Todd McFarlane was born on March 16th, 1961 in Alberta, Canada but spent much of his early childhood in Southern California. McFarlane had two passions growing up - baseball and comics. He chose to pursue baseball first, being granted a baseball scholarship to Eastern Washington University where he earned a general studies degree with an emphasis on graphic arts, communications and art. Whilst playing for a semi-professional summer team in British Columbia, Todd met and became good friends with teammate Al Simmons, the name that would later be used by McFarlane for his most famous character, Spawn.
Todd McFarlane's break in comics came via Marvel/Epic comics in 1984 and in the following year he married his school sweetheart, Wanda - another familiar name in the Spawn comics. McFarlane worked his way to the top of the Marvel roster with an incredible run on Amazing Spider-Man. In 1991, during a hiatus in which his first daughter was born, McFarlane, who had become frustrated with the restrictions on his creativity, spoke to several of the other top Marvel artists. Finding they felt the same way and after a long period of discussion, seven of Marvel's top artists; Todd, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Jim Valentino, Erik Larsen, Marc Silvestri and Whilce Portacio broke free to form their own parent corporation and publisher, Image Comics. Each of the artists was free to pursue their own goals for their respective creations under Image, each controlling the destiny of the characters and the various rewards.
McFarlane of course created Spawn, which sold 1.7 million copies of it's first issue. Spawn has become a marketing phenomenon, with multiple toy ranges from his company McFarlane Toys, films, a dark cartoon series, spinoff comic series and huge amounts of merchandise. McFarlane Toys has diversified to become one of the largest Toy manufacturers in the world, including licensing agrrements with the four major North American sports bodies (NHL, NFL, MLB and NBA).
McFarlane still lives in Arizona with his wife and now three children. |
