With Spawn's 30th anniversary looming on the horizon, the flagship Image Comics character is about to see his world grow a whole lot bigger, as the main series is joined by three additional titles. Spawn, Gunslinger Spawn, She-Spawn and Medieval Spawn will share the spotlight in this June's Spawn's Universe #1, with a whole roster of superstar comic book creators joining creator Todd McFarlane for this collection of stories. This gives way to three new titles in addition to the main series by the end of the year: King Spawn this August, Gunslinger Spawn this October and team book The Scorched by the end of the year.
In an exclusive interview with CBR, McFarlane teased that this initial wave is only the first step in his even bigger plans for Spawn. He shared what he personally looks for in the creative teams he collaborates with, how he stays excited about working on Spawn after three decades and more.
CBR: Ahead of Spawn's 30th anniversary, you're expanding to four series in a shared universe. How long did you work on this idea to create more titles in the Spawn line?
Todd McFarlane: Let's go way back: the idea of a shared universe has been there since the formation of Image Comics. All the original founders, we came from that world when we were working at Marvel, and some of us at DC. That's what we knew, what we liked and in some ways, why we got into comics; why we collected them and eventually broke into. Even way back then, in 1992-1994, there are little hints of it; we tried it a little bit but never formulated anything official, much to my chagrin. We all went off in our own ways and did our own things but that initial want was always in the back of my mind and thought it was too bad [we didn't follow through].
But then Image Comics flourished and we had all these new books and we started going into non-superhero books and that possibility was starting to ebb because, if you look at the roster of Image titles, very few of them are superhero-related. At the beginning, it was a 100% that direction and I think part of our success is that we didn't stick to one type of genre. But I get up to Issue #100, #200, and the thing when you have a book that goes this long -- and I'm sure Robert Kirkman could tell you the same thing -- you have all these characters that are in there. A book like The Walking Dead is meant to be a group book and have many characters coming and going; it's built for that.
But I had a book called Spawn, it's like Batman or Spider-Man, it's about that character and if you start crowding that guy out, because you get all these other characters and ideas, then Spawn is going to be more like Marvel Team-Up, a Spawn team-up book instead of a Spawn book. The logical extension to that is you give more space to these ideas and these characters outside of Spawn, which means you're going to have to add more books and take that step you've been somewhat hesitant [to take] for decades and just put your head down and do a single book; you're going to have to tear the band-aid and go.
I saw issue #300 as being this sort of this prelude, this mini-catalyst, to say I could do this and here's a great moment in which I could begin to introduce this. There's an event that happened in that story that really showed how this comes to be but, even more so, there's a cover for ussue #301 that Jerome Opena did and I inked that had a bunch of these characters. Although I knew not all of those characters were going to be in issue #300-301's story, it was my way of teasing "Just you wait..." because people were like, "Why are you doing those covers? All those characters weren't in it!" and my answer to that was "Just wait, we'll get there." Now we're starting to see the first phase of that thing that I said to wait for. Even this now, and it may seem like a lot for a guy who was only doing one book and is going to have four by the end of the year, can still pale in comparison to what it can be ten years from now and people can go "Four?! That's all?! He's doing 45 now!" [laughs]
You've got quite the bench of alternate Spawns already. What made these four the right ones to springboard these titles off of?
McFarlane: In its simplest form, it was just me saying, "Either put up or shut up. Stop thinking about it, Todd, either do it or put it to bed!" Like I said, #300 gave me the opportunity that, if I was going to do it, here's where I lay some groundwork and go. I'm not here to say this is the perfect time and that I've been holding out for this time. I'm just like anybody else: You come with an idea and it just happens to be at a point in time, which happens to be now, and we'll see what the fallout is. It's either going to be bigger and better than what I imagined or it'll be less; it probably won't be exactly what I thought. There's a little bit of an initial plan, but a five-year plan? I don't have that because that's where I turn to creative people and go, "Help me with this project here and I'll make sure you get rewarded in a bigger way than if you did the exact same work at Marvel or DC."
More specifically, why Spawn, Gunslinger Spawn, She-Spawn and Medieval Spawn for this opening salvo?
McFarlane: Spawn is at the center of it. He becomes the rock you drop into the pool and, from that, the ripples are going to start coming out. The first ring of the ripple, you've got Spawn and you've got the other Spawns: Some of them have been a little more prominent than others but they're all known quantities, if you will. But to me, the exciting part is when I close my eyes and it's not the first ripple anymore, it's the tenth ripple. What does that look like? I don't know because I'm not there yet and I haven't even hired the creative people that will help me get there; that, to me, is sort of the fun part of it.
I created a piece where some Spawns came from the past and the future and they're all here in modern times and I did a book where one of the bad guys turned to Spawn and said, "Dude, you don't know what you did! You think just Spawns fell through the hole? Shit, there's hundreds that fell through the hole!" That gives me the continuity-out that no matter what I put out from now on, they came through the hole in that issue, that means anything is possible. Who are the hundreds that fell through? I don't know!
This is the fun with coming up with crazy ideas and beginning to paint it and it's a big canvas. I'm only in one corner of it right now. It's what I keep asking the creative people to do: I don't want them to paint over the Spawn strokes. I've done thirty years of that. I want you to take a brush and go over to where the empty parts are and start painting with new colors. I would encourage them to not even make it Spawn-related because that's not going to be healthy for the variety and growth of what I have in my head.
Yes, you can have a Bat Family and Spider-Man family in the corner, but they can't be so imperative to the success of your universe where, if somebody doesn't like Spider-Man or Batman stuff, that they can't buy other product to chase down the characters or story. You have to consider your master plan that you're just a buffet of comic books and, at a buffet, I don't know anybody who puts one of everything on their tray. There's a hundred choices and you pick the seven or eight that you think are the most personally satisfying to you, that's what you do. Marvel's been doing it, DC's been doing it, other companies have been doing it, so I'm not trying to attempt anything new.
What should happen is I'm doing 20-25 books and people are buying their five or six favorites. I'm not even expecting people to buy all four of the new books -- maybe they might for the issue #1 -- but they might go, "That book isn't my cup of tea, but I really like that one. That was a surprising character!" Having to collect everything is not going to be necessary and the continuity is not going to be built so that is necessary. The universe, at least for now, is built around my perception of what continuity was when I was a 16-year old comic book reader; back then, continuity was just so simple.
What do you look for in other comic book creators as you share the same collaborative canvas? Even if they are in their own corner, you share that same connective tissue.
McFarlane: Number one, for enthusiasm, because if they're enthused, I assume it's going to show on the piece of paper. It's interesting, because everybody isn't built to do a monthly comic. That's a pretty big hardship for those of us who have done it. So turn to everybody and say, "Tell me what your schedule is. You tell me how much you can give me. I'll take anything from one page to a million. You fill in what that number is and how fast you can get me that work." Depending on what that answer is, we'll come up with the story and the format that will basically engineer its way to your way of working; I can accommodate, in a pretty wide way, almost anybody that I need to. And if I can accommodate anybody, I get to pick and choose.
Becoming an art editor, what storytellers -- both writing or visually -- have a style that makes sense for that character? Not everyone is built to draw Superman. In fact, I would argue some of the best Batman artists are not built to draw Superman because their style is so gritty, dark and shadowy and they can't turn it off when they do Superman. Superman is a Boy Scout at high noon in this bright world he lives in. Very few people can do both those guys in a super compelling way. Sometimes you have to tailor your talent to the characters.
While you've had this in the back of your pocket for some time, only you and Erik Larsen have your respective Image books running for nearly thirty years. What keeps you personally and creatively invested in Al Simmons all these years later?
McFarlane: Here's what I'm going to say and I think it's true for a lot of people: once you get your head into an idea and you start thinking about it and that you can do that and that and that, pretty soon you have more ideas than you can put on paper before you die. You're never going to catch up to your thoughts. They just come so quick and rapidly and you only get one book a month, and how many ideas can you come up with in a year? Hundreds? Thousands? Maybe tens of thousands? But if you've only got twelve books [a year] to tell them, you're never going to be able to show but a sliver of that to the public. That's the frustrating part but, still wanting to get those stories out, you have to expand.
But as for the enthusiasm level, I just turned sixty and maybe this is when people are starting to slow down; I deal with other businesses and pretty huge corporations in my other ventures. Although I enjoy the collaboration and I like being part of the process, it can be a little frustrating with that the protectiveness when trying to innovate and try something crazy when you're dealing with multi-billion dollar corporations. And I would do exactly the same, I'm sure, if I had billions and billions of dollars that I had to protect; I would probably be the same too.
At the end of the day, when I'm sort of tired and have had more silly conversations than I should have with a big company, I turn in the corner and there's this glowing light that says "Spawn comic book." And I own that comic book 100% and I don't have to ask for anybody's permission or get any approvals; I don't have to adhere to somebody's prior marketing or worry about somebody's profit goals or any of the things that drive big, public companies. I can just turn to my book and go, "Hey, I have an idea! Let's try it!" And that's it. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but you just do it.
You look at the sales chart for Spawn and it's had its ups and downs and ebbs and flows like any book that has been around for decades. I haven't gotten it right all the time. Sometimes I've gotten it miserably wrong, but I'm the one who gets to basically say what we're doing. It's a breath of fresh air! Of everything that I do, comic books is the coolest, funnest, easiest part of all of it because [I get to] just do it! Whatever we come up with today, we get to do it and we don't have to get on the phone with anybody else today.
Written by Todd McFarlane and illustrated by McFarlane, Jim Cheung, Stephen Segovia, Brett Booth and Marcio Takara, Spawn's Universe #1 goes on sale June 23 from Image Comics.