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, 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,Hennum, Shea (March 12, 2015). "What Spawn Means to the Future of Image". Paste. which, as of 2007, remains a record for an independent comic book. 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. McFarlane used to be a co-owner of the National Hockey League's Edmonton Oilers before selling his shares to Daryl Katz."Katz's bid to buy Oilers 100-per-cent successful" . The Edmonton Journal, February 6, 2008. 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,McFarlane, Todd (w, a). "The Spawning Ground". Spawn #1 (May 1992). Image Comics."McFARLANE, Todd (1961–)". The Joe Shuster Awards. Retrieved November 9, 2014. to Bob and Sherlee McFarlane.Vaughan, Kenton (Director, 2000). The Devil You Know: Inside the Mind of Todd McFarlane. National Film Board of Canada. He is the second of three sons,Grunwald, Michael (August 8, 2007). "The Man With the Million Dollar Balls". Time. which McFarlane says contributed to his competitive streak. 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.Kershner, Jim (June 3, 1997). "'Spawn' Storm Spokane Artist Todd Mcfarlane Always Wanted To Create His Own Comic Book Series, And When He Finally Did, It Became The Hottest Title Of The Decade". The Spokesman-Review.
McFarlane began drawing as a hobby at an early age,McFarlane, Todd (November 2012). The Art of Todd McFarlane: The Devil's in the Details. Todd McFarlane Productions/Image Comics. and developed an interest in comics, acquiring as many as he could and learning to draw from them. He was a fan of comics creators such as John Byrne, Jack Kirby, Frank Miller and George Pérez, as well as the writing of Alan Moore. (John Parker of ComicsAlliance has also noted the influence of Walt Simonson in McFarlane's work.Parker, John (June 12, 2012). "ComicsAlliance Reviews Todd McFarlane's 'Spawn' Year One, Part 1: Questions" . ComicsAlliance.) McFarlane created the character Spawn when he was 16, and spent "countless hours" perfecting the appearance of each component of the character's visual design.
One day while in the twelfth grade at Calgary's William Aberhart High School, McFarlane, working as a groundskeeper for the Calgary Cardinals, was standing in the bleachers when a 13-year-old ninth grader sitting near him named Wanda Kolomyjec, who served as the team's bat girl, began flirting with him. The two began dating, over the objections of Wanda's father, who thought she was too young for him, though in time McFarlane won him over.
Right after high school, McFarlane attended baseball tryouts at Gonzaga University. Despite being a good fielder and fast, he was not a good hitter. Moreover, he could not afford Gonzaga, so he attended Spokane Falls Community College for a year, his relationship with Wanda developing into a long-distance one. In 1981 McFarlane began attending Eastern Washington University (EWU) on a baseball scholarship, studying as part of a self-designed program for graphics and art. His practical goal was to join his father in the printing business in Calgary, Alberta, though his dream was always to be a comic book creator. He worked part-time on campus as a janitor in the school's administration building, as his scholarship required an on-campus job, and also worked weekends at a comics shop called the Comic Rack, devoting a couple of hours late at night to practice his comics art.Booker, Keith M. (October 28, 2014). Comics through Time: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas. Greenwood. p. 1144. Archived at Google Books. Retrieved April 25, 2017.
He sought to play baseball professionally after graduation but suffered a serious ankle injury in his junior year during a game with arch-rivals Washington State University. He subsequently focused on drawing, working at the comic book store to pay for the rest of his education, and living in a trailer park in Cheney, Washington with Wanda, who had moved to the area to be with him and attend EWU as well. In 1984, a year after his injury, McFarlane's final chance to play for the big leagues came when he tried out with the Toronto Blue Jays' farm team in Medicine Hat, Alberta, but he ended up being ranked last on the roster, ending his professional baseball prospects. McFarlane graduated with a bachelor's degree that same year."McFarlane Returns". Eastern Washington University. May 21, 2013.Harris, Craig (June 17, 2003). "Baseball, toys and comics: McFarlane finds success". USA Today. He stayed in Spokane, Washington while Wanda finished her degree. She also co-plotted and edited the pages on which McFarlane developed his own comics character, Spawn.
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: a backup story in Coyote #11.
McFarlane soon began drawing for both DC and Marvel, with his first major body of work being a two-year run (1985–1987) on DC's Infinity, Inc. In 1987, McFarlane illustrated the last three issues of Detective Comics four-issue "Batman: Year Two" storyline. From there, he moved to Marvel's Incredible Hulk, which he drew from 1987 to 1988, working with writer Peter David. He also drew two issues of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero for Marvel, although only one issue (#60) was published with his artwork. His pencils for issue #61 would eventually be published as G.I. Joe Special #1 in 1995.
The Amazing Spider-Man In 1988, McFarlane joined writer David Michelinie on Marvel's The Amazing Spider-Man, beginning with issue 298, drawing the preliminary sketch for that cover's image on the back of one of his Incredible Hulk pages.McFarlane, Todd (April 25, 2017). "LIVE Todd shows cover sketch for my first Marvel Spider-Man issue EVER!". Facebook. Retrieved January 17, 2018. McFarlane garnered notice for the more dynamic poses in which he depicted Spider-Man's aerial web-swinging, his enlarging of the eyes on the character's mask, and the greater detail in which he rendered his artwork—in particular, the elaborate detail he gave to Spider-Man's webbing. Whereas it had previously been rendered as essentially a series of X's between two lines, McFarlane embellished it by detailing far more individual strands, which came to be dubbed "spaghetti webbing".Groth, Gary (August 1992). "'That's the Spice of Life, Bud': The Todd McFarlane Interview". The Comics Journal (#152). Retrieved January 17, 2018. (McFarlane was possibly influenced by artist Arthur Adams, whose visual conception of Spider-Man with a large-eyed mask, webbing with more detailed strands, and more contorted poses while web-swinging, can be seen in Web of Spider-Man Annual #2, published in June 1986 – approximately 1½ years before McFarlane's first published Spider-Man work.) McFarlane drew the first full appearance of Eddie Brock, the original incarnation of the villain Venom. He has been credited as the character's co-creator, though this has been a topic of dispute within the comic book industry (see Eddie Brock: Creation and conception).Wizard #21 (May 1993)Wizard magazine #23, July 1993Comics Creators on Spider-Man, pg 148, Tom DeFalco. (Titan Books, 2004)
McFarlane's work on Amazing Spider-Man made him an industry superstar. His cover art for Amazing Spider-Man No. 313, for which he was originally paid $700 in 1989, for example, later sold for $71,200 in 2010. One critic of McFarlane's detail-heavy style was Comics Journal editor Gary Groth, who said of McFarlane in a 2017 interview, "He doesn't have any authentic virtues as a visual stylist. His work is so overembellished that it disguises the fact that the composition is chaotic and cluttered to the point of being almost unreadable. He never really learned the craft of comics — he just faked it really well."
During his run on The Amazing Spider-Man, McFarlane became increasingly dissatisfied with the lack of control over his work, as he wanted more say in the direction of storylines. He began to miss deadlines, requiring guest artists to fill in for him on some issues. In 1990, after a 28-issue run of Amazing Spider-Man, McFarlane told editor Jim Salicrup that he wanted to write his own stories, and would be leaving the book with issue No. 328, which was part of that year's company-wide "Acts of Vengeance" crossover storyline. In July 2012 the original artwork to that issue's cover, which features Spider-Man dispatching the Hulk, sold for a record-breaking $657,250 USD, the highest auction price ever for any piece of American comic book art."Todd McFarlane 1990 Spider-Man #328 Cover Art Brings World Record $657,250+ at Heritage Auctions". Heritage Auctions, July 26, 2012.Buttery, Jarrod (December 2016). "Captain Universe: The Hero Who Could Be You!", Back Issue!, p. 48. McFarlane was succeeded on Amazing Spider-Man by McFarlane's future fellow Image Comics co-founder Erik Larsen.Burgas, Greg (November 23, 2014). "Year of the Artist, Day 327: Erik Larsen, Part 4 – Amazing Spider-Man #335". Comic Book Resources. Retrieved January 17, 2018.
New Spider-Man title