Todd McFarlane

At 63 years old, Todd McFarlane physical status not available right now. We will update Todd McFarlane's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

While still in college, McFarlane began sending 30–40 packages of submissions each month to comics editors, totaling over 700 submissions after a year and a half, most of which were in the form of pinups. Half resulted in no response, while the other half resulted in rejection letters, though he received some constructive criticism from a few editors. One of them, DC Comics' Sal Amendola, gave McFarlane a dummy script in order to gauge McFarlane's page-to-page storytelling ability. Amendola's advice that McFarlane's submissions needed to focus page-to-page stories rather than pinups led McFarlane to create a five-page Coyote sample that he initially sent to Uncanny X-Men editor Ann Nocenti at Marvel Comics, who passed it along to Archie Goodwin and Jo Duffy, the editors of the Marvel imprint Epic Comics, which published Coyote. They in turn passed it onto Coyote creator Steve Englehart, who called McFarlane to offer McFarlane his first comic job, a 1984 backup story in Coyote.

McFarlane soon began drawing for both DC and Marvel, with his first major body of work being a two-year run (1985–1987) on DC's Infinity, Inc. In 1987, McFarlane illustrated the last three issues of Detective Comics' four-issue "Batman: Year Two" storyline. From there, he moved to Marvel's Incredible Hulk, which he drew from 1987 to 1988, working with writer Peter David.

In 1988, McFarlane joined writer David Michelinie on Marvel's The Amazing Spider-Man, beginning with issue 298, drawing the preliminary sketch for that cover's image on the back of one of his Incredible Hulk pages. McFarlane garnered notice for the more dynamic poses in which he depicted Spider-Man's aerial web-swinging, his enlarging of the eyes on the character's mask, and greater detail in which he rendered his artwork. In particular was the elaborate detail he gave to Spider-Man's webbing. Whereas it had essentially been rendered as a series of Xs between two lines, McFarlane embellished it by detailing far more individual strands, which came to be dubbed "spaghetti webbing". McFarlane drew the first full appearance of Eddie Brock, the original incarnation of the villain Venom. He has been credited as the character's co-creator, though this has been a topic of dispute within the comic book industry (see Eddie Brock: Creation and conception).

McFarlane's work on Amazing Spider-Man made him an industry superstar. His cover art for Amazing Spider-Man No. 313, for which he was originally paid $700 in 1989, for example, would later sell for $71,200 in 2010. One critic of McFarlane's detail-heavy style was Comics Journal editor Gary Groth, who said of McFarlane in a 2017 interview, "He doesn't have any authentic virtues as a visual stylist. His work is so overembellished that it disguised the fact that the composition is chaotic and cluttered to the point of being almost unreadable. He never really learned the craft of comics — he just faked it really well."

During his run on The Amazing Spider-Man, McFarlane became increasingly dissatisfied with the lack of control over his own work, as he wanted more say in the direction of storylines. He began to miss deadlines, requiring guest artists to fill-in for him on some issues. In 1990, after a 28-issue run of Amazing Spider-Man, McFarlane told editor Jim Salicrup that he wanted to write his own stories, and would be leaving the book with issue No. 328, which was part of that year's company-wide "Acts of Vengeance" crossover storyline. In July 2012 the original artwork to that issue's cover, which features Spider-Man dispatching the Hulk, sold for a record-breaking $657,250 USD, the highest auction price ever for any piece of American comic book art. McFarlane was succeeded on Amazing Spider-Man by McFarlane's future fellow Image Comics co-founder Erik Larsen.

Wanting to appease McFarlane, Marvel gave McFarlane a new, adjectiveless Spider-Man title for him to both write and draw. Spider-Man #1 (August 1990) sold 2.5 million copies, largely due to the variant covers with which Marvel, seeking to capitalize on McFarlane's popularity, published the issue in order to encourage collectors into buying more than one edition. This practice was a result of the comics speculator bubble of the 1990s, which would burst later that decade. McFarlane, unbeknownst to his parents at the time, was making about a million dollars a year. McFarlane wrote and illustrated 15 of the series' first 16 issues, many issues of which featured other popular Marvel characters such as Wolverine and Ghost Rider in guest roles.

Despite his acclaim as an artist, according to David Wallace of Comics Bulletin, many found McFarlane's writing to be "clumsy, unsophisticated and pretentious", and questioned the wisdom of allowing him to write a new Spider-Man title in the first place. At the same time, editorial had problems with the dark tone of the stories McFarlane was telling, beginning with the inaugural "Torment" storyline, which depicted a more vicious version of the reptilian villain Lizard under the control of the voodoo priestess Calypso. Subsequent storylines such as "Masques" featured Spider-Man confronting the demonic Hobgoblin, while "Perceptions", which involved Spider-Man dealing with police corruption, child rape and murder (a hint of the work he would later do on Spawn), led some stores to refuse to stock the book. This created further tensions between McFarlane and editorial, which viewed Spider-Man as an historically light-hearted character marketed to young readers. Editor Jim Salicrup in particular was required to make a number of compromises for McFarlane's work, including enforcing McFarlane's minor costume changes across the entire line of other Spidey comics, placing limitations on his choice of villains for his stories, and dealing with strong disagreement on the handling of the character Mary Jane Watson. This strained McFarlane's relationship with Salicrup, which was expressed in the remarkable amount of public disagreement that appeared in the book's letters page. Eventually McFarlane's attention to his deadlines again began to waiver, and he missed issue 15 of the title. His final issue on the book, #16 (November 1991), was part of a crossover storyline with X-Force, and led to creative clashes with new editor Danny Fingeroth. According to McFarlane and editor Tom DeFalco in the 2000 documentary The Devil You Know: Inside the Mind of Todd McFarlane, among the examples of the issues that prompted his departure were editorial's censorship of a panel in that issue in which the character Juggernaut was graphically stabbed in the eye with a sword. DeFalco supported the editing of the panel, calling it "inappropriate", while McFarlane called this "lunacy", arguing that such graphic visuals are commonplace in Marvel's books. Fed up with editorial interference, he left the company under something of a cloud. In the words of David Wallace of Comics Bulletin, "McFarlane's fifteen issues of Spider-Man are now (perhaps slightly unfairly) held up alongside the likes of X-Force as the epitome of everything that was wrong in 1990s comics, and their cash-in approach to the then-booming speculator market precipitated the near-collapse of the industry."

McFarlane then teamed with six other popular artists to form Image Comics, an umbrella company under which each owned a publishing house. McFarlane's studio, Todd McFarlane Productions, published his creation, the occult-themed Spawn, written and drawn by McFarlane. It was Image's second release, following the release of Rob Liefeld's Youngblood the month prior. Upon its release in 1992, Spawn #1 (May 1992) sold 1.7 million copies, still a record for an independent comic book.

Responding to harsh criticism of his abilities as a writer, McFarlane hired acclaimed writers to guest-write issues #8–11, including Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Dave Sim, and Frank Miller. Subsequent writers he would hire on the series included Grant Morrison, Andrew Grossberg, and Tom Orzechowski. Greg Capullo penciled several issues as a guest artist, and became the regular penciler with #26, with McFarlane remaining as writer and inker until #70. The series continued to be a hit, and in 1993 Wizard declared Spawn "the best-selling comic on a consistent basis that is currently being published." Spawn is notable for being one of only two Image books that debuted during the company's 1992 launch, along with Erik Larsen's Savage Dragon, that continued to be published into the 2020s.

During Image's early years of operation, the company was subject to much industry criticism over aspects of its business practices, including late-shipped books, and its creators' emphasis of art over writing. One of these critics was McFarlane's former Hulk collaborator, writer Peter David. This came to a head during a public debate they participated in at Philadelphia's Comicfest convention in October 1993, which was moderated by artist George Pérez. McFarlane stated that Image was not being treated fairly by the media, and by David in particular. The three judges, Maggie Thompson, editor of the Comics Buyer's Guide, William Christensen of Wizard Press, and John Danovich of the magazine Hero Illustrated, voted 2–1 in favor of David, with Danovich voting the debate a tie.

In 1994 McFarlane and DC Comics collaborated on an intercompany crossover, each producing a book featuring Batman and Spawn. The first of the two books, Batman-Spawn: War Devil was written by Doug Moench, Chuck Dixon, and Alan Grant, drawn by Klaus Janson, and published by DC. It was followed by Spawn/Batman, which was written by Frank Miller and drawn by McFarlane. That year marked the point when McFarlane ceased to be the regular writer and artist of Spawn. The first issue that he did not draw was issue 16, which was drawn by Greg Capullo. Aside from the four fill-in writers on issues #8–11, it was the first issue on which McFarlane was not the regular writer, as it was the first of a three-issue storyline written by Grant Morrison. Over the course of the ensuing decades, he would hire other writers such as Brian Holguin and David Hine, and artists such as Whilce Portacio, Angel Medina, and Philip Tan. McFarlane occasionally offered story input and inked covers. He would sporadically return as the interior artist for intermittent issues, and for a few years wrote it under a pseudonym in order to generate interest in the book by fostering the illusion that new talent was being brought into the book's production.

In 2006 McFarlane announced plans for Spawn/Batman with artist Greg Capullo, which McFarlane wrote and inked, which paid tribute to Jack Kirby. He also began taking an active role in comics publishing again, publishing collections of his Spawn comics in trade paperback form. Spawn Collection Volume 1 collecting issues 1–12 minus issue 9 (due to royalty issues with Neil Gaiman) and 10 (due to a vow he made to Sim) was released in December 2005. The first volume achieved moderate success, ranking 17 in the top one hundred graphic novels, with pre-order sales of 3,227 for that period.

In 2008, McFarlane returned to co-plot the series with returning writer Brian Holguin, with issue 185. The book survived the comics speculator bubble's crash, but its sales have fluctuated, never matching the sales figures of the 1990s. Though it continues publication, its appearance on the Diamond Top 300 chart has been intermittent since the mid-2000s. Nonetheless, Shea Hennum of Paste magazine has observed of the series, "It's a book that, for a time, people continued to buy because of the character instead of the creator. It has become as much of an institution as it is a comic.

Haunt, an ongoing series co-created by McFarlane and Robert Kirkman, was announced in 2007 and launched on October 7, 2009. The comic was initially written by Kirkman, penciled by Ryan Ottley, and inked by McFarlane, with Greg Capullo providing layouts. McFarlane contributed pencils to some issues, and co-wrote issue 28, the series finale, with Joe Casey, who took over writing duties from Kirkman.

In 2019, McFarlane wrote and drew Spawn #301, surpassing Dave Sim's 300-issue series Cerebus as the longest-running creator-owned comics series. The book, whose release date is October 2 of that year, earned McFarlane a place in the Guinness World Records, for which McFarlane was given a certificate on October 5, 2019 at the New York Comic Con prior to his panel, "The Road to Historic Spawn 300 and 301."

At San Diego Comic-Con 2022, it was announced that McFarlane would write a new Batman/Spawn crossover, with Greg Capullo as artist, and a release date of December 2022.

Todd McFarlane Productions published multiple Spawn spin-offs and mini-series. He increasingly concentrated his own personal attention to those other ventures, which resulted in more sporadic work as an illustrator. In 1994, McFarlane created a toy company, Todd Toys, initially to merchandise collectible action figures of the Spawn characters. In three months, the company sold more than 2.2 million of the action figures nationwide. After Mattel sent a cease-and-desist order on the basis of a male doll in Mattel's Barbie line named Todd, McFarlane changed the company name to McFarlane Toys. The company's line of figures quickly expanded to those of popular cultural icons, such as members of the band Kiss, characters from the film franchise Texas Chainsaw Massacre, TV series such as The X-Files, and sports figures such as Terrell Owens. In 1999, the company sold over 6 million action figures. As of 2017, the company was fifth-largest action-figure manufacturer in the United States.

Todd McFarlane produced the album art for Iced Earth's 1996 Spawn-based concept album The Dark Saga and Korn's 1998 third studio album Follow the Leader.

That same year, McFarlane founded Todd McFarlane Entertainment, a film and animation studio. In collaboration with New Line Cinema, it produced the 1997 Spawn film and a new Spawn movie, planned in 2008. Spawn, while critically panned, was a modest box office success, earning $54.8 million domestically, and almost $33 million worldwide, against a $40 million budget. Todd McFarlane Entertainment also produced the animated series Todd McFarlane's Spawn, (featuring voice work by actor Keith David) which aired on HBO from 1997 until 1999. Ed Bark of The Dallas Morning News called the series a "very unpleasant viewing experience" and asked "why anyone would want to subject themselves to such a relentlessly grim, gruesome dehumanizing experience." Nonetheless, the animated series won a 1998 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Animation.

The studio produced a number of music videos and other animations, including:

In October 2003 saw the release of the Swollen Members album Heavy, with Canadian and international covers that were both illustrated by McFarlane.

On July 21, 2011, at San Diego Comic-Con International, McFarlane and Stan Lee debuted their new comic, Blood Red Dragon. The series is a collaboration with musician Yoshiki and stars a fictionalized version of him.

McFarlane and Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling formed the gaming studio 38 Studios (formerly Green Monster Games), in order to produce role-playing games, with McFarlane overseeing art direction.

In February 2012, the company released its only title, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, a single-player action role-playing game that was a moderate success, but by late May 2012, the company had ceased operation, due to financial difficulties for which it had filed for bankruptcy.

McFarlane was one of several artists to illustrate a variant cover for Kirkman's The Walking Dead No. 100, which was released July 11, 2012 at the San Diego Comic-Con.

In July 2017, Blumhouse Productions announced McFarlane would direct a reboot of the 1997 film Spawn. McFarlane had by then written a first-draft script. In May 2018, it was announced that Jamie Foxx would portray the titular character. In July 2018, it was reported that Jeremy Renner would be starring alongside Foxx as Detective Twitch. On October 25, 2018, filming was set to begin in June 2019, but was eventually delayed to a later date. In August 2021, it was reported that Broken City screenwriter Brian Tucker had been hired to rewrite McFarlane's screenplay. In October 2022, The Hollywood Reporter stated that Scott Silver, Malcolm Spellman, and Matthew Mixom had been hired to pen a new draft on the screenplay, and that Renner's continuede involvement depended on the new draft's outcome. McFarlane expressed doubts about directing the film himself.

In November 2021, McFarlane launched a dedicated television development and production arm of his McFarlane Films,, which has signed a first-look deal with production company wiip. As of November 2021, the company has three shows in development: a Spawn spin-off Sam & Twitch, stop-motion, animated event series McFarland, and a live-action adaptation of the Sean Lewis comic Thumbs.

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