Todd McFarlane began drawing comic book heroes in high school. He began to submit drawings to editors at a variety of comic book publishing companies. After receiving more than 700 rejection letters, McFarlane’s big break came just a few weeks before he graduated from college in March 1984, with a B.A. in General Studies. Todd accepted a job offer from Marvel/Epic Comics penciling ‘Scorpio Rose’, an eleven-page back-up story in the comic book ‘Coyote’. He eventually worked his way to the top of Marvel’s artist roster. Marvel gave McFarlane a title that he solely could write, pencil, and ink: ‘Spider-Man’. ‘Spider-Man’ #1 was shipped to stores in September 1990, and became the best-selling comic book of that time, selling more than 2.5 million copies.
Following this incredible success, McFarlane decided to leave both Spider-Man and Marvel with other comic creators in August 1991 to form his own publishing company: Image Comics. At Image, he published the comic he had created nearly ten years before, ‘Spawn’. Since its debut, ‘Spawn’ has continued to be the #1 selling comic title in the U.S., as well as in several European and Latin American countries. Todd’s unique art style and controversial storytelling contributed to Spawn’s continued popularity. Soon after, Todd created several spin-off mini-series from Spawn, such as ‘Violator’.
Spawn, the movie’, opened August 1, 1997, at theaters nationwide. Released on video in August 1997, Todd McFarlane’s animated ‘Spawn, Season 1’, became HBO Home Video’s top-selling original programming video of all time. Todd McFarlane Productions Inc. was the proud recipient of two major awards: an Emmy and a Gold DiVi award for the HBO series and the ‘Spawn’ motion picture DVD., Todd’s biggest influences have been Frank Miller, Wayne Gretzky, and most importantly, his wife, Wanda. Todd uses his success to prove that no one should ever take “no” for an answer.
