In 2022, Spawn is bigger than ever. We sat down to talk to the iconic anti-hero's creator, Todd McFarlane, at this year's San Diego Comic-Con.
Whether it's the record-breaking success of King Spawn, or the exciting prospect of new stories focused on the breakout character gunslinger Spawn, it's never been a better time to be a fan of Image Comics' most famous superhero. Building on that hype, there was a new crossover between Spawn and Batman announced at this year's Comic-Con. In addition to that, McFarlane also hyped up his upcoming collaboration with rock-icon Ozzy Osbourne.
With the return of Comic-Con after a two-year absence, Screen Rant spoke to McFarlane about Spawn's thematic core, his legacy, and what it means to hit so many milestones with the character and franchise.
How are you doing? How's your Comic Con going?
Todd McFarlane: Evan, here's what I just heard before I came here. This is your first interview, right? First off, congratulations. This is like watching the first Michael Jordan game. You didn't know he was going to be a superstar years later. So, we get to see your rookie appearance first appearance right here. So, thanks for letting me be your first one.
Thank you so much! You've often been heralded as the comics industry’s first, real rock star, creator. How do you feel about that legacy?
Todd McFarlane: I think there's a group of us that came up, so it wasn't exclusive to me. Part of it was that there was a magazine called Wizard Magazine that came out. This is all predates the internet. And the thing that sort of changed the game at that point was they had a list of the top 10, top 10 writers inkers, colors, pencilers, whatever, right? And then they put our photos next to our names. Before in comic books, everybody was sort of faceless. You knew the names because they had the credit, but here, they actually started putting our faces so people would recognize us. And then, when the sales of our books were going up, all of a sudden knowing who the creators were and what they looked like, people would recognize you, especially at Comic-Cons. I mean, it happened to a lot of us.
With that label of rock star, it makes sense that you're collaborating with someone like Ozzy Osbourne. Can you speak a little about that collaboration?
Todd McFarlane: Ozzy? I mean, the man's in the 70s, and he's still doing it. I've always said, anybody that can pick a profession and have a 30, 40, or 50-year career - at that point I don't debate whether they're good or not, whether I like them or not. I tip my hat, because I know how hard it is personally to be relevant for decade after decade after decade. There's no easy way to get there.
People like Ozzy and the Rolling Stones, right? We can debate whether you like their music, or whether they're the best at what they do, but they've survived in a shark-infested industry for decades. Most people come into the music industry and they pop and then they're gone. So to see that Ozzy is still doing it at 73 is huge.
It appears that kind of rock music was influential to Spawn. What about that, about that kind of music and stuff spoke to you?
Todd McFarlane: I would disagree with your assertion. I didn't really pay attention to music growing up, though my brothers did. I'm sort of weird in that the music I like is like soft music in the background so that you and I can have a conversation. I don't need something in my head. The only music I’ve listened to intentionally is, if I'm writing, I put on scores from movies that have no words in it. So I just sort of get lost in sound as I'm typing words, because I don't want to hear words while I'm typing words. The artwork is way more just being a dude, having brothers, being competitive, and just having a lot of energy. So I just poured all of that onto the pages.
There were plenty of days I was in a room all by myself. There is no social media or anything. And you have to entertain yourself. Right? I think I don't think people realize that making comic books is like being a novelist. You just you go into the room and you say, Hey, don't bug me for 10 hours, and you get it done. So how do you entertain yourself in those 10 hours? I had some friends, when they draw they have the TV on or they listen to the radio or whatever.
For me, I just sit there and just think about what would be cool. So almost everything I've done drawing was to get me through that ten-hour day. I never asked anybody permission, I just thought wouldn't it be cool if Spider Man looked like this? Wouldn't it be cool if I put them in a pose like this? Wouldn't it be cool if I sort of made his webs look like this? Wouldn't it be cool if I did this with Mary Jane. Luckily, some of those changes were a little bit dramatic because I thought that artistically, some of the characters I worked on, had been repeating the same tricks. Instead of updating over the decades, it was sort of everybody repeating something. So then I go, “Well, why don't we update it?” So it was a big jump, and people will notice that. Luckily, not only did they notice that, but they liked it.
Spawn definitely isn’t as static as other comic characters, especially from the big two.
Todd McFarlane: I've always said that spine was sort of like Batman not owned by corporate America. This is gonna sound egotistical, but whenever I work on Spawn, I just go, what would I do? Because I'm just like, I don't give a s--- about a lot of stuff. I can just go up against big corporations and I don't care. I don't want to be pushed around. The metaphors in Spawn are Heaven and Hell because I was like, “What's the biggest ideas I can come up with?”
We're taught as a young age that good and evil, that's where they're at. So, to me Heaven and Hell are just sort of metaphors for government, or corporate America, or your bosses. It’s people that have authority over you, and the whole plight of Al Simmons, is “I just want to live my life. Just leave me alone. Get out of the way. And let me live my life good, bad or indifferent. I'm a flawed man, I will make 1000 mistake, but I don't need any of you guys influencing any of that.” And that's it. That's all he wants. So it’s just, “If I get rid of you, and I get rid of you, I can just do it.”
It's why I started my own companies. I don't have the personality to be able to take orders. I mean, even in baseball, my coaches go, “Todd, you're pretty un-coachable.” I'm like, “No, I know how to do this, coach!” That mentality has been there for a long time. And I just sort of pour it onto the pages and start corporations.
What do you owe to Spawn's enduring legacy?
Todd McFarlane: This one's easy math. We just sent issue 332 to the printer. So let's do the math real quickly. Write a book a month, 12 a year, for 10 years that's 120 books. For 20 years 240. We're celebrating 30 years, coming up. We're at 330 issues. It's called attrition. You just keep coming out. Good, bad, or indifferent. If I were to map out my sales over the past 30 years, there’d be ups and downs. We're on the upswing right now. You keep coming out, people go “Oh! I've seen that title. I've seen that.” They don't have to buy it, but they've heard the word Spawn. And after decades and decades, all of a sudden, he becomes a staple in the industry.
I don't know that there's anything overly unique about Spawn. I mean, I get to break a lot of the corporate rules. Spawn will kill you if he feels like it. Batman never will and Superman never will. So, I made that abundantly clear, in issue number five of Spawn where he killed the pedophile Billy Kincaid. I just go, this dude will take people out if he needs to. Why? Because I would. If somebody did something to my kid, I’d kill them.
But let me just tell you, there are a lot of good ideas out there. If they had done 300 issues, they would have some of the same success. People at times go, “Todd, you. You're so lucky.” I mean, I've gone nonstop for 30 years. I was on a train to get to San Diego last night and I had to finish writing a script or two in the morning. This morning, I got up and I finished up some paperwork. I don't have to do all that. My career's doing good. I'm making money. But I'm doing it right.
People like Robert Kirkman, he's the same way. I've seen him on airplanes. And he’s's just working away because we've got deadlines, deadlines, deadlines, deadlines. And once you get used to having to put out a book, not only once a month, but now we've got four books so it's once a week, it becomes routine, then people aren't used to it. It's all attrition. That's it.
You mentioned sales and that’s fitting because King Spawn broke some records recently. Did you expect that to be such a breakout, monster hit?
Todd McFarlane: It all began with Spawn #300. We know Spawn #300 is gonna sell, why? Because it's an anniversary book, right? All anniversary books 100, 200, 300, they all sell. We knew we were going to get to 300, but not only was it 300, but it 301 it was going to set a world record to become the longest independent creator-owned book. Previously it was Cerebus at 300 issues. 301 was going to set a record that to me personally mattered more than anything else. So, we began to sort of beat the drums and go, “Hey, can I get people to care about 301 As much as I do?” And we sort of built this momentum towards 300. That works because issue 300 came out in 2019, before the pandemic. Only one other comic book outsold us for the entire year, which was Detective Comics #1000.
Other than that though, we were the next biggest. There was no other DC. There was no other Marvel book. It was mine. Oh, and by the way, 30, the continuation of that book that was a record-setting book, came in at number 11. Just so we're clear, either in the top comic sales of 2019, there was no Marvel or no DC title that had two books that were in the top 11, the only title that had two books on top of one spot. Now, we go to the pandemic, and it's like, everything sort of goes down. I go, “this is a perfect time for me to expand.”
The setup was in issues 300 and 301. So if you look at a couple of those covers, and there was like a bunch of characters, that was just me going, just wait, it's coming. Then King Spawn comes out and sets a record. I can go through each one if we want, but I'll keep it short. King Spawn comes out sets a record. Gunslinger Spawn comes out, sets a record. The Scorched comes out, sets a record which was a team book. Before all that, just a couple of months before all those, Spawn Universe came out and that set an Image Comics record. So we just hit it over and over and over.
I had in my mind what I thought the sales were going to be. They all went way higher than I thought. And we've got an announcement coming on Friday. That is going to be the comic book event of the year, and possibly in terms of sales, could be the highest-selling book of the century, for any comic book company for anything coming out. So Friday, we got the big announcement coming, we're gonna crush it, we're gonna crush it.
Do you ever envision a sort of endpoint for the Spawn mythos?
Todd McFarlane: I originally had the end of Spawn by issue three, so it's still sitting there. I hope that story never gets written. Sometimes I go into Hollywood, and you pitch ideas, not Spawn, but other ideas, and you have these sort of pitches in the goal. So they go, “What's the end of it?” And my answer is, I don’t give a s---. What's the end of Superman? Right? What's the end the Batman? What's the end of Spider-Man? Why are you asking for the end? Why aren't you asking, “Can this last for 30 years?” Like we're talking about the beginning.
The ideal situation, the home run for everybody, is that you create a character, it lasts decades, it's irrelevant, then you drop dead and it still keeps going right. Spider-Man is now going Stan Lee and Steve Ditko unfortunately are not with us. Siegel and Schuster aren’t doing Superman. Walt Disney's not doing Mickey Mouse and Goofy. These characters keep going and that should be the ultimate goal to me. That was always what I wanted for Spawn. Gonna do it till the day I die. And then I hope after I die, whoever takes over does twice the job that I ever did and then people go, “We wish Todd had died earlier if we knew we were gonna get all this stuff.”
Do you have any updates about the Spawn movie?
Todd McFarlane: We were debating whether we were going to make another big announcement at San Diego. So all the parties involved, we sort of went and we debated, “Do we do it here? Or do we do it at New York Comic Con.” But because of the timing on a couple things, and when we're gonna go out and sell, we decided let's just do it in New York. So are we moving? Are we adding pieces? Is it all of the above? Yes.
The best I can say right now, is that things kind of got slowed down during the pandemic, and then picked back up. Especially given that, for a while, the only movies people were going to see during the pandemic were superhero movies other than James Bond. Now you’ve got Maverick and some of the big blockbusters that are coming back to normal. But New York Comic Con is going to be a big announcement.
What do you think is better about the comic industry today versus when you started?
Todd McFarlane: Okay, you're gonna put me on the spot. The thing that's the best is that the talent is as good and as high and as skilled as I've ever seen. I think part of that is because you've got movies now. So comic books are kind of sexy. They weren't when we were doing them, you know, you were sort of a geek. But now everybody sort of knows comic books. And it's a word that doesn't make people shriek. And the internet came along to highlight all this talent that was hidden previously because people were living in different parts of the globe. They're putting their stuff up on their Facebooks, or their Twitter feeds, or their Instagram and you can see it. And you're going, “Oh my gosh!”
I was doing a bunch of work at one point and I had one creative from Korea, one from Russia, and one from Poland. Same thing with the other one was one from Spain. Even now, the artists on King Spawn is in Spain. We've got inkers scattered all over the globe. So that's the upside. When you go down to artist's alley, it is phenomenal. The skill set is phenomenal.
The downside is that, because of the internet, and because you can just do commissions and because you can just go to shows and you can make a ton of money, it's getting harder and harder for me to find artists that want to do a monthly comic book. And so when our generation broke into the industry, Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld, Marc Silvestri, you know, that whole group, we just assumed the goal was to do a monthly book. There were no other options. You couldn't be a cover artist back then. There are lots of people now making a career as cover artists. Good for them. But doing a book and getting 20 pages out every month, boom boom. that's getting harder. So it's there like, “Todd, how much you gonna pay me? I can make that in two weekends at comic book conventions.” And the reality is, I get it, I probably would have made the exact same decision.
Now being old enough though, I'm telling you, that is not going to extend your career and get you to the top level because you're going to be at the marketplace, and you're only as good as the marketplace. So if you go and do what I'm suggesting, spend a couple of years and do monthly comic books and you can make a mark, then when you go back to doing that, then then you can do the exact same thing. But you'll get paid more. I'm not saying this to brag, I'm just saying this is reality.
Most of the guys that I'm going to sit next to in the artist alley, they're going to do a Spider-Man and maybe charge 50 bucks, right? If I wanted to, I could do a Spider-Man and charge 500. So I can do one for every 10 of yours and get the same amount of money, right? I'm working less hard than to you get the same amount of money. And the reason why is because, when we were younger, we made our name and our rep. Now we can basically take advantage of the reputation. So especially from an artist point of view, somebody's going to pay Frank Miller and Greg Capullo, and myself to draw head sketches till the day we die if we want, right? I mean, I could be on a beach and be 92 years old, and somebody's still gonna say, “Hey, Tom, can I get a Venom head?” So that's it. I wish I wish there was more monthly artists out there, but that's because I put up monthly and I bet your DC Marvel would say the same thing.
Has the pandemic impacted your like workflow or your how you work at all?
Todd McFarlane: Let me talk about the pandemic and comic book pros pre-pandemic. Pre-pandemic, we go into our rooms, we sit at our desk and we just did it. Then the pandemic came, and we didn't even know it was here. We we are built for solitude. We were built to be by ourselves. We are built for isolation. That's the job. And now people go, “Oh, my God, I can't be social!” What are you talking about? We got a job this antisocial. I would say comic book people, like we were built for a pandemic, right? Like, if anybody could endure the pandemic, it's us. I know my wife is suffering way more than me, because I'm just doing the same thing I've been doing for 25 year. You want to say it's a pandemic, I haven't even noticed. Because we've worked so hard. So, I think we're good. I think we're just trained for it.
What do you think is the thematic core of Spawn?
Todd McFarlane: It's one line, “I will die a freeman.” Because I hope they put that on my grave. Right? It's like, I'm not saying that the decisions that I and Spawn makes are right or wrong. I'm not saying he's a better hero than anybody else. I'm saying he's a flawed man, and he's gonna make a bunch of stupid decisions just like me. But at the end, he just wants those decisions to have been in his hands. He doesn't want the influence of it. So right now, what's happening in the book is he's locked out of what we call the dead zone. There can't be any more agents from Heaven and Hell coming. Then he's going to hunt them all down, those that are locked down on Earth, he's going to hunt them all down, even it takes him the rest of his life. Because he wants them to just leave humanity alone. Let us mess up on our own. I'm sure we'll blow ourselves up with nuclear bombs and whatever else, we'll get there on our own time. We don't need any of you.
He considers Heaven and Hell to be the exact same thing. I put myself a little bit in there. Just one's got a better PR firm. So you just say, “I don't care about the upstairs influence or the downstairs influence. Just let us have our free will. Live our lives.” And let us create our own happiness. And that's enough, that's all that any of us really want. When you hear people talking at a restaurant and you talk to your friends, most of the negative conversations that they have are because somebody has some kind of power over them. “Oh, my boss. Those people, they're not letting me do this. You know you hear what that guy did on my Instagram?” Somebody said something, and you're giving power away to somebody else. So his whole goal is to just go “I want to be a free man and live my life. Get out of the way.” I'm completely that person. It's easy for me to write. Then you punch people in the face every now and then with spandex so you got to put the comic book part of it.
With characters like Spawn and Venom, antiheroes really seem to be in your wheelhouse. How do you balance their likability with their moral ambiguity?
Todd McFarlane: So let's talk about this weird word antihero. I consider the Boy Scout superheroes to be way more odd than the antihero, right? For me, I don't get it. I've said before that here's the difference between Batman and Spawn, right? Yeah, Joker comes in and kills somebody, and then Batman beats him up, and you send Joker to jail, and then the system can't keep them in jail. So he comes out, and then he kills somebody, then Batman beats him up, and he puts them into jail, and the system can't hold them. And then he comes out and he kills and repeat this over and over and over and over.
I keep going, when's Batman going to realize that there's an easy way to stop the Joker from killing people? Kill him! This is easy. Let me tell you. I've said it before. I've got three kids. And if there was a pedophile, that was touching my kids and all the neighborhood kids, and he kept doing it over and over and over, and our government couldn't keep that guy off the streets? I am telling you, with complete honesty hook me up to the lie detector, me and a couple of dads would go and pay that dude a visit. I don't know where he disappeared to, he would be gone, I would stop him. If the system can't stop the killing, then at some point, you have to take it into your own head. So Spawn is just reacting to that saying, “Oh, there's an easy way for Billy Kincaid not to molest children. I'll just take him out.”
Are you suggesting that Spawn is actually more heroic than someone like Batman?
Todd McFarlane: I’d say he's more human. I'd say that I think that's a way more rational decision-making. After you've seen the results over and over, right, the definition of insanity is thinking that somehow the same results are going to change, right? You could argue that a little bit for Bruce Wayne, and certain superheroes, why don't you just keep giving them back to the system? They're going to keep getting out! Take them out. Take them out. If you take them out, nobody has to suffer at their hands anymore.
Come on guys, it's war! They've committed acts of treason. They're coming into cities and blowing up buildings, right? This is what Dr. Doom does. So this is what the bad guys do. I assume there are people in those buildings and I assume some of them die. That's terrorism. At that point, it's war. In that war, you go and it's either kill or be killed. So you know, Al Simmons is a military man. He's been trained in the military that they're the enemy and it's either they're gonna kill you or you’re gonna kill them.
If I have one regret in life, it's that I wasn't born like 1000 years ago, because 1000 years ago, life was really easy. I have a strong opinion about what I believe in. I hope you do too, and I'm willing to die for it. I've got a sword. You've got a sword. One of us is gonna walk away and one of us is gonna lose our head. And you could do it or I get my head cut off. One or the other. Can't do that anymore. It’s illegal to kill your enemy. Right? It's, frustrating to a guy like me. What you can do is sue them. Take away market shares. Make sure you rip up the contract, and say things like you will never work in this industry. It's not nearly as satisfying as cutting your enemy's head off. So I'm just like, I have a personality that I don't necessarily wish upon anybody else. But it serves me.
I never tell anybody to go “Hey, here's what I do. You should repeat it.” When I talk just like you're asking me a question, I'm telling you about Todd, and nobody else on this planet. I'm not suggesting anybody should be it, but I know how I am. I'm like, “Oh, man, it would have been cool to be on the field and go alright bad guys. Let's go!” And I would have died probably fight number two, I would have been sloppy and everything else but at least I'm willing to die from my convictions. So which is why I start companies? I just go “No. I'm not going to complain about the boss. I'm going to start my own company and I'll be my own boss.”
There are ways that you can solve your own problem. I wouldn't be a very good self-help person, because everybody would come pay 100 bucks and get in and I'd be done in five minutes, and it would go something like this. “Thank you for coming in. Good crowd. Everybody's here. I taped something underneath the chair, I need you to pull it out. Good. Everybody pulled it out. Good. I want you to look at it and good. What do you got? Yeah, it's a god damn mirror. There's 90% of your problems. You keep thinking that it's somebody else.”
You only have dominion over the actions of one human being on the planet and that’s yourself. And you keep thinking that somebody else does. Right. So I don't know, to me, I'm very black and white about a lot of things. I would never complain about how cold it is. Do you know what I would do? I'd move to a warm place. Why b---- about the cold when there are warm places. Move! I would never complain about my haircut. Do you know why? I'll just go get a different cut. I mean, it's just like, you hate the boss then quit the job. But what ends up happening is you keep having conversations and go, "I can't quit the job because I gotta feed my babies." And I go, "I understand all of that. You have to prioritize."
And for me, it's very easy. You take whatever is your priority, you put it number one, and everything else in life is white noise. There is no number two, there's only, "I need to feed my babies." Then if you got to feed your baby, who cares if the boss is good or not? And people are like, "I want a good job where I like my boss." Right? I get it. But it's like, "So what? A billion other people want to have that." So, you just have to pick the one. Once you sort of focus on the one, you can ignore the others very quickly and everything’s just a means to an end. I get food in my kid's mouth. Who cares? The boss wants to yell at me every day, as long as he's giving me a check every two weeks.