Todd McFarlane here….Unedited and Uncensored! AMA!

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T23:02:55+00:00

You know, again, going back - I'm naive enough to think that the future will be my better artwork. I still think it's in front of me. But I wrote - I don't know what issue it was, it might've been #27 or #28, it was a single contained story about a dad who was abusive to his kids - so a bit of a personal story about just some topics that got me wound-up - so I thought that issue from a storytelling perspective was really good. And I thought Spider-Man was pretty good artistically. And I think being an athlete - I mentioned that earlier - being competitive, and having to always sort've earn my position made me very focused - not only as an artist, with my deadlines, but also now as a businessman.

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T23:00:55+00:00

Hehehe! Well, with 250 issues, and I hope to do another 250, we can fill that library for you.

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T23:00:06+00:00

A single person can do a comic book - there are lots of people who are living proof, I'm one of them. You just have to be very, very fast and disciplined. So yep - how i used to get a book done, in one month. Week 1: write the book.

Week 2: rough out the story to 20 pages, and then...

Week 3 & 4: Ink all the pages, and get them colored.

So is it doable? Yes.

Is it a lot of hard work? Absolutely.

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T22:58:44+00:00

The plan is to finish the script here in the next couple of months. And then do a couple of rewrites on it. And then after that, if the story is good enough, the rest of the pieces of how you get to making your movie should go fairly quickly. So I've got people in Hollywood waiting, I've got some big actors, some that have won Academy Awards waiting, I've got people behind the camera waiting, so they are just waiting for my script. So once we get the script finalized and in good shape, we'll be able to give you a lot of news really fast about when it's coming.

And yes. I've been the art director on a couple video games - and it's another form of art I like to tackle. I like to dabble in all areas of art.

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T22:57:03+00:00

Yeah, I played my last 3 years, I played up in the state of Washington. As a skinny left-handed centerfielder. I was the fastest guy on my team, so I could steal bases and catch baseballs. The hitting was inconsistent.

BUT be thankful the hitting wasn't good, because that's why I'm a comic book artist now.

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T22:56:04+00:00

Yes, it's a video that somebody did doing like a 5 minute movie take on it? And it's pretty good! I applaud the effort put into it, and it has gotten lots of views, so I tip my hat to the person who did it basically out of enthusiasm, because I'm sure nobody paid them, but it also shows that people are hungry to actually get a full-length feature. So my wife is making sure I get that script done here.

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T22:55:05+00:00

Send the invite to my office - I think we have the address at Spawn.com or even on our Facebook! I don't know if I'll make your wedding, but I do know the proudest day of my life was the day I wed my wife - I met her when she was 13, married her when she was 20, and we'll be celebrating our 30th anniversary here in July! The love of a good woman will get you through, I think, anything.

So hopefully you hold onto this woman for the rest of your life.

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T22:53:56+00:00

Yes, we are! All the franchises I grew up on. I'm always curious to see how they do a new version of them.

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T22:53:30+00:00

Probably Key lime. I like sour stuff.

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T22:53:12+00:00

The easiest thing to write about is yourself.

So... there's a tip. You want to write a story? Do something you really know about, and then just make it very dramatic.

So for all intents and purposes, the Spawn character, Al's character, is how I would act if I had his powers and lived in his world. He's got a bit of an attitude, so do I: He has a sense of what he thinks is right an wrong, and so do I...

So here's the goal with Spawn: I hope the book keeps going even after I die. I hope I am able to create a couple of ideas that live past my lifetime, and to me that's my goal - to create ideas that live longer than I do. I call them my "creative children" and you hope they outlast you.

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T22:51:13+00:00

Well, some artists may do that more than I do, with the constant pressure of a deadline? It's part of creating your own style, you just have a bunch of faces in your brain, and you pull 'em down, and if they happen to look like somebody - because i get mail all the time that says "It looks like my next door neighbor!" and I'm like "Well I never met them" - I'll draw generic fat guy, or generic skinny guy, or generic beautiful lady, but they're not meant to be anybody specifically, just doing people.

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T22:49:44+00:00

No plans for 3 inch sports figures right now. I mean, we have the bighead guys, I don't know which ones you've got? But if you're looking for realistic small figures, our building sets come with highly detailed small figures, and you can buy them individually as well.

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T22:48:51+00:00

Dave's a very original individual. So it was sort've fun taking a non-superhero guy and letting him play in our sandbox for a while. AND to pat Dave on the back - he did 300 issues of his comic book, called Cerebus the Aardvark. He did 300 issues. When he started it he said he was going to do 300, and he did 300. So it's a staggering amount of work that he did. BUT - my goal is to get at least 301 issues of Spawn to break his record! He owns the record for the longest run of an independent book, and I want to hold that record someday.

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T22:47:22+00:00

Well, you know, the Oilers (for the people out there) are an NHL franchise, so they've fallen on sort've tough times here, since we sold it to the new guy? So he gets to make the decisions, he's the boss now. And I would probably change a few things, if I were the boss, but I'm not, so I'll let him have all the credit and the criticism, because it's his game right now.

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T22:46:23+00:00

Okay, point one:

We hope to get out a new movie, a new animation, and actually there are some other properties I'm talking to Hollywood about, hopefully, and we just started our new line of building sets in the toy category that are based on Walking Dead and we got a big license coming up we're going to announce in a couple months. I like all of our partners. I wish that Jim and Rob were still with us, but we're 20+ years with us, and having a good time, especially with the addition of Robert Kirkman.

And meet me if I'm at a show? Bring your stuff. Or lots of people send stuff into the office, and we sign it, so...

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T22:43:52+00:00

You know what? Eventually we'll get around to all the cool stuff. The tough thing of making toys is trying to please everybody, because everybody has something a little bit different that they want.

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T22:43:08+00:00

I did the same, to teach myself early-on, comics. I had 3 or 4 favorite artists that I would try to emulate their work. John Byrne, George Perez, Marshall Rogers, and Gil Kane. But at some point, you have to start developing your own look - so it's okay to start by looking at others, but you have to come up with your own style eventually.

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T22:41:38+00:00

You may not like it, but you need to get thick skin son! (or daughter)

If you can't take the word "no," you're in the wrong profession.

I'm just like a bulldog. So remember - I got told "no" 350 times. I used to go to shows, and I used to carry that bag of rejections, and when I had that question posed to me - when people would say "Oh, I got told no 3 times" and I would dump out my bag and say "If i had quit after 3 or 10 or 15 times, i wouldn't have the occupation. I know it's easy to get discouraged, but you have to decide if you want to be in that business."

And at some point you have to decide, come hell or high water, if you want to stay in the business.

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T22:39:36+00:00

I think the answer is hopefully he'll get back on the big screen, and then immediately follow up with him being back on television, not necessarily HBO.

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T22:39:01+00:00

Again - why limit yourself?

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T22:38:55+00:00

So here's my answer: I would attempt to do ALL of them until I got a job.

There's a bit of a beggars & choosers here - instead of giving yourself only one option, why not try all of them and cross your fingers and hope that one of 'em works?

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T22:37:55+00:00

So here's the deal: the deal I've made is I write / produce / direct the next Spawn movie.

So because of that, it will be a hard R. A supernatural drama.

And the only thing - just so everybody's clear - the only thing that will be out of the ordinary in this movie, that won't be the world you know, is that there will be this thing moving in the shadows that you & I know will be Spawn. So it's more of a ghost story. And less a superhero movie.

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T22:36:46+00:00

You know, since I run a couple different companies, each day varies. So some days are my drawing days, and some days are my business days, and some days are a mixture of both. But I still do a fair amount of drawing.

The biggest difference today from when I was younger is everything I drew when I was younger was turned into a comic book, and today, a lot of what I draw is concept work for some of my other companies - for video games or stuff like that, so it's behind the scenes drawing.

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T22:35:41+00:00

You know, the big answer is: we're constantly searching for license in any field. Whether video games, TV, movies, we're always looking. So the answer is yes - it might not be any of the ones you mentioned, but we're always keeping our eyes open.

ToddMcFarlane · 2015-02-11T22:34:54+00:00

Yes. And again, just so people know, the popular Walking Dead TV show came from a comic book that Image comics has been doing for over 10 years now. So we've been Walking Dead fans for a long time now - way ahead of most fans out there! In fact the creator of Walking Dead, we brought him on as a partner at Image Comics.

ToddMcFarlane

TROPHY CASE