Todd McFarlane (born March 16, 1961) is a Canadian comic-book creator, best known for his work as an artist on The Amazing Spider-Man and as the creator, writer, and artist on the superhero horror-fantasy series Spawn, as well as being the current President and a co-founder of Image Comics.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, McFarlane became a comic-book superstar due to his high-selling work on Marvel Comics' Spider-Man franchise,[2] on which he was the artist to draw the first full appearances of the character Venom. In 1992, he helped form Image Comics, pulling the occult anti-hero character Spawn from his high-school portfolio and updating him for the 1990s. The debut issue sold 1.7 million copies,[3] which, as of 2007, remains a record for an independent comic book.[2] The character's popularity in the 1990s also encouraged a trend in creator-owned comic-book properties.
After leaving inking duties on Spawn with issue No. 70 (February 1998), McFarlane has illustrated comic books less often, focusing on entrepreneurial efforts, such as McFarlane Toys and Todd McFarlane Entertainment, a film and animation studio. In September 2006, it was announced that McFarlane would be the Art Director of the newly formed 38 Studios, founded by Major League Baseball pitcher Curt Schilling.[4] McFarlane used to be a co-owner of the National Hockey League's Edmonton Oilers before selling his shares to Daryl Katz.[5] He is also a high-profile collector of record-breaking baseballs.
As a filmmaker, he produced the 1997 film adaptation of Spawn starring Michael Jai White.
Early life
Todd McFarlane was born on March 16, 1961, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada,[6][7] to Bob and Sherlee McFarlane.[8] He is the second[9] of three sons,[10] which McFarlane says contributed to his competitive streak.[9] Bob worked in the printing business, which led him to take work where he could find it, and as a result, during McFarlane's childhood, the family lived in thirty different places from Alberta to California.[8][11]
Career
Early work, DC, and Marvel
While still in college, McFarlane began sending 30–40 packages of submissions each month to comics editors, totaling over 700 submissions after a year and a half, most of which were in the form of pinups. Half resulted in no response, while the other half resulted in rejection letters, though he received some constructive criticism from a few editors. One of them, DC Comics' Sal Amendola, gave McFarlane a dummy script to gauge McFarlane's page-to-page storytelling ability. Amendola's advice that McFarlane's submissions needed to focus on page-to-page stories rather than pinups led McFarlane to create a five-page Coyote sample that he initially sent to Uncanny X-Men editor Ann Nocenti at Marvel Comics, who passed it along to Archie Goodwin and Jo Duffy, the editors of the Marvel imprint Epic Comics, which published Coyote; these in turn passed it onto Coyote creator Steve Englehart, who contacted McFarlane in 1984 with an offer for Todd's first comic job:
Sports
In 1998, McFarlane, an avid baseball fan, paid $2.6 million USD at auction for the baseball that St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Mark McGwire hit for his then record-breaking 70th home run,[10][94] and $175,000 for Sammy Sosa's 66th home run ball.[94]
In June 2003, McFarlane paid about $517,500 at auction for San Francisco Giants left fielder Barry Bonds' October 2001, record-breaking 73rd home run ball. The auction took place at the ESPN Zone in New York's Times Square and was featured live on SportsCenter.[10][94] When asked by Time magazine's Michael Grunwald in a 2007 interview if he was interested in Bonds' record 756th career home run ball, McFarlane indicated that he was more interested in Bonds' last home run ball.
Other media
Video games
Spawn appears as a guest character in Mortal Kombat 11 and the Xbox version of Soulcalibur II. McFarlane also designed the unique character Necrid for the game.[98]
A PlayStation 2 game, McFarlane's Evil Prophecy, was released in 2004 by Konami. In it, players battle creatures based on a line of Todd McFarlane's action figures including classic movie monsters such as Frankenstein's monster and Dracula.[99]
In January 2005, McFarlane announced that he was set to produce a half-hour anthology television series for Fox called Twisted Tales, based on the Bruce Jones
Legal issues
McFarlane lost judgments in two lawsuits in the 2000s. The first was a 2002 suit in which McFarlane contested with writer Neil Gaiman over the rights to some supporting Spawn characters created by Gaiman in issue No. 9 of the Spawn series and over payment for later works featuring those characters. In 1997, the two signed a deal in which Gaiman would give his share of characters Angela, Medieval Spawn and Cogliostro to McFarlane in exchange for McFarlane's share of British superhero Marvelman (in reality, what McFarlane owned were two trademarks for Miracleman logos, not the character, which would become clear only after the lawsuit concluded). This deal was broken by McFarlane, which motivated Gaiman to start the lawsuit. The jury was unanimous in favor of Gaiman. The two were involved in a lengthy dispute over ownership of Miracleman, but no lawsuit has been filed in that dispute. In 2009, Marvel Comics resolved the matter by purchasing the property.[109] The creators settled their dispute over the Spawn characters in January 2012. The exact terms of the settlement were not disclosed,[110] though Gaiman retained ownership of Angela, as she became a character in the Marvel Universe when Gaiman began doing work for Marvel in 2013.[111]
Awards and recognition
McFarlane's has won numerous awards, including:
- 1992 National Cartoonists Society Award for Best Comic Book[120]
- 1992 Inkpot Award[121]
- 2000 Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video for "Freak on a Leash"[122]
- National Football League's 2005 Artist of the Year Award, for his work on program covers for the Baltimore Ravens
- Induction into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame, on June 18, 2011, at the Joe Shuster Awards in Calgary, Alberta, Canada[123]
Personal life
McFarlane and his wife Wanda[124][125] married in 1985. They stayed in Spokane, Washington until 1986, when they moved to Vancouver, British Columbia. They later moved to Portland, Oregon,[11] and then to the Ahwatukee Foothills of Phoenix, Arizona,[11][126] where they continue to live as of 2007. There, they raised their three children: Cyan, Kate, and Jake. Cyan's love of the TV series Lost inspired her father's decision to produce action figures based on that show, while Kate voiced the young Cyan in the animated Spawn TV series.[126]
Bibliography
Awesome Comics
Cover art
- Prophet #1 (Vol. 3) (Variant) (2000)
DC Comics
Cover art
- All-Star Squadron #47 (with Mike Clark) (1985)
- Detective Comics #576–578 ("Batman: Year Two") (1987)
- Infinity, Inc #14–37 (full art); Annual #1–2 (among other artists) (1985–1987)
- Invasion!, miniseries, #1–2 (1989)
External links
- McFarlane, Todd (July 26, 2002). "TONY TWIST APPEAL DENIED: Missouri Court Upholds 2000 Ruling". Spawn.com. Archived at the Internet Archive.
References
- Inkpot Award^
- Wallace, David. Silver Soapbox: The Complete Todd McFarlane Spider-Man Comics Bulletin, February 10, 2007, retrieved January 17, 2018^
- Hennum, Shea (March 12, 2015). "What Spawn Means to the Future of Image". Paste.