It’s been 33 years since Todd McFarlane spawned a revolution in independent publishing by co-founding Image Comics, and the passage of time has done nothing to dull his razor-sharp observations on the multimedia entertainment and collectible toy industries he continues to influence today. Here’s a small slice of my recent conversation with the legendary artist/entrepreneur ahead of McFarlane’s four-day appearance at this weekend’s MegaCon, highlighting Todd’s takes on:
Creating his iconic superhero Spawn at age 16:
I was an incessant doodler, “best artist in the class” kid. That was true since I was 5, [but] I had no direction [until] about 16. I had a buddy who collected comic books, and I looked at them, and then I was just sort of smitten on the spot. … I started teaching myself how to draw. Besides doing Superman, Batman and Spider-Man, I was also coming up with my own characters along the way. One of them, which was my favorite back then, was this character called Spawn.
I was sending in my samples to truly try and become a professional in my early 20s, when I’m in college. At that point, I had done enough reading on the industry to know that the history of how they treated creators was not as smooth as it should have been. And so when I finally did break in, I had a rule in the back of my head: Don’t give them anything that you created prior to this day. So I just kept [my Spawn drawings]; I didn’t know that I’d pull them out five, 10 years later.
Making a superhero Black in the 1990s:
[During] my time at Marvel and DC, I became aware of, “Why is everybody just sort of a good-looking white dude?” … So when I started Spawn, I just go, “Why can’t there be potentially a superhero that someday may be the equivalent to some of these bigger heroes, but just happens to have a different pigmentation on his skin?”
I didn’t lean into it because I had no experience of what that life meant. I just wanted to do a hero, plain and simple, and make them cool and bad-ass.
Changes in toy consumers:
When I started my company way back when (about 1994) the vast, vast, vast majority of toys were bought for 6- or 7-year-olds by their mothers. … Today, the 14-and-older category is the No. 1 category. The biggest segment of the pie for retail sales is for basically people like you and I, and a bunch of people that are going to be at Orlando MegaCon — geeks — who are buying it.
I think toys [today] are no different to an adult for the most part than them wearing a hat or a T-shirt with a logo on it. You wear stuff on your shirt and on your hat that basically tells what band you like or what TV show you like. … It just becomes a conversation piece.
The mainstreaming of “geek” culture:
Everybody is a geek at some point, whether it’s anime or movies or video games. Everybody has their geek — and if you don’t think that you do, let me take you to MegaCon for a day, and let me see if your eyes don’t flutter because you see something that reminds you of your childhood.
It’s like when you hear a song and it shoots you back to a time that puts a smile on your face. That’s what a lot of geekdom does, too. It just puts a smile on our face, and it brings us happier times, both today and from things we remember in the past. It’s either that, or we could dwell on the negative; better to have a smile than a frown.
Epic Universe’s reboot of Universal’s classic monsters:
I grew up with them, and I like all of them, especially the Creature From the Black Lagoon; he’s my fave. I think, though, that trying to refresh things that are from that era are more difficult than just trying to come up with a new version of it. Because if you ask most kids that are 15 to 25 “What’s your favorite horror shows?,” almost all of them are going to mention something that came out probably in the last five to six years. They’re not going to say … Bela Lugosi, they’re not going to go back there. That’s mom and dad’s stuff.
Originality versus creativity:
You don’t have to invent the mousetrap. You just have to make the mousetrap a little bit better. I don’t think I’ve done anything wholly original in my entire life, because we don’t live in a vacuum. What I’ve done that’s been very successful [is] that I’ve taken what was already existing — comic books, [toys] — and go, “How do we just make them slicker and cooler and better?” … I believe this to be true: If you can add 5 percent, 8 percent to something that exists, you will get 50 percent credit for it.
Competing against major toy manufacturers:
The value that I have when I’m talking to Target [and] Walmart, is that I can do things and maneuver and give them answers and put things into production at lightning speed, compared to these big, giant corporations who have to have 44 meetings before they can basically decide on one thing. By the time they even schedule the first meeting, I’m already in production.
They’re the giants, they’re Godzilla. And yet, I’ve had space for 30 years. Why? Because they’re not delivering in areas that matter. … Cool, all right, I’ll be that guy. You guys do your big stuff, you guys go and make your billions. I’ll be quite content to make my millions.
Spawn’s long-awaited next movie:
I’ve gotten to the point where I just go, I’m done talking until I’ve actually got something solid. But a piece of email did come through last night. So we’ll see where that all leads to …
His lottery for free autographs at MegaCon:
I’ve been afforded a very good life for me and my family [and] in great part, it’s because of the people who have been supporting me, who have given me their hard-earned dollars [for] 10, 20, potentially 30 years — I’ve been in the industry for 40 years now — I owe them a thank-you for giving me a good life, and the least I can do at a show is to say, here’s an autograph for all the support you’ve shown me and my family.
Hosting a panel about Daredevil with Frank Miller:
I know Frank better than some other people, but I would apply this to James Cameron and Steven Spielberg, who I’ve met and been behind closed doors with: When you get them alone, just you and them, we both turn into 10-year-old boys. Everybody reverts to their inner child, which I think is the reason for some of our success. As a matter of fact, it might be most of our success: We haven’t given into the indulgences of just being an adult. Frank can be charming and childish, and the other piece of it — which is why I sort of adore Frank — he can also be a fighter and a warrior.
My relationship with Frank goes back probably 30 years, and so I don’t know if this supposed to be a Daredevil panel, but if Frank and I are on the stage, I’m guessing it’s gonna veer a little bit. It might actually veer a lot, once we start getting into the old war stories that we have to tell. Frank’s a pretty good storyteller himself.
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This article appears in Feb 5-11, 2025.