Todd McFarlane
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Todd McFarlane (born March 16, 1961 in Calgary, Alberta) is a cartoonist, comic book writer, artist, and media entrepreneur.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, McFarlane became a comic book superstar with little precedent due to his work on Marvel Comics’ Spider-Man franchise. In 1992, he helped form Image Comics and created the occult hero Spawn, who became one of the 1990s’ most popular heroes and encouraged a trend in creator-owned comic book properties.
In recent years, McFarlane has illustrated comic books less often, focusing on entrepreneurial efforts, such as McFarlane Toys, whose meticulously detailed action figures have set new standards in the toy industry, and Todd McFarlane Entertainment, a film and animation studio.
McFarlane is also co-owner of National Hockey League’s Edmonton Oilers and a high-profile collector of history-making baseballs.
Biography
McFarlane was born in Calgary, Alberta but grew-up in Southern California. As a teenager, he discovered comic books and was a fan of stars such as John Byrne and Frank Miller, but was especially drawn to the more atypical art of Michael Golden and Art Adams (Adams’ detailed but cartoon-ish approach is especially noticeable in McFarlane’s work).
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 was not contracted by a professional team.
McFarlane then searched for work in the comic book industry. Between his post-college attempts to break into the industry and a few tries during high school, he received more than 700 rejection letters.
McFarlane’s first published work was a 1984 backup story in Epic Comics’ Coyote. He soon began working for both Marvel and DC Comics. He illustrated several issues of Marvel’s Incredible Hulk and DC’s Infinity Inc. and various Batman series.
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In 1988, McFarlane joined writer David Michelinie on Marvel's The Amazing Spider-Man. McFarlane changed the character’s appearance, making him more spider-like with wiry limbs and large eyes. His interpretation would influence those of many subsequent Spider-Man artists. McFarlane also drew the first appearance of Venom, a wildly popular villain (though he is sometimes incorrectly credited as the character's co-creator).
McFarlane’s work on The Amazing Spider-Man turned him into an industry superstar. In 1990, Marvel launched a new monthly Spider-Man series, simply called Spider-Man, which McFarlane both wrote and illustrated. Spider-Man #1 sold 2.5 million copies, partially thanks to the variant covers that were used to encourage collectors into buying more than one edition.
After a year on Spider-Man, McFarlane left Marvel with six other popular artists to form Image Comics, an umbrella company under which each owned a publishing house. Todd McFarlane Productions published his creation the occult-themed Spawn. Spawn #1 sold 1.7 million copies, still a record for an independent comic book. The series was a sales smash throughout the 1990s and was initially one of the more respected series from Image, which has often been panned for superficial writing and generic characters. However, McFarlane's inability to meet his own announced publishing schedule disrupted the market for his products, and created a backlash among direct market shops owners, who were increasingly reluctant to promote the Spawn line of comics and other products. Spawn continues, as of 2005, but has lost significant sales momentum.
Todd McFarlane Productions has published multiple Spawn spin-offs but, unlike other Image heads, McFarlane never sought to run a comprehensive comic book company. Instead, he concentrated on other ventures, which resulted in irregular work as an illustrator. By 1994, he ceased to be the regular illustrator of Spawn.
That same year, McFarlane created McFarlane Toys. Its line of meticulously sculpted line of Spawn action figures set a new standard for detail and artistic finesse, though some fans complain that the highly sculpted figures suffer in articulation and are basically miniature statues; because of this, McFarlane Toys figures are often derogatorily referred to as "bricks." 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. It has also created figures of rock musicians, including Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and the members of Kiss.
In 1996, McFarlane founded Todd McFarlane Entertainment, a film and animation studio. In collaboration with New Line Cinema, it produced the 1997 Spawn film, which was a moderate box office success. It also produced the animated series Todd McFarlane’s Spawn, which aired on HBO from 1997 until 1999.
The studio has produced acclaimed music videos for Korn's "Freak On A Leash" (1999) - McFarlane also illustrated the cover of Korn’s album Follow the Leader - and Pearl Jam’s "Do the Evolution" (2000), the band’s first music video in nine years. They also produced an animated segment of the film The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2002).
McFarlane is an avid baseball 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 runs 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. (Sosa's 61st was the ball which tied Roger Maris' then-record, while McGwire's 70th set a new record - broken in 2001 by Barry Bonds.)
In late 2001, McFarlane revealed a new logo for the Edmonton Oilers NHL franchise of which he is a part-owner. This logo is featured on the team's Third Jersey.
Recently, McFarlane lost a significant amount of money in two lawsuits. The first was a 2002 suit in which McFarlane contested with writer Neil Gaiman over the rights to the British superhero Miracleman and some supporting Spawn characters. The second was a December 2004 suit in which hockey player Tony Twist sued McFarlane because he named a mobster character in Spawn after Twist. After McFarlane lost the second suit, his publishing company, Todd McFarlane Productions, filed for bankruptcy.
External links
- Spawn.com features a biography and info about McFarlane's work (http://www.spawn.com/info/)de:Todd McFarlane