I learned early Jack Kirby favorite movies were the Warner Brothers from the '30s. When you look at Jack Kirby's comic books, or at least when I do, I can make an instant connection. When he said he loved those movies it was like, "Of course." Mike Royer More Quotes by Mike Royer More Quotes From Mike Royer I learned that, "Mike, you get your first job on your ability and every job after that on your dependability." Mike Royer dependabilityjobsfirsts During the Mavelmania days in the late '60's I got a phone call one evening and I answered it and this voice said, "Mike Royer? This is Jack Kirby. Word is you're a pretty good inker." That's how it started. Mike Royer eveningphonesvoice Every morning I'd have coffee with my wife and we would discuss ideas. Sixty percent of what I did for the stores was concepts. The other forty percent was correcting and cleaning up other concepts in house, or doing final art on my concepts. Most of my concepts were so finished they could turn them over to somebody else. Mike Royer coffeemorningart I chose Bagdasarian Productions when I heard from some colleagues at work who were buying story boards at the time back in the early '90. I met the man once when I came in with the first half of the story board and the only thing he said when looking at the first half of the board was, "It's so nice to see someone using their imagination." Mike Royer niceimaginationmen I moonlighted during a two-week vacation, doing a month's worth of work in two weeks; it almost killed me, but I wanted to stretch my muscles and the letter from the producer says, "Your storyboarding is Eisensteinian," referring to the famous Russian filmmaker. Mike Royer vacationmonthstwo In most companies, the corporate mentality is if you're over 30, you're on the downhill side, and if you're over 40, you're brain dead. Or, if you're over 30 or 40 and you've been doing it for a while, you've got experience and you want to be paid for that experience. Mike Royer sideswantbrain It was months later when I was sitting at the board in my studio and my wife would stick her head in and say, "What if you did Pooh and...oh, we don't do that anymore." I do have my soapbox and will go to my grave being a Disney company man. Mike Royer what-ifwifemen Forty percent of my ideas came from my wife. Mike Royer fortywifeideas When you talk about state of the art, that doesn't mean a damn thing. Think about it. State of the art. "This is the state of the art brush from Winsor-Newton." Yeah, but the state of the art sucks rubber donkey lungs. Mike Royer meanartthinking I remember on a Friday afternoon getting a phone call from Grant Simmons saying, "Mike," we got to be pretty good friends; "Mike, the Sheriff is closing us down on Monday. If you'd like to drive into the studio tomorrow morning, you can have anything you want." So rather than go in and take home piles and piles of cels of Spider-Man what did I take home? Two pages of original art that got sent out to the west coast. Now of course if I'd have taken all the rest of that stuff home I could probably have retired a lot earlier. Mike Royer fridaymondayart I guess I've been naive my entire life. Mike Royer Being a naive 20-something I didn't think that I could just go to the screen cartoonist's union, that I was a member of, and scream bloody murder and they would have jumped all over this guy and said, "Oh, but yes he does get screen credit." Mike Royer guydoethinking When I was at Disney and was a character art manager and handing out artwork that had to be inked we had a thing where if there was any lettering on it I'd hear, "I don't letter," and I said, "Look at it. It's drawing. Ink the drawing." I just learned from Mike Aarons how each letter was just part of the drawing. Mike Royer drawingcharacterart If you ever go to talk to an editor you don't want to be able to turn down a job because you can't do what is necessary. Mike Royer editorswantjobs If I wanted to own some Jack Kirby original art unless it was something that Giacoia or Sinnott had inked I was too close to it. I didn't want to collect his pages inked by me. Of course 40 years later I'd LOVE to have some of that stuff. Mike Royer wantyearsart In fact, sometimes when I look at something my memory does work. I remember the panel where Alex Toth told me, "Mike, if you really don't understand all that, you don't need to put it on there." Mike Royer doememoriesneeds I started out wanting to be a straight adventure cartoonist, but in 1979 realized what my real bag was. Mike Royer bagsrealadventure Sometimes I look at some of my old work and I don't like it. Mike Royer sometimeslooks There are still people who don't like my work and that's okay with me. Mike Royer okaystillspeople I love pre-code movies. Some of my favorites are movies with Warren William and there is an MGM film called "Skyscraper Souls" which is the best Warner Brothers movie that MGM ever made. Mike Royer filmsoulbrother
