Todd McFarlane is a popular Canadian comic book writer and artist. He is also known as a manufacturer and designer of various toys. His main achievement is the creation of the superhero Spawn, as well as work on Spider-Man. Thanks to them, McFarlane became famous at the turn of the 80-90s. Then he began to work at Marvel. Today, his superhero comics are popular around the world.
Screenwriter Biography
Todd McFarlane was born in 1961. He was born in the city of Calgary in the Canadian province of Alberta.
At the beginning of his career, he actively worked on creating comics. The first work he managed to publish was an additional story in Coyote. After some time, he was noticed and invited to paint for Marvel.
His first major project was the Incredible Hulk comic, which he drew in 1987 and 1988.
Work on Spider-Man
1988 was decisive in the career of Todd McFarlane. Together with his colleague screenwriter David Michelini, he began work on the comic strip The Amazing Spider-Man. This story became one of the most popular in the following decades.
At the same time, the hero of our article created the villain Venom, an alien creature of almost liquid form, which periodically confronts Spider-Man.
It was during this period that Todd MacFarlane became a superstar. This allowed him in 1990 to make a statement that he was ready to start his own project. He simply called him "Spider-Man." The full edition of Todd MacFarlane today is a real rarity.
The first issue sold an incredible circulation of two and a half million copies. A certain role in this was played by the fact that the first issue appeared under several different covers. This encouraged collectors and fans to buy all the variations, despite the fact that there was a story under the cover that they had already read.
In the first 16 issues, other characters from popular comics also took part. For example, Ghost Rider and Wolverine. After the 16th edition, the series was interrupted due to the fact that McFarlane had a conflict with Danny Fingereret, who became his new editor.
Conflict with the editor
Several artists were involved in the conflict at once. As a result, 6 leading employees left Marvel. Together they founded their own, the so-called umbrella company, in which each of them owned a separate publishing house.
The studio in which the hero of our article worked, released a comic called "Spawn." Todd MacFarlane’s books sold over a million and a half copies. Until now, he remains the first in terms of the number of print runs of independent comics.
Spawn
Todd McFarlane’s Spawn series was released in 1992. At first, he was both a screenwriter and an artist in her. He later involved Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Frank Miller and Dave Sim in collaboration. He began to actively illustrate their scripts.
With the 21 series, McFarlane returns to independent work. But at the beginning of issue 26, a new artist appears, Greg Capullo. Todd himself is concentrating on the scripts at this time. This distribution of responsibilities continues until the 70th issue.
Over time, the text of the comic book began to be written by third-party authors. MacFarlane only watched how the main plot develops. At the same time, the series remained very popular.
In 2006, the comic transformed and began to appear under the name "Spawn and Batman." MacFarlane was a screenwriter in this project, and Capullo an artist. Their creative tandem worked very successfully.
Starting with the 191th issue, the hero of our article returns to the duties of a screenwriter.
Own company
He called his own comic book company Todd McFarlane Productions. She was engaged in the release of the spin-off "Spawn". But at the same time, she did not specialize solely in comics, trying to learn how to earn money in other areas. For example, selling T-shirts with superheroes. Over time, MacFarlane pays more attention to such third-party projects. It is interesting to the consumer and brings good profit.
In 1994, he created a company that launched a line of detailed Spawn figurines on the market. She redrawn the entire industry, which before that was aimed exclusively at children and adolescents. McFarlane’s products are also becoming interested in adults.
The company also began to produce figurines of famous players of the four most popular sports in America. This is baseball, soccer, hockey and basketball. Over time, the characters of popular films appeared - "The Matrix", "Terminator", "Shrek". And even collectible figures of rock musicians - Jim Hendrix, Jim Morrison.
In 1996, McFarlane created a film studio that released the film "Spawn." The director is Mark Dippe. The main roles were played by John Leguizamo, Michael J. White and Martin Sheen.
Another achievement of the film studio was the animated series "Todd McFarlane's Spawn," which won two Emmy Awards.
Artist Style
Many say that Todd McFarlane's Spider-Man, like many other author comics, is drawn in a unique original style.
MacFarlane was inspired by Japanese manga. Therefore, it is characterized by an uncharacteristic arrangement of panels, too frequent use of close-ups, as well as high detail of everything that happens.
There were also many critics of his style who noted that the artist does not know much about human anatomy, which is very noticeable. And the arrangement of the panels is not always clear.
Over time, Macfarlane has a large number of imitators. It was his approach to creating comics that largely determined the development of this genre for many years.