Mike White, MELLYBEAN AND THE GIANT MONSTER
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[0:58]Mike White is the author of Melevene and the Giant Monster, which by the way, my kids found at school were obsessed and couldn't believe that I could get in touch with him and secure this interview,
[1:08]and then by the way, Mike White ended up doing animation classes online with one of my kids, which was just the coolest thing ever.
[1:15]Mike White is a half-Asian, half-Canadian, all-American artist living in San Francisco.
[1:20]He has done animation for television, directed music videos, started companies, built games for mobile phones, tablets, desktop, web and virtual reality, and make comic books.
[1:29]He likes making comic books the most.
[1:31]Starting of the age of four and teaching himself how to draw by tracing Garfield strips, it has been Mike's lifelong dream to make a living drawing comics.
[1:39]And look, now he does.
[1:40]One day, after getting Nacho's for lunch, Mike and his girlfriend Carol were walking around an outdoor mall and met a cute little puppy at a local pop-up adoption event.
[1:48]After much consideration, they adopted the puppy, named her Melody, and her delightful and infectious personality became the inspiration for the Melevene story.
[1:56]In September 2019, Mike signed a three-book deal with Razorville books and imprint of Penguin Young Reader's Group, a division of Penguin Random House for the Melevene series.
[2:04]Welcome, Mike. Thank you so much for coming.
[2:06]On mom's, don't have time to read books with our special guests today, my two kids.
[2:11]I do little kids.
[2:13]And Mike White, so welcome.
[2:15]Hello, thank you for having me. You can introduce Graham and Sadie.
[2:20]Say hi.
[2:23]So, Melody Bean is Graham and Sadie's favorite book.
[2:29]It's their favorite book series of the moment.
[2:31]They were fighting every night over who would get the books, which has never ever happened before with any other book.
[2:38]So, what is with these books?
[2:40]Let's hear all about them. So, they were telling me more about them.
[2:44]And then, as you know, Graham said he wanted to illustrate his among us book.
[2:49]So, let's start with this.
[2:51]Melley Bean series. Why don't you tell listeners, unless you guys want to, what the Melley Bean series is about?
[2:57]Would you like Mike to do it?
[2:59]Um, Sadie, would you like to do it?
[3:01]Which, which was the whole series?
[3:04]Start at the beginning, just like for listeners who don't know what Melley Bean is about.
[3:10]Don't lead it.
[3:11]I know. I'm just, I'm going to let Mike do it because you're not answering quickly now.
[3:14]I'll do it.
[3:15]Okay, go ahead.
[3:16]So, forward. Here's the mic.
[3:17]Melley Bean is about a dog who can talk.
[3:21]I'm usually, I mean, it's a book.
[3:23]So, she has siblings, which are cats.
[3:28]She finds this deep hole that leads to another land.
[3:33]And after the first book, there's a portal that a giant monsters knows.
[3:37]So, he puts that in the castle and they have great adventures together.
[3:45]And those are in the next books.
[3:47]Sounds good.
[3:48]Yeah.
[3:49]You guys obviously read it and got the whole premise.
[3:52]How did you come up with the idea for this?
[3:56]I was inspired by my real life dog that I adopted at a pop-up adoption event in
[4:02]Sausoleto when I used to live there didn't expect to get a dog.
[4:07]And me and my girlfriend at the time had always like talked about it,
[4:12]but always talked ourselves out of getting a dog.
[4:15]And I had no idea how much it would enrich my life.
[4:18]Having a pet that sort of like depended on you and needed you.
[4:21]And yeah, so we got this tiny little puppy.
[4:24]And me, I'm sort of like Nara, the big grumpy monster.
[4:30]And so myself is the actual inspiration for the giant monster who gets down and wants to hide from the humans all the time.
[4:39]And yeah, the story just evolved from how how melly just changed my life and inspires me daily.
[4:47]And like how to be like more outgoing, more personable and more true to myself.
[4:54]So that's sort of how how does the story came about is just how do I how do I make a story about this little dog that's impacted my life and is just what came out.
[5:07]How did you get your start in storytelling in general?
[5:11]I started when I was four years old.
[5:14]And I started my babysitters son taught me how to draw Garfield or taught me how to trace Garfield.
[5:22]And so I would practice my drawing and drawing comics by copying out of books like putting a piece of paper over top of like a book and then tracing panel to panel and like even the letters.
[5:36]So I, you know, I have okay penmanship.
[5:40]You know, my writing is legible because because I practice a lot and like growing up, I just memorized the steps on like how to draw characters after like I would learn, learn by doing things over and over and over and then eventually you can do it yourself and apply.
[5:59]apply those steps to your own ideas that you learn from other people.
[6:04]So that's sort of where where I got my my start was like from tracing Garfield comics and stuff that I admire trying to replicate it first and then go off on my own kind of later 40 years later.
[6:19]Wow, are you still in touch with your babysitter that you know that this has inspired your whole career.
[6:25]We went to the same college and he found one of my babysitters sons found me somehow like on Facebook or something.
[6:33]We we kept in touch like a little bit through a college, but we we since lost touch.
[6:39]But yeah, like I should I should I should put them down and say thank you for for affecting my life because like it is, you know, you never know what little encouragement is going to manifest itself and take hold and be a life changing event.
[6:58]All right, you both had some questions.
[7:00]Yeah.
[7:01]Yeah.
[7:02]Grand, you go first.
[7:03]What's the next book and be about again?
[7:05]He doesn't know.
[7:06]Well, you guys are going to help me with that, right?
[7:09]Yeah.
[7:10]They're serious.
[7:11]They've been drawing in their rims and getting ready.
[7:13]Not too much.
[7:14]You've been writing.
[7:16]Grand has been drawing.
[7:17]Right.
[7:18]Are you comics?
[7:19]Well, so far I've only talked to my editor and agent about NARA coming to visit our world.
[7:26]I don't know what's going to happen because I haven't made it up yet.
[7:30]But it's going to be a difficult one because like I don't know how you would hide a giant monster.
[7:36]I mean, you have to watch a movie like iron giant or something for some inspiration.
[7:40]If you guys just know what a giant.
[7:43]And it's like,
[7:44]Oh, I would know.
[7:45]Our world.
[7:46]Like a giant.
[7:48]Speak up because we can.
[7:49]I would paint it.
[7:51]You would paint it.
[7:52]You would.
[7:53]He would.
[7:54]The sky is camouflage.
[7:55]Yeah.
[7:56]Oh, that's smart.
[7:57]That's a good idea.
[7:58]You can be like blue like the sky or paint them like a house.
[8:03]And you can just like sort of stand there.
[8:06]Stand there beside the houses or something.
[8:09]Great ideas.
[8:11]What other questions?
[8:13]Okay.
[8:14]I want to hear more about sort of the struggle to not be down.
[8:21]that you were referring to yourself.
[8:23]Yeah.
[8:24]It's still hard.
[8:25]And I still struggle with it a lot.
[8:26]It's like, you know,
[8:27]despite you guys being able to make me smile by sharing the books.
[8:30]I'm a pretty sad person.
[8:32]And it's an active effort to kind of like be optimistic or positive day to day.
[8:41]But, you know,
[8:42]interactions with with other people like help me out a lot.
[8:45]And but like having having a personality like melody.
[8:49]Our melody is like the long form for melly.
[8:52]And we just sort of nicknamed her melly and then that turned into melly being.
[8:56]And that's how we got melly being the book.
[8:58]But yeah, like having a personality that is strong around you to sort of like inspire,
[9:05]inspire goodness and optimism.
[9:07]And you see the hope in kind of like like dogs.
[9:12]Like they're their eyes.
[9:14]And they're they're always optimistic. Like whether you're going to get a treat,
[9:17]whether you're going to go aside.
[9:18]And for me,
[9:19]it's really humbling because months I think are so high.
[9:23]I'm often disappointed with life or, you know,
[9:27]what's what sort of, you know, happens in the world.
[9:30]What's all the problems going on in the world.
[9:32]It's enough to get you down.
[9:34]But yeah.
[9:35]So it's like I still struggle to this day with with depression and anxiety and sadness.
[9:41]But melly being helps helps with that a lot.
[9:44]And having people around, you know, to to reach out to and to inspire me to,
[9:52]to be better to be a better version of the person I am.
[9:55]Is always good and helpful.
[9:57]So you guys are lucky you have each other.
[10:00]It's a
[10:01]To be around and to help each other like we also have a dog. You do
[10:06]Oh, what kind of dog black lab? What'd you say?
[10:11]We're not gonna share a spin
[10:13]She'll come in any well. Do you have anything to say Mike just shared his innermost feelings with us? How do we respond to that?
[10:18]I feel like it's a very very nice story and
[10:23]I feel very pathetic because sometimes I know how it feels. Oh, thank you honey. Oh
[10:30]Hope you don't feel sad too often. You seem to have a wonderful
[10:34]Wonderful family and surroundings and you know, like I hope you can spend more time happy than you do sad
[10:41]You too. What do you have to say about this gram? Just somebody's like admitting that sometimes he feels really sad
[10:48]I don't know that he's added up. Do you have any advice for it?
[10:52]No, no, don't tell him and ask him Graham
[10:55]Sometimes there is no advice, but it's nice of being sad. Yeah. What can you say?
[10:59]That you're at Mike? I don't know. Oh my god. Well
[11:04]Maybe you're gonna write a story and we're gonna we're gonna make a really successful book together
[11:10]Maybe
[11:13]What types of books do you like to read?
[11:18]Mostly graphing novels and comics. Probably my favorite
[11:23]My favorite graphic novel series was when you guys may have heard of called bone
[11:27]I think I know that yeah, what's that on instagram?
[11:31]Well, I went in all my
[11:34]As I had the background. Oh, thank you. It has little animations that I do and yeah, like the little little bone characters are kind of like little circles
[11:43]With like just like these big noses and they go on like his grand adventure and that's
[11:48]That's a story that I would like like one day's is like a big fantasy adventure
[11:53]Which sort of like a little bit in melly bean
[11:56]You know the fantasy world, but I'd like to have like a dragon in it and some
[12:00]Some wizards which would be cool
[12:03]And then an old another one of my favorites is Calvin Hobbs
[12:07]I don't know if you guys would know that that was probably finished before you were born
[12:12]But it's about like this little boy and his stuff tiger and they go on adventures together and just the expressiveness of
[12:19]Very simple line drawings and things like that just really inspire me and
[12:24]Amaze me like every time I look at the work
[12:27]I have an idea for the fourth book. Oh, yeah
[12:31]Does melly bean live in a city or more of a
[12:36]more of a suburb
[12:38]Okay, so are there like woods
[12:42]Yes
[12:44]Woods and and and hiking trails where we used to go
[12:48]Maybe Nara could visit and they could go on a hike
[12:52]That's a good idea. I like who get lost in the forest Nara
[12:56]Yeah, the forest is a good hiding spot for for Nara
[13:00]I think we especially if you paint her to be look like a tree
[13:06]Good bad guy at you now. Oh, Nara's a boy. So see if people want to experiment on the big monster
[13:11]Where people will be scared? It's Nara a boy or a girl. We're having a debate here. Oh, Nara's a boy
[13:17]Yeah, okay
[13:20]Yeah, he has a grovely voice kind of like mine
[13:23]And you mentioned that you had thought about turning it into a series or you maybe wanted to turn it into a series tell us about that
[13:30]To watch. Oh, well when I graduated school, I
[13:34]College for animation and I actually worked in television for a little bit
[13:39]Making kids shows
[13:41]One of them is named Johnny test for like the Warner Brothers
[13:44]Which is on Netflix which you may or may not have seen
[13:49]And I've been trying to animate so what I did was I animated the first chapter of the book to
[13:55]Show around to people like Netflix or Amazon
[13:58]If they want to make a show out of it
[14:01]So that's one of the things I have in the works. My agent is currently
[14:05]Talking to other agents about
[14:07]Pitching it to studios. I'm not sure how the magic works
[14:11]Aside from doing the drawings over and over and that's what I did. How do you animate? Because you were trying to animate
[14:18]I want to be an animator. You do
[14:21]Oh, well, you do you got to do a lot of drawings
[14:24]And you know just making like move like little by little inch by inch
[14:30]Because it's gonna be here and here and here and here and it doesn't look real
[14:35]But when I make books you don't have to do a lot of boy in common books
[14:39]You still you still do
[14:41]But it's not like you don't work. I'm over inch by inch in every photo
[14:45]That's true
[14:45]But you can do pose to pose and panel the panel and then draw
[14:50]And then two pieces of paper
[14:53]You can sort of trace the in-betweens the in-betweens
[14:57]So if you have like a couple drawings that like move from very far to very far
[15:02]If you do what's called an in-between in there, it'll look like it's moving very fast
[15:07]Yeah, exactly like a flip book actually dog man
[15:13]Dogman books. I don't know if you've read those, but they have the flicker rama. Yeah, I love. Yes, flipper rama
[15:19]That's that's basically how you do animation
[15:22]Only I used a program called flash
[15:25]And then you draw right in the computer
[15:28]And then you just draw on one frame and then you draw the next frame and you draw the next frame
[15:32]So you like to draw on the computer and not by hand
[15:35]My favorite is drawing on paper. I just discovered it's it's faster and removes the step by drawing directly into the computer
[15:43]So the first two books I actually did on paper
[15:46]With like pen and ink, you're like using a brush that you like dip and dip and ink like very old timey
[15:53]And then I would scan each each page into the computer to be colored
[15:58]But with the third book I was sort of in transit like kind of moving around
[16:02]So I didn't have my drawing table and and like all my all my tools and drawing supplies
[16:09]I just has like my monitor and my laptop
[16:12]So with the third book I actually inked it digitally and just did the pencils on paper
[16:19]Graham has an idea for how to continue this series. Good. I'll say they can you say well
[16:24]Just at least show on the page. Well, so it says that he take a look after dinner in the last
[16:32]Page right there. Yeah
[16:35]And maybe that could be a continuous thing about him taking a look after dinner. Oh like the adults can go into the magical world. Yeah
[16:44]That could be another one. That's another good idea. I like it. Let's keep these guys around. You know, yeah
[16:52]You guys are they charge hourly like a flippant
[16:56]Oh, that's nice. I hear so much like a handstand
[17:00]You see it. It's kind of a show that tiny was for my handstand. She did a little mini flip book right now. That's awesome
[17:08]Yeah
[17:10]If you want to be an anime learn to draw a lot and like don't be afraid to do things over and over and over
[17:16]Because like that's how you get good at something and that's how I learned so
[17:22]When I was doing my books, it only took me two months to draw the entire book
[17:28]Because when I went to school, I learned how to
[17:31]Sometimes people take years
[17:33]But because I went to school and learned how to animate traditionally on paper
[17:38]My learned how to draw really fast. But yeah, so college taught me a lot. So that's
[17:43]Go to college
[17:45]Yeah
[17:47]Don't be afraid to throw away bad drawings
[17:50]Hear that or just re redraw them over and over
[17:54]Where somebody asks you to redraw them don't be afraid just being encouraged
[17:58]Hearing this guys. Yes. Okay. I like it. All right. Any last questions from Mike you guys
[18:04]Yes, well, you have a question. Yeah. Okay. What is it? What's gonna be the couple or this fourth book?
[18:11]They don't even know what the fourth book is gonna be about yet
[18:15]Why do you not are painted like a house?
[18:17]I love it house painter. You may last question Sadie. I like that. You put yourself in the end of the book. Oh, thanks
[18:24]Yeah, that was that was not by design. It just sort of happened that way
[18:28]Well, it was really cool. Thanks and the chicken nuggets is something we stole from a tradition
[18:35]We stole from a pet rescue that always gives their pets chicken nuggets on Wednesdays
[18:41]Sorry, so we sort of like adopted that as long as well as adopting a dog
[18:46]A bunch of things you didn't think you would up
[18:51]Okay, well, thank you so much. Thank you for the time. What do you guys say? Well, I want you with my flip
[18:57]Oh, he wants she wants to show you her flip books. She's putting on a cover
[19:01]Right? Are you doing a new one? You didn't have a full production over there. We're doing a full production
[19:06]Well, I could stop the recording and you could just show them the flip book. Yeah, flip book. Okay, so can you say thank you? Yeah, can you say thank you?
[19:14]Thank you
[19:18]Thank you
[19:21]Okay, thanks for coming on
[19:24]Thanks for listening to this episode of moms don't have time to read books
[19:27]Don't forget to follow me on instagram at zebi Owens and at moms don't have time to read books
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[19:39]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan fact texture sound for the sound editing and thank you to morning moon productions for providing this
[19:46]Fantastic intro and out trim music