Todd McFarlane: biography

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

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, Macfarlane became famous at the turn of the 80s and 90s. Then he started working for Marvel. Today, his superhero comics are popular all over the world.

Biography of the screenwriter

Todd McFarlane was born in 1961. He was born in the city of Calgary in the Canadian province of Alberta.

In the beginning of his career, he was actively involved in the creation of comics. The first work that he managed to publish was an additional story in "Coyote". After some time, he was noticed and invited to draw for Marvel.

His first serious project was The Incredible Hulk, which he drew in 1987 and 1988.

Working on "Spider-Man"

1988 was a defining year in Todd McFarlane's career. Together with his fellow screenwriter David Michelinie, he began work on the comic book "The Amazing Spider-Man". This story became one of the most popular in subsequentdecades.

In parallel, the hero of our article created the villain Venom, an alien creature of almost liquid form, which periodically opposes Spider-Man.

It was during this period that Todd McFarlane became a superstar. This allowed him to make a statement in 1990 that he was ready to start his own project. He simply called him "Spider-Man". The Todd McFarlane Complete Edition is a rarity today.

The very 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 came out under several different covers. This encouraged collectors and fans to buy all the variations, despite the fact that under the cover was a story 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 issue, the series was interrupted due to the fact that MacFarlane had a conflict with Danny Fingeret, who became his new editor.

Conflict with editor

Several artists were involved in the conflict at once. As a result, 6 top 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 where the hero of our article worked released a comic called "Spawn". Todd McFarlane's books have sold over a million and a half copies. Until now, it remains the first in the number of circulations.independent comics.

Spawn

The Spawn series by Todd McFarlane was released in 1992. At first, he was both a screenwriter and an artist in it. Later he attracted Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Frank Miller and Dave Sim to cooperate. He began to actively illustrate their scenarios.

From episode 21, McFarlane returns to independent work. But at the beginning of issue 26, a new artist appears, Greg Capullo. Todd himself at this time is concentrating on scripts. This distribution of responsibilities continues until issue 70.

Over time, third-party authors began to write the text of the comic. McFarlane just watched the main story unfold. At the same time, the series remained very popular.

In 2006, the comic was transformed and began to be released under the name "Spawn and Batman". McFarlane was the screenwriter on this project, and Capullo was the artist. Their creative tandem worked very successfully.

Starting from issue 191, the hero of our article returns to the duties of a screenwriter.

Own company

He named his own comic book company Todd McFarlane Productions. She was involved in the release of the spin-off "Spawn". But at the same time, she did not specialize exclusively in comics, trying to learn how to make money in other areas. For example, selling T-shirts with superheroes. Over time, McFarlane pays more and more attention to such side projects. itinteresting to the consumer and brings a good profit.

In 1994, he founds a company that brings to market a line of detailed Spawn figurines. She reshaped the entire industry, which until then was aimed exclusively at children and adolescents. Adults also became interested in McFarlane's products.

The company also began to produce figurines of famous players of the four most popular sports in America. These are baseball, football, hockey and basketball. Over time, the characters of popular films appeared - "The Matrix", "Terminator", "Shrek". And even collectible figurines of rock musicians - Jim Hendrix, Jim Morrison.

In 1996, MacFarlane creates a film studio that releases the film "Spawn". Directed by Mark Dippe. Starring John Leguizamo, Michael Jai 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 people note that Todd McFarlane's Spider-Man, like many other comics of the author, 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 did not know human anatomy well, which is very noticeable. And the order of the panels is not always clear.

Over time,McFarlane has a large number of imitators. It was his approach to creating comics that largely determined the development of this genre for many years.