Todd McFarlane's BIO
Todd McFarlane was born March 16, 1961 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, but only resided there for 18 months at which time his family moved to California. Along with two brothers and a sister, Todd spent most of his childhood living in several areas of California only to return to Calgary in 1975 at the age of 14. It was during his high school days at William Aberhart High School that Todd discovered the world of comic books. During that time, he bought everything he could afford, and especially the works of John Byrne, George Perez, Marshall Rogers, Michael Golden, Art Adams, and Walter Simonson who were his favorite artists. Although he spent a lot of his time drawing comic book heroes, playing professional baseball was Todd's ultimate dream. Todd began playing baseball in little league in California, and then big league in Canada. While playing in Calgary, a scout for the Seattle Mariners, followed Todd's progress and recruited him out of the college ranks to play on the Mariners semi-pro tournament team. Playing center field and occasionally pitching, it was on this team based in Kamloops, British Columbia that Todd met Al Simmons. Upon graduation from William Aberhart in 1979, Todd attended Spokane Falls Community College before accepting a baseball scholarship at Eastern Washington State University in Cheney, Washington, and began classes in January of 1981. Eastern's team played in the Pac-10 conference, and accordingly Todd received both quality coaching and competition as a center fielder. Todd's dream to play in the majors came to an abrupt halt when he broke his ankle sliding into home. Even though Todd continued to draw comic characters throughout college, it was only now that Todd began to submit drawings to editors of many different publishing comic companies. Determined to get a job in the comic industry, Todd continued to draw evenings and weekends while holding down two part-time jobs at both a diaper service and a comic book store called the Comic Rack, and going to school. In the Spring of 1984, Todd graduated from Eastern with a Bachelor's Degree in General Studies with an emphasis in Communication, Fine Arts, and Graphic Design, but remained in Cheney while his fiancee, Wanda finished her degree. After collecting over 700 rejection letters from every publishing company, Todd's break came a few weeks before graduation in March, 1984 from Marvel Comics. Todd accepted a job offer from Marvel/Epic Comics penciling Scorpio Rose, an eleven page back-up story in Coyote, beginning with issue # 11, and continuing through issue # 13 ( not released until May and July of 1985) at which time the book was canceled. Just as he was finishing his work on Coyote, Todd received a call from Roy Thomas at DC Comics who Todd had submitted several drawings to. Roy offered Todd a fill-in penciling job on Infinity, Inc. as its regular artist had just passed away, and its new regular artist was not able to begin at that time. Todd began with a pin-up in Infinity, Inc. #13, and then as the guest penciler an issues #14 (May 1985) and #15 (June 1985). At the same time, Todd also penciled issue #47 of All Star Squadron which was released in July of 1985. In September of that year, after the originally scheduled artist backed out, Todd began his first full-time job penciling Infinity Inc. beginning with issue #15 and continuing through issue #37 (April 1987). Feeling secure in his employment, Todd proposed to his high school sweet heart, Wanda, in October of 1984. They married July 27, 1985 in Calgary, and returned to Cheney where Wanda completed her degree in December of the same year. In January of 1986, Todd and Wanda decided to move back to Canada and took up residence in New Westminster, a suburb of Vancouver in British Columbia. Todd moved on to pencil several issues of Marvel's Incredible Hulk beginning with issue #330 (April 1987) and continuing through issue #346 (August 1988). At the same time, Todd also took on several one-time projects including penciling Daredevil (April 1987) and GI Joe (June 1987) for Marvel Comics. Todd also took on several assignments for DC Comics which included penciling, and full art on some of the covers on the Batman book Detective for issues # 576 to #578 (July to September 1987), and Invasion, a company crossover book that gave Todd the chance to pencil many of DC's flagship characters. At this point in his career, Todd was asked to do work for several one-shot books including True North, a Canadian benefit book promoting anti-censorship. 1988 was the year Todd's career really took off. Throughout this year, Todd completed work on DC Comics' Batman #423 (September 1988), Marvel's Wolverine #6 (April 1989), Marvel Tales issues #223 to 238 (July 1990), and other one-shot projects listed in the McFarlane checklist. In March of that year, Todd began his run doing the pencils and covers on Marvel's Amazing Spider Man with issue #298, and continued through issue #329 (December 1989). In his first issue, Todd co-created Venom with writer, David Michilinie. Since his debut, Venom has become Marvel's most popular villain, and now has his own title. Amazing Spider Man was the catalyst that ultimately launched Todd's superstar career as a comic book artist. Todd brought his own unique style to Spider Man replacing his webs, transposing his human body to spidery positions, and adding spider-looking eyes. These changes along with Todd's awesome pencils shot Amazing Spider Man up to #1 from its previous 9th ranked position. After over a year of penciling Amazing Spider Man, Todd became tired of penciling other writer's stories, and wanted to try his own hand at writing. Marvel, unwilling to replace the regular writers on their established Spidey titles, created a new title solely for Todd that he could write, pencil and ink: Spider Man. Spider Man #1 shipped in September, 1990 and became the best selling comic book of all time selling over 2.5 million copies. Remaining the #1 selling book for the duration of Todd's run, Todd decided to leave both Spider Man and Marvel after completing issue #13 in August, 1991 when his first daughter, Cyan, was born just months before Todd and his new family decided to relocate to Portland, Oregon. During his six month hiatus, Todd not only spent time helping to raise his daughter, but also laid plans to form his own publishing company which would allow both himself and other artists, to create and retain the rights to their own characters. Todd was aware that many creators, including the legendary Jack Kirby, who himself created nearly half of the comic book characters in existence today, were not only denied the respect they deserved, but literally ignored creatively and financially by the large publishing companies. Please read Frank Miller's introduction to the Spawn Trade Paper Back released in June, 1995 for more insightful thought on this topic. Even though Todd had become the hottest artist of the decade, he was fully aware that he, too, could easily fall among the ranks of those once famous artists. After speaking with several other "hot" Marvel artists, Todd learned that he was not the only one both frustrated by the old Marvel bureaucracy and determined to see change made. After months of discussions amongst themselves, a plan was made, and in early 1992 this group of hot artists including Todd, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Jim Valentino, Erik Larsen and Marc Silvestri left the comfort of the comic book publishing powerhouse and formed their own independent publishing company : Image Comics. Instead of the traditional comic book companies being able to both release artists from books containing their own creations and making millions off of the licensing products of those creations without beneficial compensation for the creator, Image Comics allowed each artist to publish together, but reap the awards individually. The ideology behind Image Comics stressed the importance that each artist would both retain creative control over their character(s) and determine how or if each character should be licensed reaping rewards both creatively and financially. Only now, after Image's formation, did Todd feel he could bring his own creation, Spawn, out of his portfolio after nearly ten years since he was first created. This was Todd's first step towards his ultimate dream: make Spawn a household name. In May of 1992, issue #1 of Spawn, written, penciled and inked by Todd, sold 1.7 million copies making it the best selling independent comic book of all time. Since its debut, Spawn sales, through issue #34, have continued at phenomenal levels remaining in the top 10 in sales in the USA as well as in several European countries, and selling over 55 million copies world wide. Todd's unique art style, and controversial story telling contribute to Spawn's continued popularity. After 3 years of publishing Spawn, Todd has brought Spawn to life, introduced new characters into its story line, and created several spin-off mini-series. Mid-1994 saw the release of the three issue Violator mini-series based on Spawn's ultimate enemy, the Violator, written by Alan Moore with art by Bart Sears, Mark Pennington, and Greg Capullo which issue #1 became the best selling comic book of 1994 character, Angela, who originally debuted in issue #9 written by Neil Gaiman, was spun off into a three issue . Another mini-series in late 1994 and early 1995 written by Neil Gaiman, with art by Greg Capullo and Mark Pennington. Additionally, Todd, after taking much criticism about his own writing abilities, recruited some of the best and well respected writers in the comic book industry. Quieting the critics only temporarily, much praise was give to Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Dave Sim, and Frank Miller who wrote issues #8 through #11 respectively. After three years of publishing Spawn, issue #32 not only introduced a new costume for Spawn, but became for the third year in a row that Spawn was the #1 selling comic book for the month of May. A special Angela promotional book, written by Beau Smith with art by Brad Gorby, Jason Gorder, Mark Pennington and Chance Wolf, was given to retailers with the purchase of 25 copies of Spawn #32. This book made history by becoming the first free promotional book to make the Top 300 list from Diamond Comic Distributors. Creating the hottest character in the comic book business, Todd drew the attention of a variety of potential licensees including movie companies, television producers, and various toy companies which included Mattel, Hasbro, and Playmates. Seeing his own characters produced as toys appealed to Todd and he pursued these proposals only to be disappointed by each company's unwillingness to grant him creative control over their production. After several months of frustrating negotiations, Todd, against the advice of every toy manufacturer, set out to produce his own toys realizing that this was the only way he could guarantee his fans quality products that he was completely satisfied with.
Todd McFarlane Career Highlights
1995
* Spawn hits the charts for Number one in sales for the 4th year in a row in May.
* Introduces new Ultra-Action Figures at Toy Fair featuring Spring & Fall '95 Spawn, Rob Liefeld's Youngblood and Whilce Portacio's WetWorks.
* Releases Blood Feud comic book mini-series.
* Image surpasses DC Comics for #2 of the comics market.
* Signs contract with HBO for six animated episodes of Spawn.
* Begins pre-production of Spawn - the movie with New Line Cinema and Industrial Light & Magic.
* Releases Spawn board game by Pressman.
* Sony begins development of Spawn video game to be released late '95.
* Releases Spawn trading cards by Wildstorm Productions, Inc.
* Licenses Spawn Halloween costumes with Collegeville Imagineering.

1994
* Releases Violator and Angela comic book mini-series.
* Forms Todd Toys and introduces six Spawn action figures.
* Releases Spawn/Batman crossover comic book in conjunction with DC Comics.
* Spawn/Batman becomes best selling crossover of the year.

1993
* Named "Most Important Person in Comics" by Hero Illustrated.
* Image Comics jockeyed with DC Comics for the No. 2 market share.
* Image Comics opens its own publishing company.
* Introduces the Spawnmobile. * Spawnmobile Hot Wheel by Mattel Toys hits the market.

1992
* Creates Spawn with 1st issue setting the record for the best selling, independently produced comic book, selling 1.7 million copies.
* Co-founds Image Comics.
* Starts Todd McFarlane Publications, Inc.

1990
* Creates new Spider-man book setting new record for the best selling comic book of all time with 2.5 million copies sold and replaced Amazing Spider-Man as the top selling monthly. (Todd wrote, penciled and inked this book.)

1988
* Begins penciling Amazing Spider-Man and co-creates hottest villian in the industry, "Venom." Amazing Spider-Man went from No. 9 to No. 1 with Todd's incredible art.

1985
* Begins four years at Marvel and DC Comics penciling Incredible Hulk, Detective, Infinity and other miscellaneous piece work.

1984
* Begins penciling Scorpio Rose, an 11 page back up for Coyote, a Marvel publication.

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