Todd McFarlane
Encyclopedia
Todd McFarlane is a Canadian cartoonist
, writer
, toy
designer
and entrepreneur
, best known for his work in comic book
s, such as the fantasy series Spawn
.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, McFarlane became a comic book superstar due to his work on Marvel Comics
' Spider-Man
franchise. 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. Spawn was a popular hero in the 1990s and encouraged a trend in creator-owned
comic book properties.
Since leaving inking duties on Spawn with issue #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 will be the Art Director of the newly formed 38 Studios, formerly Green Monster Games, founded by major league baseball
pitcher Curt Schilling
. McFarlane used to be a co-owner of the National Hockey League
's Edmonton Oilers
but sold his shares to Daryl Katz
. He's also a high-profile collector of history-making baseballs
.
. As a 17-year-old teenager, he discovered comic book
s and was a fan of stars such as fellow Canadian John Byrne and Americans Jack Kirby
, Frank Miller
and George Pérez
(as well as the writing of Alan Moore
), but was especially drawn to the more atypical art of Michael Golden and Katsuhiro Ōtomo
, creator of the manga
Akira
. Gil Kane
was also a major influence on McFarlane.
In the early-1980s, McFarlane attended Eastern Washington University
on a baseball
scholarship, and studied graphic art. He sought to play baseball professionally after graduation but suffered a career-ending ankle injury in his junior year. During his time at EWU, McFarlane worked at a comic book shop in Spokane, Washington
. Drawings he did of Marvel
and DC
superheros were sold at local shops. McFarlane also attended the Alberta College of Art and Design
.
McFarlane's first published work was a 1984 backup story in Epic Comics
' Coyote
. He soon began drawing for both DC Comics
and Marvel
, with his first major body of work being a two-year run (1985–1987) on DC's Infinity, Inc. In 1987, McFarlane also illustrated several issues of Detective Comics
Batman: Year Two
storyline. From there, he moved to Marvel's Incredible Hulk, which he drew from 1987–1988.
In 1988, McFarlane joined writer David Michelinie
on Marvel's The Amazing Spider-Man
beginning with issue 298. McFarlane was also the first artist to draw the first, full appearance of Eddie Brock
, the first original incarnation of the popular 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.)
McFarlane's work on Amazing Spider-Man turned him into an industry superstar. His cover art for Amazing Spider-Man #313, for which he was originally paid $700 in 1989, for example, would later sell for $71,200 in 2010. In 1990, after a 28-issue run of Amazing Spider-Man, McFarlane told editor Jim Salicrup
he'd grown tired of drawing other people's stories and would be leaving the book with issue #328 to write his own work. Salicrup offered McFarlane a new Spider-Man book, prompting the launch of a new monthly title simply called Spider-Man
, which McFarlane both wrote and illustrated. Spider-Man #1 sold 2.5 million copies, partially due to the variant covers that were used to encourage collectors into buying more than one edition. McFarlane wrote and illustrated Spider-Mans first 14 issues, as well as #16; many issues of which were crossovers with characters such as Wolverine
, X-Force
, and Ghost Rider
. After issue #16 (Nov. 1991), McFarlane left the book due to creative clashes with new editor Danny Fingeroth
. He was replaced on the title by future Image Comics
co-founder Erik Larsen
.
, an umbrella company
under which each owned a publishing house. McFarlane's studio, Todd McFarlane Productions, published his creation, the occult
-themed Spawn
. Upon release, Spawn #1 sold 1.7 million copies, still a record for an independent comic book.
Spawn was launched in 1992 with McFarlane as artist/writer for the first 7 issues. Guest writers Alan Moore
, Neil Gaiman
, Dave Sim
and Frank Miller
were brought on for issues 8 to 11 (respectively) while McFarlane continued as the artist. In order to concentrate on the 1994 Spawn/Batman crossover (with Miller writing), he brought on Grant Morrison
(as writer) and Greg Capullo
(penciller) from issues #16-#18. Then Andrew Grossberg and Tom Orzechowski
took over writing issues #19 and 20 with Capullo still penciling. McFarlane returned as writer/artist for issue 21 and remained so until issue 24. Greg Capullo took over as pencil artist with issue 26, McFarlane remained writer and inker on the book until issue 70.
McFarlane eventually would hand off scripting duties (while still overseeing plotlines) to other writers, and the book continued to retain a respectable following. He has story input and inks covers on occasion.
In 2006 McFarlane announced plans for Spawn/Batman
with artist Greg Capullo, which McFarlane wrote and inked, which paid tribute to Jack Kirby. He also began taking an active role in comics publishing again, publishing collections of his Spawn comics in 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 3227 for that period.
Haunt
, an ongoing series co-created by McFarlane and Robert Kirkman
, was first announced in 2007, and launched October 7, 2009. The comic is written by Kirkman, penciled by Ryan Ottley
, inked by McFarlane, with Greg Capullo providing layouts.
mini-series. McFarlane increasingly concentrated his own personal attention to those other ventures, which resulted in irregular work as an illustrator. By 1994, he ceased to be the regular illustrator of his own "signature" book, and would only re-visit Spawn sporadically, or as a promotional stunt for the title.
That same year, McFarlane created McFarlane Toys
. Its line of meticulously sculpted Spawn action figures changed the entire industry by focusing on more mature consumers and non-traditional action figure inspirations such as musicians. The company has licensed the right to produce action figures of athletes in all four major North American sports — baseball
, hockey
, football
and basketball
— and several recent, successful film franchises, including The Terminator, The Matrix
and Shrek
. He has also created figures of rock
musicians, including the members of Kiss
, Alice Cooper
, Jim Morrison
, and Jimi Hendrix
and toys related to video games, like Halo 3
.
In 1996, McFarlane founded Todd McFarlane Entertainment, a film
and animation
studio. In collaboration with New Line Cinema
, it produced the 1997 Spawn
film and a new Spawn movie, planned in 2008. Spawn, while critically panned, was a modest box office success, earning $54.97 million domestically, a little over $69 million worldwide. It also produced the animated series Todd McFarlane’s Spawn, (featuring voice work by actor Keith David
) which aired on HBO
from 1997 until 1999. The animated series received significantly more positive press than the film, received two Primetime Emmy awards (including "Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming More Than One Hour))," and was a moderate success when eventually released on DVD.
The studio has produced acclaimed music video
s for Pearl Jam
's "Do the Evolution
" (1998), KoЯn
's "Freak on a Leash
" (1999) and Disturbed's "Land of Confusion" (2006). They also produced an animated segment of the film The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
(2002). He also fully animated "The Guy", the mascot for Disturbed.
On July 21, 2011 at San Diego Comic-Con International, McFarlane and Stan Lee
will debut their new comic, Blood Red Dragon. The series is a collaboration with musician Yoshiki and stars a fictionalized version of him.
fan; he briefly tried to achieve a pro career in the sport as a young adult. McFarlane has bought, at auction
, multiple balls from Mark McGwire
and Sammy Sosa
's 1998 race to establish a record for the greatest number of home run
s hit in a single season. McFarlane owns Sosa's 33rd, 61st and 66th home run balls, and McGwire's first, 63rd, 67th, 68th, 69th and 70th. (McGwire's 61st was the ball which tied Roger Maris
' then-record, while McGwire's 70th, bought by McFarlane at auction for US $3 million, set a new record at the time — broken in 2001 by Barry Bonds
.) He later purchased Bonds' record setting 73rd home run ball for $450,000.
As well as being a former part owner of the Edmonton Oilers
, McFarlane also designed the logo used on the team's alternate (third) jerseys. This jersey has not been worn since 2007.
Recently, baseball pitcher Curt Schilling
of the Boston Red Sox
has teamed up with McFarlane, forming 38 Studios (formerly Green Monster Games), LLC. This gaming studio will feature McFarlane's art direction and will also feature R.A. Salvatore as creative director. The studio's focus will be massive multiplayer online games of which Schilling is an avid fan.
, McFarlane was enlisted to design a series of action figures.
McFarlane also created the character Necrid
for the console
versions of the video game Soul Calibur II
. Spawn appears as a playable character in the Xbox version of SCII.
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
.
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
' comic book to which McFarlane had purchased the rights.
In December 2002, Todd McFarlane directed the music video "Breathe" for Canadian hip-hop group Swollen Members
that featured Nelly Furtado
. He later drew both the Canadian and International covers for their next album Heavy, released October 2003.
Todd McFarlane is also the cartoonist responsible for the cover art of the albums Ten Thousand Fists
, released in September 2005 and Indestructible
, released June 2008 by metal band Disturbed, and the art in their single "Land of Confusion
", as well as that of metal band Iced Earth's
1996 Spawn-based concept album The Dark Saga
and Korn's
third studio album Follow the Leader
, which was released in 1998.
McFarlane is also doing artwork for the Lord of Vermilion
game published by Square Enix.
In "Spidey Cents", a fourth season episode of the History reality television
series Pawn Stars
, which aired in May 2011, a man tries to sell McFarlane's original artwork for page 25 of The Amazing Spider-Man
#316 (June 1989) for $20,000 to the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop in Las Vegas. Because the seller lacked the paper work authenticating the artwork, Gold & Silver manager Corey Harrison would only pay $1,000 for the page, an offer that the seller declined.
over the rights to some supporting Spawn characters created by Gaiman in issue #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 of McFarlane's share of British superhero Marvelman
(in reality, what McFarlane actually owned were two trademarks for Miracleman logos, not the character, which would become clear only after the lawsuit concluded). However, this deal was broken by McFarlane, which motivated Neil 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 brought resolution to the matter by purchasing the property.
The second was a December 2004 suit in which hockey player Tony Twist
sued Todd McFarlane because he named a mobster character in Spawn after Twist.
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
, writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, toy
Toy
A toy is any object that can be used for play. Toys are associated commonly with children and pets. Playing with toys is often thought to be an enjoyable means of training the young for life in human society. Different materials are used to make toys enjoyable and cuddly to both young and old...
designer
Designer
A designer is a person who designs. More formally, a designer is an agent that "specifies the structural properties of a design object". In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, such as consumer products, processes, laws, games and graphics, is referred to as a...
and entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
, best known for his work in comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
s, such as the fantasy series Spawn
Spawn (comics)
Spawn is a fictional comic book superhero who appears in a monthly comic book of the same name published by Image Comics. Created by writer/artist Todd McFarlane, Spawn first appeared in Spawn #1...
.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, McFarlane became a comic book superstar due to his work on Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
' Spider-Man
Spider-Man
Spider-Man is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko. He first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15...
franchise. In 1992, he helped form Image Comics
Image Comics
Image Comics is a United States comic book publisher. It was founded in 1992 by high-profile illustrators as a venue where creators could publish their material without giving up the copyrights to the characters they created, as creator-owned properties. It was immediately successful, and remains...
, pulling the occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
anti-hero
Anti-hero
In fiction, an antihero is generally considered to be a protagonist whose character is at least in some regards conspicuously contrary to that of the archetypal hero, and is in some instances its antithesis in which the character is generally useless at being a hero or heroine when they're...
character Spawn
Spawn (comics)
Spawn is a fictional comic book superhero who appears in a monthly comic book of the same name published by Image Comics. Created by writer/artist Todd McFarlane, Spawn first appeared in Spawn #1...
from his high school portfolio and updating him for the 1990s. Spawn was a popular hero in the 1990s and encouraged a trend in creator-owned
Creator ownership
Creator ownership is an arrangement in which the creator or creators of a work of fiction retain full ownership of the material, regardless of whether it is self-published or by a corporate publisher. In some fields of publishing, such as fiction writing, creator ownership is a standard arrangement...
comic book properties.
Since leaving inking duties on Spawn with issue #70 (February 1998), McFarlane has illustrated comic books less often, focusing on entrepreneurial efforts, such as McFarlane Toys
McFarlane Toys
McFarlane Toys, a subsidiary of Todd McFarlane Productions, Inc., is a company started by Todd McFarlane that makes highly detailed models of characters from movies, comics, musicians, video games, and sport figures...
and Todd McFarlane Entertainment, a film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
and animation
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
studio. In September, 2006, it was announced that McFarlane will be the Art Director of the newly formed 38 Studios, formerly Green Monster Games, founded by major league baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
pitcher Curt Schilling
Curt Schilling
Curtis Montague "Curt" Schilling is a former American Major League Baseball right-handed pitcher. He helped lead the Philadelphia Phillies to the World Series in and won World Series championships in with the Arizona Diamondbacks and in and with the Boston Red Sox. Schilling retired with a...
. McFarlane used to be a co-owner of the National Hockey League
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...
's Edmonton Oilers
Edmonton Oilers
The Edmonton Oilers are a professional ice hockey team based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. They are members of the Northwest Division in the Western Conference of the National Hockey League ....
but sold his shares to Daryl Katz
Daryl Katz
Daryl Allan Katz is a Canadian businessman, philanthropist, and arts patron. With an estimated net worth of $US 2.0 billion , Katz was ranked by Forbes as the 16th wealthiest Canadian and 595th in the world...
. He's also a high-profile collector of history-making baseballs
Baseball (object)
A baseball is a ball used primarily in the sport of the same name, baseball. The ball features a rubber or cork center, wrapped in yarn and covered in leather. It is in circumference . The yarn or string used to wrap the baseball can be up to one mile in length...
.
Early life and education
McFarlane was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He graduated from William Aberhart High SchoolWilliam Aberhart High School
William Aberhart High School is a public senior high school in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, which teaches grades 10, 11, and 12. It is operated by the Calgary Board of Education. It is a comprehensive English and French Immersion school of 1500 students. William Aberhart High School is located at 3009...
. As a 17-year-old teenager, he discovered comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
s and was a fan of stars such as fellow Canadian John Byrne and Americans Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby , born Jacob Kurtzberg, was an American comic book artist, writer and editor regarded by historians and fans as one of the major innovators and most influential creators in the comic book medium....
, Frank Miller
Frank Miller (comics)
Frank Miller is an American comic book artist, writer and film director best known for his dark, film noir-style comic book stories and graphic novels Ronin, Daredevil: Born Again, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City and 300...
and George Pérez
George Pérez
George Pérez is a Puerto Rican-American writer and illustrator of comic books, known for his work on various titles, including Avengers, Teen Titans and Wonder Woman.-Biography:...
(as well as the writing of Alan Moore
Alan Moore
Alan Oswald Moore is an English writer primarily known for his work in comic books, a medium where he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and popular series, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell...
), but was especially drawn to the more atypical art of Michael Golden and Katsuhiro Ōtomo
Katsuhiro Otomo
is a Japanese comic book creator, screenwriter and film director. He is best known as the creator of the manga Akira and its animated film adaptation. Otomo has also directed several live-action films, such as the 2006 feature film adaptation of the manga Mushishi.-Biography:Katsuhiro Otomo was...
, creator of the manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
Akira
Akira (manga)
is a manga series by Katsuhiro Otomo. Set in a post-apocalyptic Neo-Tokyo, the work uses conventions of the cyberpunk genre to detail a saga of turmoil. Initially serialized in the pages of Young Magazine from 1982 until 1990, the work was collected in six volumes by Japanese publisher Kodansha...
. Gil Kane
Gil Kane
Eli Katz who worked under the name Gil Kane and in one instance Scott Edward, was a comic book artist whose career spanned the 1940s to 1990s and every major comics company and character.Kane co-created the modern-day versions of the superheroes Green Lantern and the Atom for DC Comics, and...
was also a major influence on McFarlane.
In the early-1980s, McFarlane attended Eastern Washington University
Eastern Washington University
Eastern Washington University is an American public, coeducational university located in Cheney, Washington.Founded in 1882, the university is academically divided into four colleges: Arts and Letters; Business and Public Administration; Science, Health and Engineering; and Social & Behavioral...
on a baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
scholarship, and studied graphic art. He sought to play baseball professionally after graduation but suffered a career-ending ankle injury in his junior year. During his time at EWU, McFarlane worked at a comic book shop in Spokane, Washington
Spokane, Washington
Spokane is a city located in the Northwestern United States in the state of Washington. It is the largest city of Spokane County of which it is also the county seat, and the metropolitan center of the Inland Northwest region...
. Drawings he did of Marvel
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
and DC
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
superheros were sold at local shops. McFarlane also attended the Alberta College of Art and Design
Alberta College of Art and Design
-History:The Alberta College of Art & Design is a Canadian degree-granting, publicly-funded art and design college located in Calgary . It was known as the Provincial Institute of Technology and Arts, which was part of SAIT until 1985...
.
Early work and Marvel
Epic Comics
Epic Comics was a creator-owned imprint of Marvel Comics started in 1982, lasting through the mid-1990s, and being briefly revived on a small scale in the mid-2000s.- Origins :...
' Coyote
Coyote (comics)
Coyote is a comic book character created by Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers.-Publication history:The characters first appeared in in Eclipse Magazine #2-8. It would later be reprinted in a color trade paperback, I Am Coyote....
. He soon began drawing for both DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
and Marvel
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
, with his first major body of work being a two-year run (1985–1987) on DC's Infinity, Inc. In 1987, McFarlane also illustrated several issues of Detective Comics
Detective Comics
Detective Comics is an American comic book series published monthly by DC Comics since 1937, best known for introducing the iconic superhero Batman in Detective Comics #27 . It is, along with Action Comics, the book that launched with the debut of Superman, one of the medium's signature series, and...
Batman: Year Two
Batman: Year Two
"Year Two" is the title of a four-part story arc featuring Batman, written by Mike W. Barr and illustrated by Alan Davis, Paul Neary, Alfredo Alcala, Mark Farmer and Todd McFarlane...
storyline. From there, he moved to Marvel's Incredible Hulk, which he drew from 1987–1988.
David Michelinie
-Biography:Some of his earliest work is for DC Comics's House of Secrets and a run on Swamp Thing , following Len Wein and preceding Gerry Conway, illustrated by Nestor Redondo. Michelinie did a run on Aquaman in Adventure Comics which led to the revival of the Sea King's own title in 1977...
on Marvel's The Amazing Spider-Man
The Amazing Spider-Man
The Amazing Spider-Man is an American comic book series published by Marvel Comics, featuring the adventures of the fictional superhero Spider-Man. Being the mainstream continuity of the franchise, it began publication in 1963 as a monthly periodical and was published continuously until it was...
beginning with issue 298. McFarlane was also the first artist to draw the first, full appearance of Eddie Brock
Eddie Brock
Eddie Brock is a fictional character created by David Michelinie and Todd McFarlane. A comic book supervillain, Brock's earliest appearance is a cameo in Web of Spider-Man #18 before making his first full appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man #299 as Venom...
, the first original incarnation of the popular villain Venom
Venom (comics)
Eddie Brock is a fictional character created by David Michelinie and Todd McFarlane. A comic book supervillain, Brock's earliest appearance is a cameo in Web of Spider-Man #18 before making his first full appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man #299 as 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.)
McFarlane's work on Amazing Spider-Man turned him into an industry superstar. His cover art for Amazing Spider-Man #313, for which he was originally paid $700 in 1989, for example, would later sell for $71,200 in 2010. In 1990, after a 28-issue run of Amazing Spider-Man, McFarlane told editor Jim Salicrup
Jim Salicrup
Jim Salicrup is an American comic book editor, known for his tenures at Marvel Comics and Topps Comics. At Marvel, where he worked for twenty years, he edited books such as The Uncanny X-Men, Fantastic Four, Avengers and various Spider-Man titles...
he'd grown tired of drawing other people's stories and would be leaving the book with issue #328 to write his own work. Salicrup offered McFarlane a new Spider-Man book, prompting the launch of a new monthly title simply called Spider-Man
Peter Parker: Spider-Man
Peter Parker: Spider-Man is the name of two comic book series published by Marvel Comics, both of which feature the character Spider-Man.-Volume One :...
, which McFarlane both wrote and illustrated. Spider-Man #1 sold 2.5 million copies, partially due to the variant covers that were used to encourage collectors into buying more than one edition. McFarlane wrote and illustrated Spider-Mans first 14 issues, as well as #16; many issues of which were crossovers with characters such as Wolverine
Wolverine (comics)
Wolverine is a fictional character, a superhero that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Born as James Howlett and commonly known as Logan, Wolverine is a mutant, possessing animal-keen senses, enhanced physical capabilities, three retracting bone claws on each hand and a healing...
, X-Force
X-Force
X-Force is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero team, one of several spin-offs of the popular X-Men franchise. Conceived by writer/illustrator Rob Liefeld, the team was formed in New Mutants, vol. 1 #100 and soon afterwards was featured in its own series.The group was a new incarnation of the 1980s...
, and Ghost Rider
Ghost Rider (comics)
Ghost Rider is the name of several fictional supernatural antiheroes appearing in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Marvel had previously used the name for a Western character whose name was later changed to Night Rider and subsequently to Phantom Rider.The first supernatural Ghost Rider is...
. After issue #16 (Nov. 1991), McFarlane left the book due to creative clashes with new editor Danny Fingeroth
Danny Fingeroth
Daniel "Danny" Fingeroth is an American comic book writer and editor, better known for a long stint as group editor of the Spider-Man books at Marvel Comics.-Career:...
. He was replaced on the title by future Image Comics
Image Comics
Image Comics is a United States comic book publisher. It was founded in 1992 by high-profile illustrators as a venue where creators could publish their material without giving up the copyrights to the characters they created, as creator-owned properties. It was immediately successful, and remains...
co-founder Erik Larsen
Erik Larsen
Erik J. Larsen is an American comic book writer, artist and publisher. He is best known for his work on Savage Dragon, as one of the founders of Image Comics, and for his work on Spider-Man for Marvel Comics.-Early life:...
.
Image Comics
McFarlane then left Marvel with six other popular artists to form Image ComicsImage Comics
Image Comics is a United States comic book publisher. It was founded in 1992 by high-profile illustrators as a venue where creators could publish their material without giving up the copyrights to the characters they created, as creator-owned properties. It was immediately successful, and remains...
, an umbrella company
Umbrella company
An umbrella company is a company that acts as an employer to agency contractors who work under a fixed term contract assignment, usually through a recruitment employment agency in the United Kingdom. Recruitment agencies issue contracts to a limited company as the agency liability would be reduced...
under which each owned a publishing house. McFarlane's studio, Todd McFarlane Productions, published his creation, the occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
-themed Spawn
Spawn (comics)
Spawn is a fictional comic book superhero who appears in a monthly comic book of the same name published by Image Comics. Created by writer/artist Todd McFarlane, Spawn first appeared in Spawn #1...
. Upon release, Spawn #1 sold 1.7 million copies, still a record for an independent comic book.
Alan Moore
Alan Oswald Moore is an English writer primarily known for his work in comic books, a medium where he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and popular series, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell...
, Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...
, Dave Sim
Dave Sim
David Victor Sim is an award-winning Canadian comic book writer and artist.A pioneer of self-published comics and creators' rights, Sim is best known as the creator of Cerebus the Aardvark, a comic book published from 1977 to 2004, which chronicles its main character in a 6,000-page self-contained...
and Frank Miller
Frank Miller (comics)
Frank Miller is an American comic book artist, writer and film director best known for his dark, film noir-style comic book stories and graphic novels Ronin, Daredevil: Born Again, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City and 300...
were brought on for issues 8 to 11 (respectively) while McFarlane continued as the artist. In order to concentrate on the 1994 Spawn/Batman crossover (with Miller writing), he brought on Grant Morrison
Grant Morrison
Grant Morrison is a Scottish comic book writer, playwright and occultist. He is known for his nonlinear narratives and counter-cultural leanings, as well as his successful runs on titles like Animal Man, Doom Patrol, JLA, The Invisibles, New X-Men, Fantastic Four, All-Star Superman, and...
(as writer) and Greg Capullo
Greg Capullo
Gregory “Greg” Capullo is an American comic book artist and penciller, best known for his work on Quasar , X-Force , Angela and Spawn ....
(penciller) from issues #16-#18. Then Andrew Grossberg and Tom Orzechowski
Tom Orzechowski
Tom Orzechowski is an award-winning comic book letterer, primarily known for his work on Uncanny X-Men. Over the course of Orzechowski's career, he has lettered something on the order of 6,000 pages of Chris Claremont's scripts.-Early career:In 1968, when Orzechowski was 15, he met a group of...
took over writing issues #19 and 20 with Capullo still penciling. McFarlane returned as writer/artist for issue 21 and remained so until issue 24. Greg Capullo took over as pencil artist with issue 26, McFarlane remained writer and inker on the book until issue 70.
McFarlane eventually would hand off scripting duties (while still overseeing plotlines) to other writers, and the book continued to retain a respectable following. He has story input and inks covers on occasion.
In 2006 McFarlane announced plans for Spawn/Batman
Spawn/Batman
Spawn/Batman is a 1994 one-shot comic book written by Frank Miller with art by Todd McFarlane and published jointly by DC Comics and Image Comics. The comic is an intercompany crossover between Batman and Spawn.-Plot summary:...
with artist Greg Capullo, which McFarlane wrote and inked, which paid tribute to Jack Kirby. He also began taking an active role in comics publishing again, publishing collections of his Spawn comics in 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 3227 for that period.
Haunt
Haunt (comics)
Haunt is a fictional comic book superhero who appears in a self-titled ongoing series published by Image Comics. Created by Todd McFarlane and Robert Kirkman, the series debuted on October 7, 2009. The comic was originally written by Kirkman with pencils by Ryan Ottley, layouts by Greg Capullo, and...
, an ongoing series co-created by McFarlane and Robert Kirkman
Robert Kirkman
Robert Kirkman is an American comic book writer best known for his work on The Walking Dead and Invincible for Image Comics, and Ultimate X-Men and Marvel Zombies for Marvel Comics. He has also collaborated with Image Comics co-founder Todd McFarlane on the series Haunt...
, was first announced in 2007, and launched October 7, 2009. The comic is written by Kirkman, penciled by Ryan Ottley
Ryan Ottley
Ryan Ottley, aka Uncle WYA, is an American comic book artist. He is best known for work on Image Comics' Invincible.-Career:Ottley is the artist and co-creator of the webcomic strip Ted Noodleman: Bicycle Delivery Boy, and it was through this webstrip that Robert Kirkman first encountered Ottley's...
, inked by McFarlane, with Greg Capullo providing layouts.
McFarlane Entertainment
Todd McFarlane Productions has also published multiple Spawn spin-offSpin-off (media)
In media, a spin-off is a radio program, television program, video game, or any narrative work, derived from one or more already existing works, that focuses, in particular, in more detail on one aspect of that original work...
mini-series. McFarlane increasingly concentrated his own personal attention to those other ventures, which resulted in irregular work as an illustrator. By 1994, he ceased to be the regular illustrator of his own "signature" book, and would only re-visit Spawn sporadically, or as a promotional stunt for the title.
That same year, McFarlane created McFarlane Toys
McFarlane Toys
McFarlane Toys, a subsidiary of Todd McFarlane Productions, Inc., is a company started by Todd McFarlane that makes highly detailed models of characters from movies, comics, musicians, video games, and sport figures...
. Its line of meticulously sculpted Spawn action figures changed the entire industry by focusing on more mature consumers and non-traditional action figure inspirations such as musicians. The company has licensed the right to produce action figures of athletes in all four major North American sports — baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
, hockey
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
, football
Gridiron football
Gridiron football , sometimes known as North American football, is an umbrella term for related codes of football primarily played in the United States and Canada. The predominant forms of gridiron football are American football and Canadian football...
and basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
— and several recent, successful film franchises, including The Terminator, The Matrix
The Matrix
The Matrix is a 1999 science fiction-action film written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving...
and Shrek
Shrek
Shrek is a 2001 American computer-animated fantasy comedy film directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, featuring the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and John Lithgow. Loosely based on William Steig's 1990 fairy tale picture book Shrek!...
. He has also created figures of rock
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
musicians, including the members of Kiss
KISS (band)
Kiss is an American rock band formed in New York City in January 1973. Well-known for its members' face paint and flamboyant stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid to late 1970s on the basis of their elaborate live performances, which featured fire breathing, blood spitting,...
, Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper is an American rock singer, songwriter and musician whose career spans more than four decades...
, Jim Morrison
Jim Morrison
James Douglas "Jim" Morrison was an American musician, singer, and poet, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the rock band The Doors...
, and Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
and toys related to video games, like Halo 3
Halo 3
Halo 3 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie for the Xbox 360 console. The third installment in the Halo franchise, the game concludes the story arc begun in Halo: Combat Evolved and continued in Halo 2...
.
In 1996, McFarlane founded Todd McFarlane Entertainment, a film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
and animation
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
studio. In collaboration with New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema, often simply referred to as New Line, is an American film studio. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne as a film distributor, later becoming an independent film studio. It became a subsidiary of Time Warner in 1996 and was merged with larger sister studio Warner...
, it produced the 1997 Spawn
Spawn (film)
Spawn is a 1997 American superhero film loosely based on the comic book of the same name, by Todd McFarlane and published by Image Comics. Directed and co-written by Mark A.Z. Dippé , the film stars Michael Jai White in the leading role...
film and a new Spawn movie, planned in 2008. Spawn, while critically panned, was a modest box office success, earning $54.97 million domestically, a little over $69 million worldwide. It also produced the animated series Todd McFarlane’s Spawn, (featuring voice work by actor Keith David
Keith David
Keith David Williams , better known as Keith David, is an American film, television, voice actor, and singer. He is perhaps most known for his live-action roles in such films as Crash, There's Something About Mary, Barbershop and Men at Work...
) which aired on HBO
Home Box Office
HBO, short for Home Box Office, is an American premium cable television network, owned by Time Warner. , HBO's programming reaches 28.2 million subscribers in the United States, making it the second largest premium network in America . In addition to its U.S...
from 1997 until 1999. The animated series received significantly more positive press than the film, received two Primetime Emmy awards (including "Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming More Than One Hour))," and was a moderate success when eventually released on DVD.
The studio has produced acclaimed music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
s for Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam is an American rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included Eddie Vedder , Jeff Ament , Stone Gossard , and Mike McCready...
's "Do the Evolution
Do the Evolution
"Do the Evolution" is a song by the American rock band Pearl Jam. Featuring lyrics written by vocalist Eddie Vedder and music written by guitarist Stone Gossard, "Do the Evolution" is the seventh track on the band's fifth studio album, Yield . Despite the lack of a commercial single release, the...
" (1998), KoЯn
Korn
Korn is an American nu metal band from Bakersfield, California, formed in 1993. The current band line up includes four members: Jonathan Davis, James "Munky" Shaffer, Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu, and Ray Luzier. The band was formed as an expansion of L.A.P.D.The band released their first demo album,...
's "Freak on a Leash
Freak on a Leash
"Freak on a Leash" is a song by the American nu metal band Korn, featured on the group's 1998 studio album Follow the Leader. Prior to the album's release, Korn had an instrumental section of the song, described as a "noisy guitar break." The section was taken out of the song after their fans...
" (1999) and Disturbed's "Land of Confusion" (2006). They also produced an animated segment of the film The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys is a 2002 independent comedy-drama film directed by Peter Care. The film stars Emile Hirsch, Kieran Culkin, Jena Malone, Jodie Foster, and Vincent D'Onofrio...
(2002). He also fully animated "The Guy", the mascot for Disturbed.
On July 21, 2011 at San Diego Comic-Con International, McFarlane and Stan Lee
Stan Lee
Stan Lee is an American comic book writer, editor, actor, producer, publisher, television personality, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics....
will debut their new comic, Blood Red Dragon. The series is a collaboration with musician Yoshiki and stars a fictionalized version of him.
Sports
McFarlane is an avid baseballBaseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
fan; he briefly tried to achieve a pro career in the sport as a young adult. McFarlane has bought, at auction
Auction
An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder...
, multiple balls from Mark McGwire
Mark McGwire
Mark David McGwire , nicknamed "Big Mac", is an American former professional baseball player who played his major league career with the Oakland Athletics and the St. Louis Cardinals. He is currently the hitting coach for the St...
and Sammy Sosa
Sammy Sosa
Samuel Peralta "Sammy" Sosa is a Dominican former professional baseball right fielder. Sosa played with four Major League Baseball teams over his career which spanned from 1989-2007....
's 1998 race to establish a record for the greatest number of home run
Home run
In baseball, a home run is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to reach home safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team in the process...
s hit in a single season. McFarlane owns Sosa's 33rd, 61st and 66th home run balls, and McGwire's first, 63rd, 67th, 68th, 69th and 70th. (McGwire's 61st was the ball which tied Roger Maris
Roger Maris
Roger Eugene Maris was an American Major League Baseball right fielder. During the 1961 season, he hit a record 61 home runs for the New York Yankees, breaking Babe Ruth's single-season record of 60 home runs...
' then-record, while McGwire's 70th, bought by McFarlane at auction for US $3 million, set a new record at the time — broken in 2001 by Barry Bonds
Barry Bonds
Barry Lamar Bonds is an American former Major League Baseball outfielder. Bonds played from 1986 to 2007, for the Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants. He is the son of former major league All-Star Bobby Bonds...
.) He later purchased Bonds' record setting 73rd home run ball for $450,000.
As well as being a former part owner of the Edmonton Oilers
Edmonton Oilers
The Edmonton Oilers are a professional ice hockey team based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. They are members of the Northwest Division in the Western Conference of the National Hockey League ....
, McFarlane also designed the logo used on the team's alternate (third) jerseys. This jersey has not been worn since 2007.
Recently, baseball pitcher Curt Schilling
Curt Schilling
Curtis Montague "Curt" Schilling is a former American Major League Baseball right-handed pitcher. He helped lead the Philadelphia Phillies to the World Series in and won World Series championships in with the Arizona Diamondbacks and in and with the Boston Red Sox. Schilling retired with a...
of the Boston Red Sox
Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox are a professional baseball team based in Boston, Massachusetts, and a member of Major League Baseball’s American League Eastern Division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight charter franchises, the Red Sox's home ballpark has been Fenway Park since . The "Red Sox"...
has teamed up with McFarlane, forming 38 Studios (formerly Green Monster Games), LLC. This gaming studio will feature McFarlane's art direction and will also feature R.A. Salvatore as creative director. The studio's focus will be massive multiplayer online games of which Schilling is an avid fan.
Other media
For the release of Halo 3Halo 3
Halo 3 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie for the Xbox 360 console. The third installment in the Halo franchise, the game concludes the story arc begun in Halo: Combat Evolved and continued in Halo 2...
, McFarlane was enlisted to design a series of action figures.
McFarlane also created the character Necrid
Necrid
is a playable character in the Soul series of weapon-based fighting video games. Designed by comic book artist and toy designer Todd McFarlane through a collaboration with Namco, the character first appeared in video game console ports of Soulcalibur II and later as part of an action figure set...
for the console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
versions of the video game Soul Calibur II
Soul Calibur II
is a fighting game developed and published by Namco and the third installment in the Soul series. Soul Calibur is the name of the holy sword, created to battle the evil sword Soul Edge, which the games' storylines revolve around...
. Spawn appears as a playable character in the Xbox version of SCII.
A PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
game, McFarlane's Evil Prophecy
McFarlane's Evil Prophecy
McFarlane's Evil Prophecy is a PlayStation 2 action video game released in North America and Europe in 2004.-Story:In the 19th century, the dead are rising from their graves and other chaos is happening all over the world. People fear that the end of the world is coming. A book predicts that an...
, was released in 2004 by Konami
Konami
is a Japanese leading developer and publisher of numerous popular and strong-selling toys, trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, slot machines, arcade cabinets and video games...
. In it, players battle creatures based on a line of Todd McFarlane's action figures including classic movie monsters such as Frankenstein
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...
's monster and Dracula
Dracula
Dracula is an 1897 novel by Irish author Bram Stoker.Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to relocate from Transylvania to England, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor...
.
In January 2005, McFarlane announced that he was set to produce
Produce
Produce is a generalized term for a group of farm-produced goods and, not limited to fruits and vegetables . More specifically, the term "produce" often implies that the products are fresh and generally in the same state as where they were harvested. In supermarkets the term is also used to refer...
a half-hour anthology television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
series for Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
called Twisted Tales
Twisted Tales
Twisted Tales was a horror comics anthology published by Pacific Comics and, later, Eclipse Comics, in the early 1980s. The title was edited by Bruce Jones and April Campbell.-Publication history:...
, based on the Bruce Jones
Bruce Jones (comics)
Bruce Jones, whose pen names include Philip Roland and Bruce Elliot, is an American comic book writer, novelist, illustrator, and screenwriter whose work included writing Marvel Comics' The Incredible Hulk from 2001-2005.-Early career:...
' comic book to which McFarlane had purchased the rights.
In December 2002, Todd McFarlane directed the music video "Breathe" for Canadian hip-hop group Swollen Members
Swollen Members
Swollen Members is a Canadian hip hop group from Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia, Canada consisting mainly of the duo Mad Child, and Prevail. Frequent collaborators include vocalist Moka Only and producer Rob the Viking, an official group member since 2002...
that featured Nelly Furtado
Nelly Furtado
Nelly Kim Furtado is a Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer and actress. Furtado grew up in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.Furtado first gained fame with her debut album, Whoa, Nelly!, and its single "I'm Like a Bird", which won a 2001 Juno Award for Single of the Year and a 2002 Grammy...
. He later drew both the Canadian and International covers for their next album Heavy, released October 2003.
Todd McFarlane is also the cartoonist responsible for the cover art of the albums Ten Thousand Fists
Ten Thousand Fists
Ten Thousand Fists is the third studio album by American heavy metal band Disturbed. It was released on September 20, 2005 and became Disturbed's second consecutive #1 debut on the Billboard 200 in the United States, shipping around 239,000 copies in its opening week. It has been certified Platinum...
, released in September 2005 and Indestructible
Indestructible (Disturbed album)
Indestructible is the fourth studio album by American heavy metal band Disturbed. A self-produced effort, Indestructible is the first Disturbed album that did not feature Johnny K, the producer of Disturbed's previous three albums, The Sickness, Believe, and Ten Thousand Fists. Indestructible was...
, released June 2008 by metal band Disturbed, and the art in their single "Land of Confusion
Land of Confusion
"Land of Confusion" is a rock song written by the band Genesis for their 1986 album Invisible Touch. The song was the third track on the album and was the fourth track from the album to become a single, which reached #4 in the US and #14 in the UK in early 1987. It made #8 in the Netherlands...
", as well as that of metal band Iced Earth's
Iced Earth
Iced Earth is an American heavy metal band from Tampa, Florida. Originally formed under the name "Purgatory" in 1984, Iced Earth has released a total of ten studio albums, one live album, three EP's, two compilations and boxsets...
1996 Spawn-based concept album The Dark Saga
The Dark Saga
-European Limited Digipak bonus track:-2008 Slave to the Dark bonus tracks:-Credits :*Jon Schaffer – rhythm guitar, vocals*Matt Barlow – lead vocals*Randall Shawver – lead guitar*Dave Abell – bass guitar*Mark Prator – drums...
and Korn's
Korn
Korn is an American nu metal band from Bakersfield, California, formed in 1993. The current band line up includes four members: Jonathan Davis, James "Munky" Shaffer, Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu, and Ray Luzier. The band was formed as an expansion of L.A.P.D.The band released their first demo album,...
third studio album Follow the Leader
Follow the Leader (Korn album)
Follow the Leader is the third studio album by American nu metal band Korn. The album was released on August 18, 1998, through Immortal/Epic. This was their first album not produced by Ross Robinson...
, which was released in 1998.
McFarlane is also doing artwork for the Lord of Vermilion
Lord of Vermilion
is an arcade-based fantasy collectible card game developed by Think Garage and distributed by Square Enix in which players control combat cards on an arcade play surface. The objective of the game is to destroy the enemy team's Arcane Stones and eliminate their servants in order to win the game...
game published by Square Enix.
In "Spidey Cents", a fourth season episode of the History reality television
Reality television
Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...
series Pawn Stars
Pawn Stars
Pawn Stars is an American reality television series on the History Channel, produced in Manhattan by Leftfield Pictures. The series is filmed in Las Vegas, Nevada, where it chronicles the daily activities at the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop, a 24-hour family business operated by patriarch Richard...
, which aired in May 2011, a man tries to sell McFarlane's original artwork for page 25 of The Amazing Spider-Man
The Amazing Spider-Man
The Amazing Spider-Man is an American comic book series published by Marvel Comics, featuring the adventures of the fictional superhero Spider-Man. Being the mainstream continuity of the franchise, it began publication in 1963 as a monthly periodical and was published continuously until it was...
#316 (June 1989) for $20,000 to the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop in Las Vegas. Because the seller lacked the paper work authenticating the artwork, Gold & Silver manager Corey Harrison would only pay $1,000 for the page, an offer that the seller declined.
Lawsuits
McFarlane lost judgments in two lawsuits in the 2000s. The first was a 2002 suit in which McFarlane contested with writer Neil GaimanNeil Gaiman
Neil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...
over the rights to some supporting Spawn characters created by Gaiman in issue #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
Angela (comics)
Angela is a fictional character in Todd McFarlane's Spawn comic book series. The character was created for the series by writer Neil Gaiman and artist Todd McFarlane, which led to a legal battle between McFarlane and Gaiman over the rights to the character.-Fictional character biography:In the...
, Medieval Spawn and Cogliostro
Cogliostro
Cogliostro is a supporting character in Todd McFarlane's Spawn comic series. Cogliostro was created in 1993 by author Neil Gaiman and artist Todd McFarlane and introduced in Spawn issue #9.-Al Simmons:...
to McFarlane in exchange of McFarlane's share of British superhero Marvelman
Marvelman
Marvelman, also known as Miracleman for trademark reasons in his American reprints and story continuation, is a fictional comic book superhero created in 1954 by writer-artist Mick Anglo for publisher L. Miller & Son. Originally intended as a United Kingdom home-grown substitute for the American...
(in reality, what McFarlane actually owned were two trademarks for Miracleman logos, not the character, which would become clear only after the lawsuit concluded). However, this deal was broken by McFarlane, which motivated Neil 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 brought resolution to the matter by purchasing the property.
The second was a December 2004 suit in which hockey player Tony Twist
Tony Twist
Anthony Rory Twist is a former professional ice hockey player. He played left wing in the NHL for the St. Louis Blues and Quebec Nordiques, but was also a feared enforcer. He now is a co-host in post-game shows after Blues games on Fox Sports Midwest...
sued Todd McFarlane because he named a mobster character in Spawn after Twist.
Awards
McFarlane's work has won him numerous awards over the years, including:- a 1992 National Cartoonists SocietyNational Cartoonists SocietyThe National Cartoonists Society is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the troops...
Award for Best Comic Book. - a 1992 Inkpot AwardInkpot AwardThe Inkpot Award, bestowed annually since 1974 by Comic-Con International, is given to some of the professionals in comic book, comic strip, animation, science fiction, and related pop-culture fields, who are guests of that organization's yearly multigenre fan convention, commonly known as...
- the 2000 Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music VideoGrammy Award for Best Short Form Music VideoThe Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video is an honor presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to performers, directors, and producers of quality short form music videos...
for "Freak on a LeashFreak on a Leash"Freak on a Leash" is a song by the American nu metal band Korn, featured on the group's 1998 studio album Follow the Leader. Prior to the album's release, Korn had an instrumental section of the song, described as a "noisy guitar break." The section was taken out of the song after their fans...
". - McFarlane received the National Football League's Artist of the Year award for 2005, for his work on program covers for the Baltimore RavensBaltimore RavensThe Baltimore Ravens are a professional football franchise based in Baltimore, Maryland.The Baltimore Ravens are officially a quasi-expansion franchise, having originated in 1995 with the Cleveland Browns relocation controversy after Art Modell, then owner of the Cleveland Browns, announced his...
. - McFarlane was inducted into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame, on June 18, 2011 at the Joe Shuster AwardsJoe Shuster AwardsThe Joe Shuster Awards are given out annually for outstanding achievements in the creation of comic books, graphic novels and webcomics by Canadians, there are additional awards for Retailers and Publishers. The full name is the Joe Shuster Canadian Comic Book Creator Awards.The Joe Shuster Awards...
in Calgary.
DC
- All-Star SquadronAll-Star SquadronThe All-Star Squadron is a DC Comics superhero team that debuted in a special insert in Justice League of America #193 . Created by Roy Thomas, Rich Buckler and Jerry Ordway.-The concept:...
#47 (along with Mike Clark) (1985) - Detective ComicsDetective ComicsDetective Comics is an American comic book series published monthly by DC Comics since 1937, best known for introducing the iconic superhero Batman in Detective Comics #27 . It is, along with Action Comics, the book that launched with the debut of Superman, one of the medium's signature series, and...
#576-578 (Batman: Year TwoBatman: Year Two"Year Two" is the title of a four-part story arc featuring Batman, written by Mike W. Barr and illustrated by Alan Davis, Paul Neary, Alfredo Alcala, Mark Farmer and Todd McFarlane...
) (1987) - Infinity, Inc #14-37 (full art); Annual #1-2 (among other artists) (1985–87)
- Invasion!Invasion! (DC Comics)Invasion! was a three issue comic book limited series and crossover event published in late 1988-early 1989 by DC Comics. It was plotted by Keith Giffen, and ties up a great many plotlines from various Giffen-created DC series, including Omega Men, Justice League International, and Legion of...
, miniseries, #1-2 (1989)
Image
- CyberforceCyberforceCyberforce is an Image Comics super-hero team created by artist Marc Silvestri and writer Eric Silvestri in 1992. Silvestri would begin performing both the plotting and pencilling chores, but the series was subsequently drawn by other artists, including David Finch...
#8 (1994) - Image ComicsImage ComicsImage Comics is a United States comic book publisher. It was founded in 1992 by high-profile illustrators as a venue where creators could publish their material without giving up the copyrights to the characters they created, as creator-owned properties. It was immediately successful, and remains...
Summer Special #1 (2004) - SpawnSpawn (comics)Spawn is a fictional comic book superhero who appears in a monthly comic book of the same name published by Image Comics. Created by writer/artist Todd McFarlane, Spawn first appeared in Spawn #1...
#1-15, 21-24 (full art); #26-33 (along with Greg CapulloGreg CapulloGregory “Greg” Capullo is an American comic book artist and penciller, best known for his work on Quasar , X-Force , Angela and Spawn ....
) (1992–95); #190, 200 (among other artists) (2010) - Spawn/BatmanBatmanBatman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
#1 (1994)
Marvel
- Amazing Spider-ManThe Amazing Spider-ManThe Amazing Spider-Man is an American comic book series published by Marvel Comics, featuring the adventures of the fictional superhero Spider-Man. Being the mainstream continuity of the franchise, it began publication in 1963 as a monthly periodical and was published continuously until it was...
#298-323, 325, 328 (1988–90) - CoyoteCoyote (comics)Coyote is a comic book character created by Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers.-Publication history:The characters first appeared in in Eclipse Magazine #2-8. It would later be reprinted in a color trade paperback, I Am Coyote....
#11-14 (1985) - DaredevilDaredevil (Marvel Comics)Daredevil is a fictional character, a superhero in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Bill Everett, with an unspecified amount of input from Jack Kirby, and first appeared in Daredevil #1 .Living in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood...
#241 (1987) - G.I. Joe: A Real American HeroG.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Marvel Comics)G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero is a comic book that was published by Marvel Comics from 1982 to 1994. Based on Hasbro, Inc.'s G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero line of military-themed toys, the series has been credited for making G.I. Joe into a pop-culture phenomenon. G.I...
#60 (1987) - G.I. Joe Special #1 (1995)
- Incredible HulkHulk (comics)The Hulk is a fictional character, a superhero in the . Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the character first appeared in The Incredible Hulk #1 ....
#330-334, 336-345 (1987–88) - Marvel Holiday Special (Spider-ManSpider-ManSpider-Man is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko. He first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15...
) 2004 - Spectacular Spider-ManThe Spectacular Spider-ManThe Spectacular Spider-Man is the name of several comic books and one magazine series starring Marvel Comics' Spider-Man.The character's main series, The Amazing Spider-Man, was extremely successful, and Marvel felt the character could support more than one title. This led the company in 1968 to...
Annual #10 (1990) - Spider-ManPeter Parker: Spider-ManPeter Parker: Spider-Man is the name of two comic book series published by Marvel Comics, both of which feature the character Spider-Man.-Volume One :...
#1-14, 16 (1990–91) - Spitfire And The TroubleshootersSpitfire (comics)Spitfire is a fictional character, a superhero in the Marvel Comics universe and was introduced as a member of the World War II era Invaders superhero team.-Fictional character biography:...
#4 (1987)
External links
— including a biography and info about McFarlane's work- Press release on Twist issue
- Latest on Twist issue
- Comic Book Awards Almanac
- Todd McFarlane's work on Marvel.com
Interviews
- http://www.bestofmostof.com/07oct/mp3s/mcfar1.mp3/Audio Interview by Gary GrothGary GrothGary Groth is an American comic book editor, publisher and critic. He is editor-in-chief of The Comics Journal and a co-founder of Fantagraphics Books.-Early life:...
(1992)] - SuicideGirls
- Now Playing magazine
- Todd McFarlane talks to Maxim.com (July 2008)