Todd McFarlane is a Canadian comic-book creator, artist, writer, filmmaker and entrepreneur, best known for his work as the artist on The Amazing Spider-Man and as the creator, writer, and artist on the superhero horror-fantasy series Spawn, as well as being the current President and a co-founder of Image Comics.
51 Facts About Todd McFarlane
2.
In September 2006, it was announced that Todd McFarlane would be the Art Director of the newly formed 38 Studios, formerly Green Monster Games, founded by major league baseball pitcher Curt Schilling.
3.
Todd McFarlane used to be a co-owner of the National Hockey League's Edmonton Oilers before selling his shares to Daryl Katz.
4.
Todd McFarlane will make his directorial debut with the reboot film, which will star Jamie Foxx.
5.
Todd McFarlane was born on March 16,1961, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, to Bob and Sherlee McFarlane.
6.
Todd McFarlane is the second of three sons, which Farlane says contributed to his competitive streak.
7.
Todd McFarlane began drawing as a hobby at an early age, and developed an interest in comics, acquiring as many as he could, and learning to draw from them.
8.
Todd McFarlane was a fan of comics creators such as John Byrne, Jack Kirby, Frank Miller and George Perez, as well as the writing of Alan Moore.
9.
One day while in the twelfth grade at Calgary's William Aberhart High School, Todd McFarlane, working as a groundskeeper for the Calgary Cardinals, was standing in the bleachers when a 13-year-old ninth grader sitting near him named Wanda began flirting with him.
10.
Right after high school, Todd McFarlane attended baseball tryouts at Gonzaga University.
11.
In 1981 Todd McFarlane began attending Eastern Washington University on a baseball scholarship, studying as part of a self-designed program for graphics and art.
12.
Todd McFarlane worked part-time on campus as a janitor in the school's administration building, as his scholarship required an on-campus job, and worked weekends at a comics shop called the Comic Rack, devoting a couple of hours late at night to practice his comics art.
13.
Todd McFarlane sought to play baseball professionally after graduation, but suffered a serious ankle injury in his junior year during a game with arch rivals Washington State University.
14.
Todd McFarlane subsequently focused on drawing, working at the comic book store to pay for the rest of his education, and living in a trailer park in Cheney, Washington with Wanda, who had moved to the area to be with him and attend EWU as well.
15.
Todd McFarlane stayed in Spokane while Wanda finished her degree.
16.
Amendola's advice that Todd McFarlane's submissions needed to focus page-to-page stories rather than pinups led Todd 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.
17.
Todd McFarlane soon began drawing for both DC and Marvel, with his first major body of work being a two-year run on DC's Infinity, Inc In 1987, Todd McFarlane illustrated the last three issues of Detective Comics' four-issue "Batman: Year Two" storyline.
18.
In 1988, Todd 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.
19.
Todd 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.
20.
Whereas it had essentially been rendered as a series of Xs between two lines, Todd McFarlane embellished it by detailing far more individual strands, which came to be dubbed "spaghetti webbing".
21.
Todd McFarlane drew the first full appearance of Eddie Brock, the original incarnation of the villain Venom.
22.
Todd McFarlane has been credited as the character's co-creator, though this has been a topic of dispute within the comic book industry.
23.
Todd McFarlane's 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.
24.
Todd McFarlane's work is so overembellished that it disguised the fact that the composition is chaotic and cluttered to the point of being almost unreadable.
25.
Todd McFarlane began to miss deadlines, requiring guest artists to fill-in for him on some issues.
26.
In 1990, after a 28-issue run of Amazing Spider-Man, Todd 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.
27.
Todd McFarlane was succeeded on Amazing Spider-Man by Todd McFarlane's future fellow Image Comics co-founder Erik Larsen.
28.
Todd 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.
29.
Editor Jim Salicrup in particular was required to make a number of compromises for Todd McFarlane's work, including enforcing Todd 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.
30.
DeFalco supported the editing of the panel, calling it "inappropriate", while Todd McFarlane called this "lunacy", arguing that such graphic visuals are commonplace in Marvel's books.
31.
Todd McFarlane then teamed with six other popular artists to form Image Comics, an umbrella company under which each owned a publishing house.
32.
McFarlane's studio, Todd McFarlane Productions, published his creation, the occult-themed Spawn, written and drawn by McFarlane.
33.
Todd McFarlane stated that Image was not being treated fairly by the media, and by David in particular.
34.
That year marked the point when Todd McFarlane ceased to be the regular writer and artist of Spawn.
35.
Todd McFarlane began taking an active role in comics publishing again, publishing collections of his Spawn comics in trade paperback form.
36.
In 2008, Todd McFarlane returned to co-plot the series with returning writer Brian Holguin, with issue 185.
37.
Todd McFarlane contributed pencils to some issues, and co-wrote issue 28, the series finale, with Joe Casey, who took over writing duties from Kirkman.
38.
Todd McFarlane increasingly concentrated his own personal attention to those other ventures, which resulted in more sporadic work as an illustrator.
39.
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.
40.
Todd McFarlane Entertainment produced the animated series Todd McFarlane's Spawn, which aired on HBO from 1997 until 1999.
41.
Todd 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.
42.
In June 2003 Todd McFarlane paid about $517,500 at auction for San Francisco Giants left fielder Barry Bonds' October 2001, record-breaking 73rd home run ball.
43.
Todd McFarlane is a former minority owner of the Edmonton Oilers, and designed the logo used on the team's alternate third jersey, which debuted in 2001 and was worn through 2007.
44.
In January 2005, Todd McFarlane announced that he was set to produce a half-hour anthology television series for Fox called Twisted Tales, based on the Bruce Jones' comic book to which Todd McFarlane had purchased the rights.
45.
In 2011, Todd McFarlane was hired as an artist for the game Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, on which his duties included key frame art, storyboards and directing.
46.
In 2000, McFarlane was the subject of a National Film Board of Canada documentary Devil You Know: Inside the Mind of Todd McFarlane, directed by Kenton Vaughan.
47.
The first was a 2002 suit in which Todd McFarlane contested with writer Neil Gaiman over the rights to some supporting Spawn characters created by Gaiman in issue No 9 of the Spawn series and over payment for later works featuring those characters.
48.
In 2012, Todd McFarlane sued his former friend and employee, Al Simmons, from whom the name of Spawn's alter ego was derived.
49.
Todd McFarlane's position was that Simmons violated the terms of his employment pact and breached his duty of loyalty.
50.
The lawsuit was settled in December 2012 when Todd McFarlane came to an agreement with Simmons.
51.
Todd McFarlane stated in a 1992 interview that he was an atheist.