Comic News


McFarlane is back on Spawn Comics!

Date: Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Source: McFarlane Press Release

Todd McFarlane and Brian Holguin return to the pages of ‘Spawn’ with artist and Image founder Whilce Portacio. 

Beginning with Issue #185 in October, SPAWN will feature a new creative team, including SPAWN creator Todd McFarlane, Image Comics co-founder Whilce Portacio and writer Brian Holguin. The new creative force promises to bring an entirely new energy to the world of SPAWN.

"We've just been talking with everybody involved about what we can do to inspire the readers," McFarlane says. "One of them was to take the book in a different direction in terms of the storyline, and the other was to take it in a bit of a different direction artistically, too."

Image co-founder Whilce Portacio (Wetworks) is poised to take the book in that new artistic direction, with McFarlane serving as creative director. The two creative forces work well together, and are excited to be pooling their talents.

"Having Todd by my side is fantastic, because he gives me all the texture he's been trying to place in his stories," says Portacio. "As the artist, I get to say, 'Okay, let me grab all of this stuff that's oozing out of your head, and let me see if I could make it visually pleasing.' For me, that is artistic bliss."


Former SPAWN writer Brian Holguin will also be returning to the series. He and McFarlane have collaborated on the title before, and Holguin looks forward to McFarlane's return to a much more active role in plotting the series and laying out pages.

"It's exciting to go back to it," says Holguin. "It's familiar, but it's changed enough. It's like going back to your home town after a couple of years - that store is no longer there, and this is moved over there. You're in the process of rediscovering things again. I have an enthusiasm for it now that I didn't have when I left the book."

The trio will only hint at their plans for where the story will go next. 

"It seems that everybody had the same thought that this is a great, huge universe, and to let everybody finally see it," says Portacio. "Not just glimpse a demon here or there, but to actually get into their motivation, what factions they're part of. Todd has even given me freedom to create new factions of spawns and new factions of angels."

Whatever direction the story goes next, the newly energized creative team will have fans talking, and eagerly turning the pages.

Todd McFarlane

Widely recognized as one of the most influential comic book creators of the last two decades, McFarlane is best known as the creator of Spawn. That title’s hugely popular 1992 debut sold an amazing 1.7 million copies – an unprecedented feat in independent comics. A whirlwind of growth and expansion followed: more comics, action figures, film and award-winning animation.

Whilce Portacio

Born in the Philippines, Whilce Portacio began his career as an inker for established artists, including Art Adams (Longshot) and Jim Lee (Alpha Flight), and quickly established himself as a penciler on Punisher and Uncanny X-Men. As his popularity grew, he created new characters for X-Men and his own team for Wetworks, as well as the independent book, Stone, a comic based on Philippine mythology. In 1996, he drew Heroes Reborn: Iron Man, followed by X-Force for Marvel. Additional career highlights include Wetworks 2, Stormwatch, The Authority, Batman Confidential, and Batman/Superman.

In 1997, Portacio joined a group of established artists in founding Image Comics – a venue where creators could publish their own material and retain copyrights to the characters they created. Portacio has also been instrumental in the discovery and training of famed artists Gerry Alanguilan, Edgar Tadeo, Jay Anacleto and Leinil Yu.

Portacio now resides in southern California with his wife and three children.

Brian Holguin

Brian Holguin has been a writer in the comics and entertainment fields for more than a decade. In addition to a long sting as a writer on the groundbreaking Image comic book, SPAWN, his credits include the award-winning fantasy series, Aria, KISS: The Psycho Circus, The Magdalena, and the SPAWN spinoff titles, SPAWN: The dark Ages and Godslayer. He was also a contributor to the Eagle Award-winning anthology series, Event Horizon.

 Future projects include the upcoming book series, Never, Never. Prior to entering the comic book field, he was a prominent Los Angeles-based music/film reviewer and newspaper editor.

 He currently lives in Glendale, Calif.

About McFarlane Toys

Grammy-and Emmy-winning producer/director Todd McFarlane, creator of Spawn and the founder of SPAWN.com, is the force behind McFarlane Toys, one of America’s top action figure manufacturers. With an eclectic array of movie, TV and music licensing tie-ins – as well as the officially licensed teams of the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL, McFarlane Toys has become a leader and redefined the standards within the action figure industry.  For complete information on this pop-culture powerhouse, visit SPAWN.com.   






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Comments/Responses
1
NotAFan • Jun 11, 2008, 03:50am •
Todd Mcfarlane is a one trick pony! Spawn is the only original thing he's ever created (Actually he ripped it off from Faust, but SHHH he doesn't want you to know that) so he's constantly trying to run it into the ground! Medievel Spawn, Future Spawn, Gunslinger Spawn, etc.! I mean create a new character already God D*mn It!

needaname04 • Jun 11, 2008, 05:36am •
This is going to be awesome. I was reading Spawn when I was probably too young to read them. It will be very interesting to see what story they come up with.

joeybaloney • Jun 11, 2008, 06:28am •
Todd McFarlane is still alive?

mckracken • Jun 11, 2008, 10:20am •
yes Joey he's still alive. Todd doesn't bother me nearly as much as Rob Leifield does. But taking over at #185 does ANYBODY care about SPAWN enough to start reading this title again? I know when it first started, I have a complete collection SPAWN #1 - #10 but then after that it was just like "ok, lets crank these puppies out" and even though Mcfarlane left the series, another McFarlane clone took over. The art was indistinguishable from Todd McFarlane.

Personally I'm not put off by all the variant Spawn characters since I knew long ago that he was a one trick pony but he has done other things like his Spiderman comics, who can forget the fiasco with the line "His webline is advantageous" oh really Todd.. Spiderman's webline is advantageous? Who writes this crap anyway? oh wait... TODD was writing Spiderman at the time... LOL!

so Todd how about keeping the original boat afloat and relauching this title and calling it untimely SPAWN #1 ... what the fans really want is another original Spawn title run of #1 - #10

mckracken • Jun 11, 2008, 10:22am •
yes Joey he's still alive. Todd doesn't bother me nearly as much as Rob Leifield does. But taking over at #185 does ANYBODY care about SPAWN enough to start reading this title again? I know when it first started, I have a complete collection SPAWN #1 - #10 but then after that it was just like "ok, lets crank these puppies out" and even though Mcfarlane left the series, another McFarlane clone took over. The art was indistinguishable from Todd McFarlane.

Personally I'm not put off by all the variant Spawn characters since I knew long ago that he was a one trick pony but he has done other things like his Spiderman comics, who can forget the fiasco with the line "His webline is advantageous" oh really Todd.. Spiderman's webline is advantageous? Who writes this crap anyway? oh wait... TODD was writing Spiderman at the time... LOL!

so Todd how about keeping the original boat afloat and relauching this title and calling it untimely SPAWN #1 ... what the fans really want is another original Spawn title run of #1 - #10

gauleyboy420 • Jun 11, 2008, 11:04am •
Mc Farlane, is a great businessman, and one hell of an artist. Granted his style isn’t for everyone, I really enjoy it.



I used to buy Spawn, but It definitely didn’t live up to what I was expecting from it in terms of story (the whole power countdown, and eventual end of the comic with a definitive ending) So I stopped buying it. I even really like Greg Capullo’s art on the book, after McFarlane stopped drawing it.

The guy raised the bar on toy making. I mean you cannot deny he was the first to take such pride in making action figures that were so realistic, and detailed. The other toy companies quickly jumped on board, but he was the first to mass market that quality of toy.



So I like him, yeah I now he’s an arrogan ass (well thats what I’ve heard) but I like his style, his art, and his toys. (although I’m not that much into the “goth “ theme so he loses me evry once in a while) and I don’t buy Spawn anymore, I’d love to see a better movie made (and yeah for all of it’s flaws I enjoyed the Live action move)

AND the HBO animated Spawn SUPERB!



As fr Portacio, I loved his art waaaaay back in Uncanny X-men, and I tried to read wetworks, but the writing was horrendous, and even though I can wait 2-4 months for an issue of a good book. For a poorly written book 3 issues in one year is just not acceptable for me as a consumer.

AND his art is JUST PLAIN AWFUL NOW! I mean did any of you pick up Batman Confidential??? It was atrocious, I don’t know if it was Whilce or the inker, but it stunk up my long box, I couldn’t believe how bad the storytelling, lighting, composition , EVERYTHING was! It isn’t his style that has gotten bad, it just looks like he hasn’t drawn in 8 years, horrible.

I didn’t even go see him at the Emerald City Comic Con, passed him by.

Anyway the headline of this article SUCKS TOO! because I was hoping to get to see some good ol’ McFarane art in Spawn again, maybe it would prompted me to buy the book again....not now that I know he’s just “creative director” and Whilce will be stinking it up. It’s awful how they are pulling these (0’s artist back out to sell books on nostalgia. It won’t work, It’s as bad as shiny foil variant covers. We want quality writing AND art in our comics, NOT gimmicks. This ain;’t the 90’s anymore and dollars are harder to come by, and therefore harder to spend on shit comics like Portacios, Liefeld’s , Madnuiera's and so on.


joeybaloney • Jun 11, 2008, 11:43am •
Don’t even get me going on Leifeld, mckracken! Image has come a long way since it’s inception (Kirkman’s the MAN over there nowadays!) but, God, what a horrible company at the start. With the exception of early Spawn everything over there derivative crap pushing style way over substance. Actually, Savage Dragon was pretty good too. Leifeld and his involvement with the X-books marked the beginning of the end for that particular part of the Marvel Universe for me, though only the beginning. It’d be years before I could actually give them up. While he and Jim Lee are great artists they seem to be the point where those books became convoluted pin-up books and not much else. There’s been some highs and lows since then but the X-Men never seemed to fully recover from that era right up until today. Rightly or wrongly those two are where I start to track the X-Downfall. Of course, anyone trying to fill Chris Claremont’s shoes was fighting a losing battle. I’m rambling.

But anyway, I did enjoy their art, and Todd’s on Amazing Spider-man. Todd’s “Spider-man” book was a joke though. I enjoyed and stuck with Spawn for quite a while. Until about ish 50 or so, though I really should have given that up about half way thru that run. There was no redeeming quality to the live action movie but the HBO series was pretty kick-ass.

joeybaloney • Jun 11, 2008, 11:45am •
And you're right gauley. Todd really did help raise action figures to an art form. My McFarlane Toy's Bob & Doug McKenzie figures are some of my most prized possession!

darkheart00 • Jun 13, 2008, 11:58pm •
Todd, just stick to running your toy company. Being a dickhead corporate executive is your destiny.....embrace it Todd, embrace it.

Johnzilla • Jul 14, 2008, 06:06am •
SPAWN could still succeed as a rated "R" animated series. I thought the HBO series ended prematurely. Everybody I know loved it!
I don't know why its taking him so long to get this new animated feature going?

SPAWN needs to be adult, raw & brutal on all levels - Comics, Animated & Live Action. When it starts to slip, is when it becomes boring.

1
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