| Todd McFarlane | |
|---|---|
.jpg) McFarlane at the 2025WonderCon | |
| Born | (1961-03-16)March 16, 1961 (age 64) |
| Area | Writer,Penciller,Inker, Publisher |
Notable works | |
| Awards |
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| Spouse | |
| Children | 3 |
| Official website | |
Todd McFarlane (/məkˈfɑːrlɪn/; born March 16, 1961) is a Canadian comic-book creator, best known for his work as an artist onThe Amazing Spider-Man and as the creator, writer, and artist on thesuperherohorror-fantasy seriesSpawn, as well as being the current President and a co-founder ofImage Comics.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, McFarlane became a comic-book superstar due to his high-selling work onMarvel Comics'Spider-Man franchise,[2] on which he was the artist to draw the first full appearances of the characterVenom. In 1992, he helped formImage Comics, pulling theoccultanti-hero characterSpawn 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 increator-owned comic-book properties.
After leaving inking duties onSpawn with issue No. 70 (February 1998), McFarlane has illustrated comic books less often, focusing on entrepreneurial efforts, such asMcFarlane Toys andTodd McFarlane Entertainment, a film and animation studio. In September 2006, it was announced that McFarlane would be the Art Director of the newly formed38 Studios, founded byMajor League Baseball pitcherCurt Schilling.[4] McFarlane used to be aco-owner of theNational Hockey League'sEdmonton Oilers before selling his shares toDaryl Katz.[5] He is also a high-profile collector of record-breakingbaseballs.
As a filmmaker, he producedthe 1997 film adaptation ofSpawn starringMichael Jai White.
Todd McFarlane was born on March 16, 1961, inCalgary, 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]
McFarlane began drawing as a hobby at an early age,[12] and developed an interest in comics, acquiring as many as he could and learning to draw from them.[8] He was a fan ofcomics creators such asJohn Byrne,Jack Kirby,Frank Miller andGeorge Pérez, as well as the writing ofAlan Moore.[6] (John Parker ofComicsAlliance has also noted the influence ofWalt Simonson in McFarlane's work.[13]) McFarlane created the characterSpawn when he was 16, and spent "countless hours" perfecting the appearance of each component of the character's visual design.[12]
One day while in the twelfth grade[8] at Calgary'sWilliam Aberhart High School,[6][14] McFarlane, working as a groundskeeper for theCalgary 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,[8][15] 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.[8]
Right after high school, McFarlane attended baseball tryouts atGonzaga University. Despite being a good fielder and fast, he was not a good hitter. Moreover, he could not afford Gonzaga, so he attendedSpokane Falls Community College for a year,[11] his relationship with Wanda developing into a long-distance one.[8] In 1981 McFarlane began attendingEastern 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 inCalgary, Alberta, though his dream was always to be a comic book creator.[11][12] 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.[8][11][16]
He sought to play baseball professionally after graduation but suffered a serious ankle injury in his junior year during a game with arch-rivalsWashington 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 inCheney, Washington with Wanda,[8][11][12] who had moved to the area to be with him and attend EWU as well.[8] In 1984, a year after his injury, McFarlane's final chance to play for the big leagues came when he tried out with theToronto Blue Jays' farm team inMedicine Hat, Alberta, but he ended up being ranked last on the roster, ending his professional baseball prospects.[8] McFarlane graduated with a bachelor's degree that same year.[11][12][17][18] He stayed inSpokane, Washington while Wanda finished her degree.[11] She also co-plotted and edited the pages on which McFarlane developed his own comics character,Spawn.[15]
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-pageCoyote sample that he initially sent toUncanny X-Men editorAnn Nocenti atMarvel Comics, who passed it along toArchie Goodwin andJo Duffy, the editors of the Marvel imprintEpic Comics, which publishedCoyote; these in turn passed it ontoCoyote creatorSteve Englehart, who contacted McFarlane in 1984 with an offer for Todd's first comic job:[8][11][12] a backup story inCoyote #11.[19]
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'sInfinity, Inc. In 1987, McFarlane illustrated the last three issues ofDetective Comics' four-issue "Batman: Year Two" storyline.[20] From there, he moved to Marvel'sIncredible Hulk, which he drew from 1987 to 1988, working with writerPeter David.[21]
In 1988, McFarlane joined writerDavid Michelinie on Marvel'sThe Amazing Spider-Man, beginning with issue 298, drawing the preliminary sketch for that cover's image on the back of one of hisIncredible Hulk pages.[22] 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".[2][23][24] (McFarlane was possibly influenced by artistArthur 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 inWeb 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 ofEddie Brock, the original incarnation of the villainVenom. He has been credited as the character's co-creator, though this has been a topic of dispute within the comic book industry (seeEddie Brock: Creation and conception).[25][26][27]
McFarlane's work onAmazing Spider-Man made him an industry superstar.[24] His cover art forAmazing Spider-Man No. 313, for which he was originally paid $700 in 1989, for example, later sold for $71,200 in 2010.[28] One critic of McFarlane's detail-heavy style wasComics Journal editorGary 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."[29]
During his run onThe 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.[2] In 1990, after a 28-issue run ofAmazing Spider-Man, McFarlane told editorJim 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 $657,250USD, the highest auction price ever for any piece of American comic book art.[30][31] McFarlane was succeeded onAmazing Spider-Man by McFarlane's future fellowImage Comics co-founderErik Larsen.[32]
Wanting to appease McFarlane, Marvel gave McFarlane a new, adjectivelessSpider-Man title for him to both write and draw.Spider-Man #1 (August 1990) sold 2.5 million copies,[33][34] largely due to thevariant covers with which Marvel, seeking to capitalize on McFarlane's popularity, published the issue to encouragecollectors into buying more than one edition. This practice was a result of thecomics speculator bubble of the 1990s, which would burst later that decade.[2] McFarlane, unbeknownst to his parents at the time, was making about a million dollars a year.[8] McFarlane wrote and illustrated 15 of the series' first 16 issues, many issues of which featured other popular Marvel characters such asWolverine andGhost Rider in guest roles.[2]
Despite his acclaim as an artist, according to David Wallace ofComics Bulletin, many found McFarlane's writing to be "clumsy, unsophisticated and pretentious," and questioned the wisdom of allowing him to write a newSpider-Man title in the first place. At the same time, the editorial had problems with the dark tone of the stories McFarlane was telling, beginning with the inaugural "Torment" storyline, which depicted a more vicious version of the reptilian villainLizard under the control of the voodoo priestessCalypso.[2] Subsequent storylines such as "Masques" featured Spider-Man confronting the demonicHobgoblin, while "Perceptions," which involved Spider-Man dealing with police corruption, child rape, and murder (a hint of the work he would later do onSpawn), led some stores to refuse to stock the book. This created further tensions between McFarlane and the editorial, which viewed Spider-Man as a historically light-hearted character, marketed to young readers. Editor, Jim Salicrup, in particular, was required to make a number of compromises for McFarlane's work, including enforcing his minor costume changes across the entire line of other Spidey comics, placing limitations on his choice of villains for his stories, and dealing with strong disagreement on the handling ofMary Jane Watson. This strained McFarlane's relationship with Salicrup, which was expressed in the remarkable amount of public disagreement that appeared on the book's letters page. Eventually, McFarlane's attention to his deadlines, again, began to waver, and he missed issue 15 of the title. His final issue on the book, #16 (November 1991), was part of acrossover storyline withX-Force, and led to creative clashes with new editorDanny Fingeroth.[2] According to McFarlane and editor,Tom DeFalco, in the 2000 documentary,The Devil You Know: Inside the Mind of Todd McFarlane, among the examples of the issues that prompted his departure were editorial's censorship of a panel in that issue in which the character,Juggernaut was graphically stabbed in the eye with a sword. DeFalco supported the editing of the panel, calling it "inappropriate," while McFarlane called this "lunacy," arguing that such graphic visuals are commonplace in Marvel's books.[8] Fed up with editorial interference, he left the company under something of a cloud. According to Wallace, "McFarlane's fifteen issues of Spider-Man are now (perhaps slightly unfairly) held up alongside the likes ofX-Force as the epitome of everything wrong in 1990's comics, and their cash-in approach to the then-booming speculator market precipitated the near-collapse of the industry."[2]
McFarlane then teamed with six other popular artists[35][36] to formImage Comics, anumbrella company under which each owned apublishing house. McFarlane's studio,Todd McFarlane Productions, Inc. (TMP), published his creation, theoccult-themedSpawn, written and drawn by McFarlane. It was Image's second release, following the release ofRob Liefeld'sYoungblood the month prior.[3] Upon its release in 1992,Spawn #1 (May 1992) sold 1.7 million copies; as of 2007, this remains a record for an independent comic book.[2][3]
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Responding to harsh criticism of his abilities as a writer, McFarlane hired acclaimed writers to guest-write issues #8–11, includingAlan Moore,Neil Gaiman,Dave Sim, andFrank Miller.[3] Subsequent writers he would hire on the series includedGrant Morrison,Andrew Grossberg, andTom Orzechowski.Greg Capullo penciled several issues as a guest artist, and became the regular penciler with #26, with McFarlane remaining as writer and inker until #70. The series continued to be a hit, and in 1993Wizard declaredSpawn "the best-selling comic on a consistent basis that is currently being published."[37]Spawn is notable for being one of only two Image books that debuted during the company's 1992 launch, along with Erik Larsen'sSavage Dragon, that continued to be published into the 2020s.[38][39]
During Image's early years of operation, the company was subject to much industry criticism over aspects of its business practices, including late-shipped books,[3] and its creators' emphasis on art over writing. One of these critics was McFarlane's formerHulk collaborator, writerPeter David. This came to a head during a public debate they participated in atPhiladelphia's Comicfest convention in October 1993, which was moderated by artistGeorge Pérez. McFarlane stated that Image was not being treated fairly by the media, and by David in particular. The three judges,Maggie Thompson, editor of theComics Buyer's Guide,William Christensen ofWizard Press, and John Danovich of the magazineHero Illustrated, voted 2–1 in favor of David, with Danovich voting the debate a tie.[40]
In 1994, McFarlane and DC Comics collaborated on an intercompany crossover, each producing a book featuring Batman and Spawn. The first of the two books,Batman-Spawn: War Devil was written byDoug Moench,Chuck Dixon, andAlan Grant, drawn byKlaus Janson, and published by DC.[41][42] It was followed bySpawn/Batman, which was written by Frank Miller and drawn by McFarlane.[42] That year marked the point when McFarlane ceased to be the regular writer and artist ofSpawn. The first issue that he did not draw was issue 16, which was drawn byGreg Capullo. Aside from the four fill-in writers on issues #8–11, it was the first issue on which McFarlane was not the regular writer, as it was the first of a three-issue storyline written byGrant Morrison. Over the ensuing decades, he would hire other writers such asBrian Holguin andDavid Hine, and artists such asWhilce Portacio,Angel Medina, andPhilip Tan. McFarlane occasionally offered story input and inked covers. He would sporadically return as the interior artist for intermittent issues, and for a few years wrote it under apseudonym to generate interest in the book by fostering the illusion that new talent was being brought into the book's production.[3][43]
In 2006, McFarlane announced plans forSpawn/Batman with artist Greg Capullo, which McFarlane wrote and inked, and which paid tribute to Jack Kirby. He also began taking an active role in comics publishing again, publishing collections of hisSpawn comics intrade paperback form.Spawn Collection Volume 1 collecting issues 1–12 minus issue 9 (due to royalty issues with Neil Gaiman) and 10 (due to a vow he made to Sim) was released in December 2005. The first volume achieved moderate success, ranking 17 in the top one hundred graphic novels, with pre-order sales of 3,227 for that period.[44]
In 2008, McFarlane returned to co-plot the series with returning writer Brian Holguin, with issue 185. The book survived thecomics speculator bubble's crash, but its sales have fluctuated, never matching the sales figures of the 1990s. Though it continues publication, its appearance on theDiamond Top 300 chart has been intermittent since the mid-2000s. Nonetheless, Shea Hennum ofPaste magazine has observed of the series, "It's a book that, for a time, people continued to buy because of the character instead of the creator. It has become as much of an institution as it is a comic.[3]
Haunt, an ongoing series co-created by McFarlane andRobert Kirkman, was announced in 2007 and launched on October 7, 2009.[45] The comic was initially written by Kirkman, penciled byRyan Ottley, and inked by McFarlane, with Greg Capullo providing layouts. McFarlane contributed pencils to some issues, and co-wrote issue 28, the series finale, withJoe Casey, who took over writing duties from Kirkman.[46]
In 2019, McFarlane wrote and drewSpawn #301, surpassingDave Sim's 300-issue seriesCerebus as the longest-runningcreator-owned comics series.[47] The book, released on October 2 of that year,[48] earned McFarlane a place in theGuinness World Records, for which McFarlane was given a certificate on October 5, 2019 at theNew York Comic Con, prior to his panel, "The Road to Historic Spawn 300 and 301."[49][50]AtSan Diego Comic-Con 2022, it was announced that McFarlane would write a new Batman/Spawn crossover, withGreg Capullo as artist, and a release date of December 2022.[51]
Todd McFarlane Productions published multiple Spawn spin-offs and mini-series.[52] He increasingly concentrated his attention on those other ventures, which resulted in more sporadic work as an illustrator. In 1994, McFarlane created a toy company, Todd Toys, initially to merchandise collectible action figures of theSpawn characters.[53] In three months, the company sold more than 2.2 million of the action figures nationwide. AfterMattel sent acease-and-desist order based on a male doll in Mattel'sBarbie line named Todd, McFarlane changed the company name toMcFarlane Toys. The company's line of figures quickly expanded to those of popular cultural icons, such as members of the bandKiss, characters from the film franchiseTexas Chainsaw Massacre, TV series such asThe X-Files, and sports figures such asTerrell Owens.[54][55] In 1999, the company sold over 6 million action figures.[8] As of 2017, the company was the fifth-largest action-figure manufacturer in the United States.[29]
Todd McFarlane produced the album art forIced Earth's 1996Spawn-based concept albumThe Dark Saga[56] andKorn's 1998 third studio albumFollow the Leader.[57]
That same year, McFarlane foundedTodd McFarlane Entertainment, a film and animation studio. In collaboration withNew Line Cinema, it produced the 1997Spawn film and a new Spawn movie, planned in 2008.[58]Spawn, while critically panned,[59] was a modest box office success, earning $54.8 million domestically, and almost $33 million worldwide, against a $40 million budget.[60] Todd McFarlane Entertainment also produced the animated seriesTodd McFarlane's Spawn, (featuring voice work by actorKeith David) which aired onHBO from 1997 until 1999. Ed Bark ofThe Dallas Morning News called the series a "very unpleasant viewing experience" and asked "why anyone would want to subject themselves to such a relentlessly grim, gruesome dehumanizing experience."[11][61] Nonetheless, the animated series won a 1998Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Animation.[62][63]
The studio produced a number of music videos and other animations, including:
October 2003 saw the release of the Swollen Members albumHeavy, with Canadian and international covers that were both illustrated by McFarlane.[citation needed]
On July 21, 2011, at San Diego Comic-Con, McFarlane andStan Lee debuted their new comic,Blood Red Dragon. The series is a collaboration with musicianYoshiki and stars a fictionalized version of him.[77]
McFarlane andBoston Red Sox pitcherCurt Schilling formed the gaming studio38 Studios (formerlyGreen Monster Games), to produce role-playing games, with McFarlane overseeing art direction.[78][79][80]
In February 2012, the company released its only title,Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, a single-playeraction role-playing game that was a moderate success, but by late May 2012, the company had ceased operation,[81] due to financial difficulties[82][83] for which it had filed for bankruptcy.[84]
McFarlane was one of several artists to illustrate a variant cover for Kirkman'sThe Walking Dead No. 100, which was released July 11, 2012, atSan Diego Comic-Con.[85]
In July 2017,Blumhouse Productions announced McFarlane would directKing Spawn. McFarlane had by then written a first-draft script.[86] In May 2018, it was announced thatJamie Foxx would portray the titular character.[87] In July 2018, it was reported thatJeremy Renner would be starring alongside Foxx as Detective Twitch.[88] On October 25, 2018, filming was set to begin in June 2019,[89] but was eventually delayed to a later date.[90] In August 2021, it was reported thatBroken City screenwriterBrian Tucker had been hired to rewrite McFarlane's screenplay.[91] In October 2022,The Hollywood Reporter stated thatScott Silver,Malcolm Spellman, and Matthew Mixon had been hired to pen a new draft on the screenplay, and that Renner's continued involvement depended on the new draft's outcome. McFarlane expressed doubts about directing the film himself.[92]
In November 2021, McFarlane launched a dedicated television development and production arm of hisMcFarlane Films, which has signed a first-look deal with production company wiip. As of November 2021, the company has three shows in development: aSpawn spin-offSam & Twitch; the stop-motion, animated event seriesMcFarland; and a live-action adaptation of the Sean Lewis comicThumbs.[93]
In 1998, McFarlane, an avid baseball fan, paid $2.6 millionUSD at auction for the baseball thatSt. Louis Cardinals first basemanMark McGwire hit for his thenrecord-breaking 70th home run,[10][94] and $175,000 forSammy Sosa's 66th home run ball.[94]
In June 2003, McFarlane paid about $517,500 at auction forSan Francisco Giants left fielderBarry Bonds' October 2001, record-breaking 73rd home run ball. The auction took place at theESPN Zone in New York'sTimes Square and was featured live onSportsCenter.[10][94] When asked byTime 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.[10]
McFarlane is a former minority owner of theEdmonton Oilers and designed the logo used on the team's alternatethird jersey, which debuted in 2001 and was worn through 2007.[95][96] The Oilers returned to the McFarlane design in 2022 as part of the league's Reverse Retro jersey program.[97]
Spawn appears as a guest character inMortal Kombat 11 and theXbox version ofSoulcalibur II. McFarlane also designed the unique characterNecrid for the game.[98]
APlayStation 2 game,McFarlane's Evil Prophecy, was released in 2004 byKonami. In it, players battle creatures based on a line of Todd McFarlane's action figures including classic movie monsters such asFrankenstein's monster andDracula.[99]
In January 2005, McFarlane announced that he was set toproduce a half-hour anthology television series forFox calledTwisted Tales, based on theBruce Jones'comic book to which McFarlane had purchased the rights.[100]
For the release of the video gameHalo 3, McFarlane was enlisted to design a series of action figures.[101][102]
In 2011, McFarlane was hired as an artist for the gameKingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning,[103] on which his duties includedkey frame art,storyboards and directing.[104] He also worked on the cancelledProject Copernicus by the same developer.[105]
Stan Lee interviewed McFarlane in Episode 1 of the 1991 documentary seriesThe Comic Book Greats.[106][107] In 2000, McFarlane was the subject of aNational Film Board of Canada documentaryDevil You Know: Inside the Mind of Todd McFarlane, directed by Kenton Vaughan.[108] The film first aired onCBC-TV'sLife and Times biography series on January 9, 2001.[citation needed]
In "Spidey Cents", a fourth-season episode of theHistory reality television seriesPawn Stars which aired in May 2011, a man tries to sell McFarlane's original artwork for page 25 ofThe Amazing Spider-Man No. 316 (June 1989) for $20,000 to the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop in Las Vegas. Because the seller lacked the paperwork authenticating the artwork, the Gold & Silver managerCorey Harrison would only pay $1,000 for the page, an offer that the seller declined.[28]
McFarlane lost judgments in two lawsuits in the 2000s. The first was a 2002 suit in which McFarlane contested with writerNeil Gaiman over the rights to some supporting Spawn characters created by Gaiman in issue No. 9 of theSpawn 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 charactersAngela,Medieval Spawn andCogliostro to McFarlane in exchange for McFarlane's share of British superheroMarvelman (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 theSpawn 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 theMarvel Universe when Gaiman began doing work for Marvel in 2013.[111][112]Bleeding Cool later confirmed that Marvel Comics had completely bought the rights to Angela from Gaiman.[113]
Another suit in which McFarlane became embroiled was a December 2004 suit in which hockey playerTony Twist sued McFarlane because he named a mobster character inSpawn after Twist. After a jury initially found McFarlane liable for $24.5 million in damages (reduced to $15 million on appeal), the lawsuit was later settled out of court for $5 million.[114][115]
In 2012, McFarlane sued his former friend and employee, Al Simmons, from whom the name of Spawn's alter ego was derived. According to a lawsuit lodged in Arizona federal court, the real Al Simmons published a book calledThe Art of Being Spawn, in which Simmons purportedly suggests that his own life was the inspiration for the Spawn character. McFarlane's position was that Simmons violated the terms of his employment pact and breached his duty of loyalty.[116][117] The lawsuit was settled in December 2012 when McFarlane agreed with Simmons. The terms of any settlement were not made public.[29][118][119]
McFarlane's has won numerous awards, including:
McFarlane and his wife Wanda[124][125] married in 1985. They stayed inSpokane, Washington until 1986, when they moved toVancouver, British Columbia. They later moved toPortland, Oregon,[11] and then to theAhwatukee Foothills ofPhoenix, 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 seriesLost inspired her father's decision to produce action figures based on that show, while Kate voiced the young Cyan in the animatedSpawn TV series.[126] McFarlane's offices are located near Phoenix.[29] InSpawn, the characters Wanda Blake and Cyan Fitzgerald were named after McFarlane's own wife and daughter respectively.[127][128]
McFarlane stated in a 1992 interview that he was anatheist.[24] He does not consume alcohol, coffee, or tea.[129]
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Why am I competitive? I don't know. And then I think it got sort of..."honed"....very, very good. Because I had a brother a year younger and a brother a year older.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)In 'Year Two', a four-part sequel [to "Batman: Year One"] set in Batman's second year as a crime fighter, writer Mike W. Barr and artists Alan Davis and Todd McFarlane challenged the Caped Crusader with the threat of the Reaper.
Todd McFarlane was at the top of his game as an artist, and with Marvel's release of this new Spidey series he also got the chance to take on the writing duties. The sales of this series were underwhelming, with approx. 2.5 million copies eventually printing, including special bagged editions and a number ofvariant covers.
Marvel knew a good thing when they saw it, and the adjectivelessSpider-Man received Marvel's most aggressive launch in company history...the initial press run was 2.35 million, and 500,000 additional copies were printed to meet demand.
| Preceded by | Infinity, Inc. artist 1985–1987 | Succeeded by Vince Argondezzi |
| Preceded by | The Incredible Hulk artist 1987–1988 | Succeeded by Jeff Purves |
| Preceded by | The Amazing Spider-Man artist 1988–1990 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by N/A | Spider-Man writer/artist 1990–1991 | Succeeded by Erik Larsen |
| Preceded by N/A | Spawn artist 1992–1995 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by N/A | Spawn writer 1992–2005, 2008– | Succeeded by |
