.
I'd rip out the staples, right, actually, yeah, I'd rip
(05:44):
out the staples, and then I'd rip off the cover,
turn it inside out because the inside, front and back
covers were blank, and I then re staple it and
then I'd use that to draw covers, so that would
be the cover of the comic, and then that whole
comp composition book would be just comics. I'll just draw
on comics. Mind you, they had lines through them, but
(06:06):
still my comics. So I had these characters, and you
know they're all original, right. It was the United Heroes
Association led by Gauntlet, who mind you, he had a gauntlet.
At the time, I was reading Green Lantern Uninfinitey Gauntlet
not not related. I'm just saying that's that was a
(06:26):
part of you know whatever. I don't know, maybe they
stole the idea from me. I'm just saying. I'm just saying,
so Gauntlet wore a one piece bathing suit type superhero
fit with like, you know, a blue leotards, and he
had a gauntlet that had a gem in it, just
one gem. Though. I think they really ripped me off
now more I think about it, because they decided to
kind of throw people off and make it to make
(06:47):
it like six but mine was one. I'm just saying,
so that's much cooler, right.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
I feel like I would love to see a like
current rendition of Gauntlet, but in your current style.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
I mean, it would be really Yeah, Well, Gauntlet had
a mullet and Gauntlet could make uh you know, constructs
with his dauntlet with his little gem on it. And
the constructs were like highlighter yellow, you know, And I think,
I think, I want to know, I really do think
(07:20):
they stole green lanterns powers from me because he could
do the same. They just made it green. They couldn't
even afford highlighters.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
I love how I think, like every kid artist goes
through like a highlighter face highlighters to color everything.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
It's the coolest power listen, garntlet was cool. So I
mentioned Gauntlet and this is all it related to my
art journey because this is probably my first battle with
with a with an artistic rival. So I came up
with Gauntlet. I would talk about Gauntlet a lot, and
the United Heroes Association and you know mister Justice and
(07:59):
Masters Master Justice whatever his name was, and the whole gang, right,
and my brother. He came up with a character that
could kill all of them, not destroy, kill all of them,
called Universe, right, and I was like, what is Universe?
I think I even drew him into the comic just
(08:19):
because you know what I mean. And I was like
who's you know, Like, Okay, what's Universe's power? Huh? And
he said, oh, well, Universe's power is when he says universe,
the universe blows up. I'm like what I said, Well,
Darlic can make a force feel that can block him
from the universe blowing up. And he's like, no, universe
(08:40):
like when the universe blows up? The thing is this.
He then can say it again and it blows up
any universe blocking blowing up, blowing up energy. And I'm like what,
I don't even know what I just said, But anyway
he could universe could blow up his universe blocking shield.
That's that's kind of the point.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
The audacity of this power is out there for sure.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
And I don't remember what I said after that, Like
this is a long time ago. I just remember this
moment and these. I mentioned this because it's clearly important
to my career because I kept drawing those comics. I
kept drawing those characters. They're gone though, because they were
in a suitcase that got wet somehow, and all of
them are gone, right, never saw them again. And I
(09:25):
but I kept drawing. I drew throughout high school. I
have those comics I showed you some of them. Yea,
those comics were influenced by Image Image and yep, you
can tell. I'm talking about nineties Image nineteen ninety three,
I'm talking about Wildcats, young Blood. I don't know. I
wouldn't say Spawn necessarily, but Wildcats, young Blood, cyber Force
(09:48):
was all those groups. I just wanted to draw group characters.
I think at that time I was really like X men.
I was really into two groups, the like group heroes
and whatnot. And you know, I drew, but it wasn't
really going to be a career, you know. I remember
people would ask what I wanted to be, and I said,
I wanted to be what an astronaut, psychiatrist. And I
(10:10):
would draw people's problems, you know, in space when I'm
on a space station. They'd come to me and then
they talked to me. And I don't know how that
would help anybody. How would I draw the trauma? I
give you a picture of your trauma. Why would that
help you? Like, you know, oh, look I drew your
mom and dad.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Maybe their visual learning, Yeah, I mean, give them the
betterhead of the By the end of the.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Session, I said, well, this is what I happened. It's
a picture of their parents when they didn't say anything
about their parents. And it's like, oh, oh, okay, it's
like I'm.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Going to the airlock now I think it's still viable
career path.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah that's fair, that's fair. Well, you know, and that
kind of did push me forward though, you know, I
like at school, my peers, like the really enjoyed the
fact that I was an artist, and it kind of,
I guess made me a little bit immune from whatever
(11:08):
teasing or whatever could have happened because it was a
It was an interesting experience because they would tell me
artists and okay, this is where it gets testy, right
because you know, my poor mother, So boys, right, boys
are gross and disgusting. And the currency that was traded
(11:29):
in was I mean, magine. I'm not going to say
I resisted. I was all for it. I drew maybe
a few dirty comics and that made me really popular,
wildly popular. Imagine, yeah, exactly. I'm not going to say
that Brian's in which that I defamed, but you know, yep,
that was popular. And my mother found them and what
(11:51):
she did she put them on. She put them on
a bit because I hit them under the mattress I'm thinking,
this is a great hiding place my mother know what's up.
There's a comedian. I've made a joke about this where
it's like it's like an FBI would radio room every
time you left, every time you left home. But you know,
I respect it now. It's like she established this is
my house.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Bro.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
You know, you know you don't listen eyes and ears
ever listen. You have privacy up to a point, you know,
come correct, you know you have a yard. And yeah,
I mean she started it out. She pretty much she
put them out and I came back, saw them, and
I tried to hide them again, and she put them
out next time. And I never did them anymore because
(12:33):
I was like, I can this is not working. But
I did another batch back in high school because this
was like way early, because this is prep school. I
was doing this. But yeah, I just kept drawing, drawing, drawing.
I told you about my career goals ended up, you know,
going into the lawyer side of things. You know, did
some a levels with that, and that was where I
(12:53):
was poised to kind of was pointing myself and yeah,
you know, maybe at some point I'll go into the Internet.
That kind of shifted me, because that's another story as well.
But it just changed, right. I had an event happened
in sixth form, which for you guys that aren't familiar
(13:14):
to the English system, that's after high school. Like you
graduate in fifth form, which is your fifteen and if
you if you're good enough, you can go to sixth form, right,
and sixth form is you know, sixteen seventeen. It prepares
you for university and you do a levels which is
a pretty hard exam, and you choose it's kind of
almost like college ish prep because you get more responsibilities,
(13:37):
you have a lower class lord, but it's hard, you know.
So I chose geography, law, European and West Indian history,
and in general, paper is something you have to do mandatory.
It teaches you to teach you about current events and
teaches you how to write, which was super essential for
my law class. And then writing papers in geography and
(13:59):
history that did hiss your class really shaped my life.
But all of that, there's a moment that happened and
I just ended up in art. And then after six
form I took a break and then I ended up
getting recruited and going out to the Art Institute and
that was kind of the start of that, and like
I said, this adventure, like we could go into it
(14:20):
for a billion years and whatnot, but it's a nice
little kind of sampling to kind of get you, get
you guys to know a bit more about us since
we're so mistyn.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
I was gonna make the joke. I was like, I
was like, wow, well you you went into it. I
feel like I was just like.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
I better fight art my entire super reductive because no,
but I can be an episode some time fature. Yeah, yeah,
I didn't even I only that's just me, you know.
I would go on and on and on, as anybody
that's ever listened to me in person or a podcast.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
I feel like if I were to go into specifics,
it would definitely be about like because obviously like anime
and manga is.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Such a huge influence. Oh yes, so.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
It'd probably be like where was the start of that?
But oh for you, Yeah, but that was like that's
a whole other.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah no, but it's still it's a cool little thing
to dust on. That's another topic we could have for
the show, because at the end of the day, manga
and anime was not easily acquire. But actually I remember
seeing like this friend of mine, he was on the
previous show games. He brought was it jams? Maybe I'm misremembering,
(15:34):
but somebody brought in this this this big book that
was in a different language. It was characters, I don't
you know. And this guy had black hair and an
orange outfit. And then he was like, ah, that's that's
all I could read. I knew it was screaming. It
wasn't ah, but it was good screaming. And then it's
(15:54):
here turned blonde and like, yo, look at the muscles.
Back to the muscles again, everybody that yo. I went
to a boys school, so it's fascinating that we're all
just you look at his muscles.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Maybe it's maybe it's kind of like it's like the
contrast between like being like a kid and like, you know,
older or whatever.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
That's what big people look like. I mean, it's not
true as a kid.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Like as a kid, I don't even I feel like,
even if you're like a buff kid, it's still not
going to be like developed developmentally like the same as
like a grown man. So maybe it's kind of like
sort of like a more like limber and like I
don't want to use the word scrawny but just you know,
like a slimmer body type.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
And it's just like it's like, yeah, well you know,
and they're beating the crap out to each other. It's like,
I don't remember who he was fighting, but it was
in color and it was glossy. I don't because no
that I know how mango works. I'm like, what was this?
Where was this? How did you get this? But it
wasn't in English, so we would we had. It was
thick too, so it was like a companion of one
of the arcs in Dragon Ball Z. And I was like, yo,
(16:59):
this took so good and it looks let me tell you,
in my mind, I'm sure that's not what it looks
like now. If I ever to find it, it was
the most beautiful thing on the planet. I almost think
I should do like a thing where I recreated like
what I think I saw. I would actually be pretty fascinating.
It would be fascinating. I can do it along Gauntlet.
(17:20):
But but it was just it was like stuff like
that definitely helped shape me that the comics. The anime,
like anime wasn't easy to come across. I'd watch it
on Sci Fi on every April. I don't know, well
this is probably too old for you, but every April
sci fi channel back when it was spelt correctly, would
(17:41):
would air like like anime for like a week in
the night. And that's where I watched Stay, not Dragon Bomb.
I didn't know what Dragon Ball was at the time.
Vampire Hunter D and it was all feature length movies
by the way, it wasn't series. So Vampire Hunter D.
What's the other one? Lensman which nobody knows or cares about,
(18:03):
Lily Kat, which I had you watch. Yeah, it's a
great alien ripoff. It was pretty good. I can't remember
the rest. Maybe they weren't aren't worth No, maybe Project
Eco I think the Project was there, which yeah, I
think I had you watch it, right, But yeah, that
that really shaped me. Uh you know, just it was
(18:25):
just so cool seeing like that you could do these
even take out the story, just you could do such detailed,
cool looking stuff, and it was just, yeah, someone that
was maybe too adult for a young kid to be watching,
but it did, you know, kind of open my eyes
to a lot of you know, just just how crazy
you can get.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Yeah, in terms of especially like I would say, like
we both have an appreciation for animation, so like just
like seeing that there's like an entirely different and like
extremely like fast world out there in terms of like
because like eighties like anime, like I think was doing
like just so many wonderful things in terms of like
(19:06):
moving forward with like just like technically yeah, as well
as like like the sound on them was incredible as well,
like like I will definitely stand by that Akira soundtrack,
like my goodness, and not even just a Kira, Like
a Kira is obviously a standout, but I mean like
there's others, like I'm sure like if you listen to
(19:27):
the original Vampire hundred D soundtrack, like that would be
probably pretty solid.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Do you remember on the behind the scenes on the
DVD for that when you saw that they were working
in the back of somebody's house, Oh make movie?
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Yeah, super humbling, Yeah, really incredible, like they were they
like so the the animation studio, it wasn't a studio
at all. It was literally just in somebody's house that
they were working.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
And maybe it was that it was a quote unquote studio,
but what we saw was a bunch of dudes packed
into the into like a room in a in an
apartment doing what whatever. Obviously they're a studio and they're
a company and whatnot. But it's like, that was not
what was in my mind's eye when I'm thinking of
people working on it, on this stuff.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Yeah, people generally have much different uh uh sort of
mind's eye what an animation studio should be. And to
see that they were making like this sort of work
coming out of that, it's like, honestly like it made
me even have like more respect for it.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, because you know, I don't know what working conditions were, like,
I mean, I guess that would require some research, so
I'm not even gonna necessarily talk talk about that aspect,
but it's it's very it's very interesting, you know what, what
what what they were doing.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
You can listen to us on all podcast platforms.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
You can find us at pay per lap Studios on
Instagram or payperlaps studios dot com, or just drop us
a line at design at paper lab studios dot.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Com and support us on Patreon at paper lab Studios.
Thank you for listening to.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Paper Lab podcast A Mango Music. Turn that music up
Hi, I'm Nicki McCoy and I'm an illustrator, fashion designer,
and traditional artist.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm Mervin McCoy, illustrator, storyteller and digital artists.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
For more than a decade, we've traveled in the convention
scene from coast to coast.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
We'd love to share what we've learned and are still
learning on our journey.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
You're listening to Paper podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
You hear that music? She stole it off the internet,
just kidding. It's spicy beats b E E T S
and he hates beats. Let's check you out that SoundCloud.
(00:46):
Did you want me to say that?
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Have you ever have you ever like had some water
and it's just like it's like the feeling of like
coolness just kind of like spreads like arondic your entire
body because you were just like that.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Well, Nicky, you see that feeling comes from No, this
is not a science podcast. I yes, I know the feeling,
but I I don't.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
That was my very like non scientific description of like rehydrating.
So so yeah, so I know that, Like last time
we had discussed sort of my secret origins. So what
would you say your secret origin was for becoming an artist?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Ah? Wow, it's a loaded question, but I guess along
the lines of me, I was drawing from the age
of three. That's what I was told that I was
drawing since I was three, and I never stopped, and
you learn one of the consequences in a future episode.
I was just drawing. I also was really inspired by
(01:46):
my my sisters because I would see her notebooks and
folders from school, and she'd have her little doodles in
the corner and she draw like Ziggy, though it looked
like Kilroy. I don't know, only Ziggy and kill Ry
are the same person. I know Ziggy is in a
comic strip. Wow, yeah, that's old school. Wow Did I
(02:07):
date my Did I just docks and date my whole my?
Speaker 1 (02:11):
My sister Ziggy is like a for those of you
who may not know who Ziggy is, because that took
me a hot second, a little cartoon character with a
huge nose.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
But he's he's cute. Yeah yeah, yeah. She would just
draw it, and she'd do like little graffiti things and whatnot.
And she even did a calligraphy class back in the day,
and she got the pens and the books, and I
just so admired the artistry that was going on. And
then my pops was an engineer, but he would draw
plants and stuff, and I thought that was so cool.
(02:42):
And my mother would make like drapes for people sometimes
and sell them, and you know, there's a lot the artistry.
My brother then would draw because I would draw, and
I think the funniest thing was the competitive spirit of
having uh I guess like a family of artists where
the two kids could draw, but one was I was
(03:04):
definitely into drawing. I don't know if he was into
drawing or if he wanted to draw just to show
me up. So I would draw my little weird sticky
figure type things. But then, you know, we're kids, and
you know, I think one of the first things ever
traced was like a Conan comic. So I would try
to draw muscle people, right, So he drew his dudes
(03:25):
and then and no, this is all me. I guess
this is like a a I'm on the psychologist chair,
a psychiatrist chair or whatever, because now I'm working some
stuff out, because now something makes sense, because he would
draw his dudes with like like twenty muscles, so years
would only have ten. Well, yeah, exactly. But it was
(03:45):
just funny, like why are we, like, why are we
as little kids? Why are we so I think I'm
talking about us, I'm not talking about all kids. Why
are we so obsessed with muscles?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Like what? Like?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I remember I remember that Conan comic too, specifically because
it had him going through all these different environments. But
I was like, Yo, this dude is in a in
a fur dress with with with a sword in like
the snow and in the desert and in the jungle,
and and like he's so cool and he has his
horn helmet and blah blah blah blah. And I was like, yo,
(04:16):
this is this is neat. But and it prompted him
to draw and trace, and then my sister and I
drew a little comic of this. Funny enough, my sister
would see me tracing a lot and then she said, uh,
why are you tracing? Like, just draw it yourself. Hence
why I ended up doing my mediocre sticky figury drawings
with you know, minuscule muscles that my brother wanted to
(04:37):
compete with. But anyway, that evolved and in you know,
my mother were dolo comics here and there, and uh
what ended up happening was, you know, I would see
these comics, and obviously I wanted to draw more, and
you know, and the later day for the show, we'll
probably go into this. So I'm not gonna do a
whole you know, background and all this. But what's funny
(05:01):
is i would make my own comics at that point,
so I'd take my notebooks. And this might be a
part where it's a little tricky because I don't know
if you guys in the States had the same kind
of notebooks as we did in Jamaica, because we had
the regular ones that like the composite is that what
they're called, composition composite.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
The.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Edumacation, the composition notebooks. We had those people, yeah right, yeah,
but we also but we had these other ones. You
saw me buy one when we were at a bookstore
in Jamaica and it had like a hummingbird, but the
cover was more cardboardy oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, So
it's so you can rip it off. So I'd rip off.
I'd rip out the staples, right, actually, yeah, I'd rip
(05:44):
out the staples, and then I'd rip off the cover,
turn it inside out because the inside, front and back
covers were blank, and I then re staple it and
then I'd use that to draw covers, so that would
be the cover of the comic, and then that whole
comp composition book would be just comics. I'll just draw
on comics. Mind you, they had lines through them, but
(06:06):
still my comics. So I had these characters, and you
know they're all original, right. It was the United Heroes
Association led by Gauntlet, who mind you, he had a gauntlet.
At the time, I was reading Green Lantern Uninfinitey Gauntlet
not not related. I'm just saying that's that was a
(06:26):
part of you know whatever. I don't know, maybe they
stole the idea from me. I'm just saying. I'm just saying,
so Gauntlet wore a one piece bathing suit type superhero
fit with like, you know, a blue leotards, and he
had a gauntlet that had a gem in it, just
one gem. Though. I think they really ripped me off
now more I think about it, because they decided to
kind of throw people off and make it to make
(06:47):
it like six but mine was one. I'm just saying,
so that's much cooler, right.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
I feel like I would love to see a like
current rendition of Gauntlet, but in your current style.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
I mean, it would be really Yeah, Well, Gauntlet had
a mullet and Gauntlet could make uh you know, constructs
with his dauntlet with his little gem on it. And
the constructs were like highlighter yellow, you know, And I think,
I think, I want to know, I really do think
(07:20):
they stole green lanterns powers from me because he could
do the same. They just made it green. They couldn't
even afford highlighters.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
I love how I think, like every kid artist goes
through like a highlighter face highlighters to color everything.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
It's the coolest power listen, garntlet was cool. So I
mentioned Gauntlet and this is all it related to my
art journey because this is probably my first battle with
with a with an artistic rival. So I came up
with Gauntlet. I would talk about Gauntlet a lot, and
the United Heroes Association and you know mister Justice and
(07:59):
Masters Master Justice whatever his name was, and the whole gang, right,
and my brother. He came up with a character that
could kill all of them, not destroy, kill all of them,
called Universe, right, and I was like, what is Universe?
I think I even drew him into the comic just
(08:19):
because you know what I mean. And I was like
who's you know, Like, Okay, what's Universe's power? Huh? And
he said, oh, well, Universe's power is when he says universe,
the universe blows up. I'm like what I said, Well,
Darlic can make a force feel that can block him
from the universe blowing up. And he's like, no, universe
(08:40):
like when the universe blows up? The thing is this.
He then can say it again and it blows up
any universe blocking blowing up, blowing up energy. And I'm like what,
I don't even know what I just said, But anyway
he could universe could blow up his universe blocking shield.
That's that's kind of the point.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
The audacity of this power is out there for sure.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
And I don't remember what I said after that, Like
this is a long time ago. I just remember this
moment and these. I mentioned this because it's clearly important
to my career because I kept drawing those comics. I
kept drawing those characters. They're gone though, because they were
in a suitcase that got wet somehow, and all of
them are gone, right, never saw them again. And I
(09:25):
but I kept drawing. I drew throughout high school. I
have those comics I showed you some of them. Yea,
those comics were influenced by Image Image and yep, you
can tell. I'm talking about nineties Image nineteen ninety three,
I'm talking about Wildcats, young Blood. I don't know. I
wouldn't say Spawn necessarily, but Wildcats, young Blood, cyber Force
(09:48):
was all those groups. I just wanted to draw group characters.
I think at that time I was really like X men.
I was really into two groups, the like group heroes
and whatnot. And you know, I drew, but it wasn't
really going to be a career, you know. I remember
people would ask what I wanted to be, and I said,
I wanted to be what an astronaut, psychiatrist. And I
(10:10):
would draw people's problems, you know, in space when I'm
on a space station. They'd come to me and then
they talked to me. And I don't know how that
would help anybody. How would I draw the trauma? I
give you a picture of your trauma. Why would that
help you? Like, you know, oh, look I drew your
mom and dad.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Maybe their visual learning, Yeah, I mean, give them the
betterhead of the By the end of the.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Session, I said, well, this is what I happened. It's
a picture of their parents when they didn't say anything
about their parents. And it's like, oh, oh, okay, it's
like I'm.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Going to the airlock now I think it's still viable
career path.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah that's fair, that's fair. Well, you know, and that
kind of did push me forward though, you know, I
like at school, my peers, like the really enjoyed the
fact that I was an artist, and it kind of,
I guess made me a little bit immune from whatever
(11:08):
teasing or whatever could have happened because it was a
It was an interesting experience because they would tell me
artists and okay, this is where it gets testy, right
because you know, my poor mother, So boys, right, boys
are gross and disgusting. And the currency that was traded
(11:29):
in was I mean, magine. I'm not going to say
I resisted. I was all for it. I drew maybe
a few dirty comics and that made me really popular,
wildly popular. Imagine, yeah, exactly. I'm not going to say
that Brian's in which that I defamed, but you know, yep,
that was popular. And my mother found them and what
(11:51):
she did she put them on. She put them on
a bit because I hit them under the mattress I'm thinking,
this is a great hiding place my mother know what's up.
There's a comedian. I've made a joke about this where
it's like it's like an FBI would radio room every
time you left, every time you left home. But you know,
I respect it now. It's like she established this is
my house.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Bro.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
You know, you know you don't listen eyes and ears
ever listen. You have privacy up to a point, you know,
come correct, you know you have a yard. And yeah,
I mean she started it out. She pretty much she
put them out and I came back, saw them, and
I tried to hide them again, and she put them
out next time. And I never did them anymore because
(12:33):
I was like, I can this is not working. But
I did another batch back in high school because this
was like way early, because this is prep school. I
was doing this. But yeah, I just kept drawing, drawing, drawing.
I told you about my career goals ended up, you know,
going into the lawyer side of things. You know, did
some a levels with that, and that was where I
(12:53):
was poised to kind of was pointing myself and yeah,
you know, maybe at some point I'll go into the Internet.
That kind of shifted me, because that's another story as well.
But it just changed, right. I had an event happened
in sixth form, which for you guys that aren't familiar
(13:14):
to the English system, that's after high school. Like you
graduate in fifth form, which is your fifteen and if
you if you're good enough, you can go to sixth form, right,
and sixth form is you know, sixteen seventeen. It prepares
you for university and you do a levels which is
a pretty hard exam, and you choose it's kind of
almost like college ish prep because you get more responsibilities,
(13:37):
you have a lower class lord, but it's hard, you know.
So I chose geography, law, European and West Indian history,
and in general, paper is something you have to do mandatory.
It teaches you to teach you about current events and
teaches you how to write, which was super essential for
my law class. And then writing papers in geography and
(13:59):
history that did hiss your class really shaped my life.
But all of that, there's a moment that happened and
I just ended up in art. And then after six
form I took a break and then I ended up
getting recruited and going out to the Art Institute and
that was kind of the start of that, and like
I said, this adventure, like we could go into it
(14:20):
for a billion years and whatnot, but it's a nice
little kind of sampling to kind of get you, get
you guys to know a bit more about us since
we're so mistyn.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
I was gonna make the joke. I was like, I
was like, wow, well you you went into it. I
feel like I was just like.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
I better fight art my entire super reductive because no,
but I can be an episode some time fature. Yeah, yeah,
I didn't even I only that's just me, you know.
I would go on and on and on, as anybody
that's ever listened to me in person or a podcast.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
I feel like if I were to go into specifics,
it would definitely be about like because obviously like anime
and manga is.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Such a huge influence. Oh yes, so.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
It'd probably be like where was the start of that?
But oh for you, Yeah, but that was like that's
a whole other.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah no, but it's still it's a cool little thing
to dust on. That's another topic we could have for
the show, because at the end of the day, manga
and anime was not easily acquire. But actually I remember
seeing like this friend of mine, he was on the
previous show games. He brought was it jams? Maybe I'm misremembering,
(15:34):
but somebody brought in this this this big book that
was in a different language. It was characters, I don't
you know. And this guy had black hair and an
orange outfit. And then he was like, ah, that's that's
all I could read. I knew it was screaming. It
wasn't ah, but it was good screaming. And then it's
(15:54):
here turned blonde and like, yo, look at the muscles.
Back to the muscles again, everybody that yo. I went
to a boys school, so it's fascinating that we're all
just you look at his muscles.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Maybe it's maybe it's kind of like it's like the
contrast between like being like a kid and like, you know,
older or whatever.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
That's what big people look like. I mean, it's not
true as a kid.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Like as a kid, I don't even I feel like,
even if you're like a buff kid, it's still not
going to be like developed developmentally like the same as
like a grown man. So maybe it's kind of like
sort of like a more like limber and like I
don't want to use the word scrawny but just you know,
like a slimmer body type.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
And it's just like it's like, yeah, well you know,
and they're beating the crap out to each other. It's like,
I don't remember who he was fighting, but it was
in color and it was glossy. I don't because no
that I know how mango works. I'm like, what was this?
Where was this? How did you get this? But it
wasn't in English, so we would we had. It was
thick too, so it was like a companion of one
of the arcs in Dragon Ball Z. And I was like, yo,
(16:59):
this took so good and it looks let me tell you,
in my mind, I'm sure that's not what it looks
like now. If I ever to find it, it was
the most beautiful thing on the planet. I almost think
I should do like a thing where I recreated like
what I think I saw. I would actually be pretty fascinating.
It would be fascinating. I can do it along Gauntlet.
(17:20):
But but it was just it was like stuff like
that definitely helped shape me that the comics. The anime,
like anime wasn't easy to come across. I'd watch it
on Sci Fi on every April. I don't know, well
this is probably too old for you, but every April
sci fi channel back when it was spelt correctly, would
(17:41):
would air like like anime for like a week in
the night. And that's where I watched Stay, not Dragon Bomb.
I didn't know what Dragon Ball was at the time.
Vampire Hunter D and it was all feature length movies
by the way, it wasn't series. So Vampire Hunter D.
What's the other one? Lensman which nobody knows or cares about,
(18:03):
Lily Kat, which I had you watch. Yeah, it's a
great alien ripoff. It was pretty good. I can't remember
the rest. Maybe they weren't aren't worth No, maybe Project
Eco I think the Project was there, which yeah, I
think I had you watch it, right, But yeah, that
that really shaped me. Uh you know, just it was
(18:25):
just so cool seeing like that you could do these
even take out the story, just you could do such detailed,
cool looking stuff, and it was just, yeah, someone that
was maybe too adult for a young kid to be watching,
but it did, you know, kind of open my eyes
to a lot of you know, just just how crazy
you can get.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Yeah, in terms of especially like I would say, like
we both have an appreciation for animation, so like just
like seeing that there's like an entirely different and like
extremely like fast world out there in terms of like
because like eighties like anime, like I think was doing
like just so many wonderful things in terms of like
(19:06):
moving forward with like just like technically yeah, as well
as like like the sound on them was incredible as well,
like like I will definitely stand by that Akira soundtrack,
like my goodness, and not even just a Kira, Like
a Kira is obviously a standout, but I mean like
there's others, like I'm sure like if you listen to
(19:27):
the original Vampire hundred D soundtrack, like that would be
probably pretty solid.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Do you remember on the behind the scenes on the
DVD for that when you saw that they were working
in the back of somebody's house, Oh make movie?
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Yeah, super humbling, Yeah, really incredible, like they were they
like so the the animation studio, it wasn't a studio
at all. It was literally just in somebody's house that
they were working.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
And maybe it was that it was a quote unquote studio,
but what we saw was a bunch of dudes packed
into the into like a room in a in an
apartment doing what whatever. Obviously they're a studio and they're
a company and whatnot. But it's like, that was not
what was in my mind's eye when I'm thinking of
people working on it, on this stuff.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Yeah, people generally have much different uh uh sort of
mind's eye what an animation studio should be. And to
see that they were making like this sort of work
coming out of that, it's like, honestly like it made
me even have like more respect for it.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, because you know, I don't know what working conditions were, like,
I mean, I guess that would require some research, so
I'm not even gonna necessarily talk talk about that aspect,
but it's it's very it's very interesting, you know what, what
what what they were doing.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
You can listen to us on all podcast platforms.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
You can find us at pay per lap Studios on
Instagram or payperlaps studios dot com, or just drop us
a line at design at paper lab studios dot.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Com and support us on Patreon at paper lab Studios.
Thank you for listening to.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Paper Lab podcast A Mango Music. Turn that music up
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