Venom to most can not be envisioned without his crazy, long tongue - but what most people might not realize is that Venom did not always have this grotesquely exaggerated characteristic.
Originally it was Spawn creator Todd McFarlane who brought Venom to life in Marvel's Amazing Spider-Man comic book series, but as the series continued he was succeeded by former Marvel writer / illustrator Erik Larsen. Since then, Erik was always given credit for Venom's crazy tongue but he consistently passed off the praise to Todd for the unique design. However, as he explained on Facebook recently - Todd's version of Venom's tongue was never that obnoxious and that it really was thanks to Erik's tweak of the design which gave Venom his iconic and creepily long tongue:
As you all know, Todd McFarlane was the first guy to draw Venom in the pages of the Amazing Spider-Man and I succeeded him on the title.
Years ago, Todd McFarlane drew a cover for a Spider-Man vs. Venom trade paperback which collected the Spider-Man vs. Venom stories that he had illustrated. On it, he drew Venom with his mouth open and his tongue visible.
I didn't buy the book because I had the individual comics already but my takeaway was that Todd was giving him a tongue now.
Determined to take it a step further, I gave Venom an even bigger, crazier tongue--not realizing that Todd didn't do anything special or unusual with his tongue at all--it was a perfectly ordinary, unremarkable tongue.For years I'd been given credit for the tongue and I'd sheepishly confess that I got it from Todd from a TPB cover. Imagine my surprise when I actually saw Todd's cover, years later and saw that it looked nothing like I had remembered it! It turned out that I HAD given him that crazy tongue after all!
It's clearly evident Sony went with Erik's Venom for the upcoming film - giving Venom that crazy long tongue in the most recent trailer - and we're glad they did!
