I've been very lucky with the people I've met over the years. Way back in the early '70s I went to [Phil] Seuling's conventions for something like three years in a row from '70 to '72 and I remember at the '72 luncheon with the Academy of Comic Book Artists and talking with John Romita about the kind of brushes he used. Pros ask pros the same questions that fans do. "What kind of pens do you use? What kind of brushes do you use?" I was so amazed that the wonderful work John Romita was doing was accomplished with a Windsor-Newton series 7 Number 4. Not a 2 or a 3, but a 4.

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.

I learned that, "Mike, you get your first job on your ability and every job after that on your dependability."

I found that the majority of people who stopped at my table [ at the Comic Con] last didn't even know who Winnie the Pooh was, and the new feature was just opening in the theaters.

I was with Roy Thomas on a panel and he turned to me and said, "You know, your name is on the cover a magazine every month." I said, "Really?" He pulled out a copy of "Destroyer," and said, "If you cover up the DEST you've got Royer on the cover every month."

I started out wanting to be a straight adventure cartoonist, but in 1979 realized what my real bag was.

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.