We're doing the Venom cover.
I start to try to figure out what--
sorry.
That's getting picked up, right?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) Now drop that beat.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Back when I was a kid I would tell my parents, like, I
wanted to be a comic artist.
My mom wanted to be a painter when she grew up.
And then my dad, his aspiration was always
to do something with music.
We grew up with them just kind of like supporting
what we wanted to do.
Because I think they weren't able to do those things.
I drew this painting in kindergarten.
And for some reason the teacher saw something in it.
So she told my parents, support and embrace this art thing,
because I think Mike has this talent.
I went to a special art school in high school.
But then I got kicked out in grade nine.
I'm not sure if you guys--
you know, when you're in high school
you just have a rebellious attitude.
Or you're doing other things.
I was breakdancing at the time.
And that was a serious passion of mine.
We were traveling and doing competitions
and battles and all that stuff.
It's weird, because you know when you go to high school
and you talk to your counselor and they're kind of like,
what do you want to do?
I was like, I want to do art.
Because that's all I really knew what to do aside from dancing.
Eventually I went to college.
And I bumped into one of my friends and he was drawing.
And I just looked at him.
I was like, I could do that, right?
So I started drawing with him.
And I kind of started feeling that passion again for comics.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
For the Venom cover, I've got to do like a grand cover.
First step is the ideas, the sketch ideas.
What I'll do is I'll tend to look at the character.
And I'll try to figure out what that character is about, right?
So for Venom, the main thing I notice is his tongue
is really, really long.
So I was trying to figure something out that
could work with the tongue.
And from there ideas just start to form.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
It's a dream, and it's kind of surreal.
Just because growing up as a kid you
reading all these Marvel books.
And I remember when they started to first promote the Young
Guns, I was just like, man, these
are the guys that I want to be.
Being that now it's just surreal.
It's weird because for the most--
CHASE: Daddy!
Can we feed the fish, Daddy?
Chase, where are you?
CHASE: Here.
OK, can you go downstairs?
Because we're doing an interview.
When we were growing up my dad would draw for us.
So whenever he drew a dog and I'd be really impressed by it,
I'd want to be as good as my dad.
And so I do that now with my kids.
The household's pretty creative.
Working from home, they see me drawing too.
So I think it's almost a natural thing for them to do what I do.
It's definitely a proud moment, seeing my son dancing
and doing it on his own, actually.
Because I never really told him or forced him to do it.
He just started doing it.
And I was like, whoa, OK, cool.
Maybe it's in him.
Maybe it's in his blood or something.
My dad's been posing for me ever since I've been
working on comics, I guess.
His second job was being a Marvel model, basically.
I would use him almost like a mannequin.
Sometimes he would just stand there.
And I would just kind of move his arms.
But he was a sport about it.
And he was up for it.
He never complained.
I never really thought about it, about the fact
that my dad is still there supporting what I do.
I guess it's what I grew up with and what I was taught.
It's how I go about it with my kids.
[MUSIC PLAYING]