As one of the co-founders of Image Comics, TODD MCFARLANE launched his gothic supernatural anti-hero SPAWN back in 1992. Coming exclusively to Brisbane as part of the pop culture expo SUPANOVA, he takes time out of his busy schedule to talk to ELWOOD LEE about why he thinks the comic book industry is struggling despite the increasing number of movie adaptations.

Using Spawn as a springboard for his artistic endeavours, McFarlane was able to create a hugely successful toy company, HBO animation and blockbuster film all within the space of a few years. 

However, over the last few years Spawn has disappeared from the collective consciousness of most comic book fans. McFarlane himself seems to have made more headlines in regards to his legal issues involving author Neil Gaiman and hockey player Tony Twist (the former over characters he co-created for the Spawn mythos, the latter because a supporting Spawn character had the same name.)

Within a split second of picking up the phone, he asks “Is this the world famous Elwood? They told me that I was going to be interviewed by this big bad guy!” I’m a little taken aback; this isn’t the Todd McFarlane I expected from his brooding biography photos. Friendly at all times, he answers all my questions thoroughly and thoughtfully.

McFarlane is now returning to his writing duties on Spawn after a long hiatus. Fed up with the sagging sales of his original creation, McFarlane dramatically changed the direction of his book by having the main character, Al Simmons, blow his own head off. With the promise that there will be no resurrection, the mantle of Spawn has now been passed on.

As far as fan reaction goes, McFarlane is not too concerned. “When you start messing around with status quo, some people take offence to it, but there are other people are willing to give you the opportunity to show what you have. They’re putting the onus on me to entertain them as an audience.”

Jokingly, I ask if any new ‘entertaining’ Spawn stories will follow the same trajectory as the ‘60s Batman TV show. I get a pretty firm ‘No’ in that regard. “It would probably be the exact opposite of that. The standard American superhero storytelling of villain-of-the-month stories is just not very interesting to me. One of the reasons why I’ve been holding off on [another] Spawn film is because Hollywood wants to put it into their formula. The one where the whole cast team up to fight the bad guy, or you’ve got Iron Man fighting a stronger Iron Man. It’s a formula that’s been productive, but as a guy who’s over 40 years-old, I’m looking for something a little bit more sophisticated and I hope that my readers are too”.

With the release of the Dark Knight last year, McFarlane is adamant that the movie did not change his vision of a new Spawn film, as he always envisioned his with a hard R rating (meaning a likely MA15+ for us).

As a publisher of comic books for almost twenty years, his view on declining readerships is to put the blame squarely on how business was done back in the early ‘90s up until now. 

“Big businesses are really looking at comic books in terms of them having to make them money. Which is not a bad thing, but because of that I think we as an industry have short-circuited by figuring out how to limit our audience. People will say that there’s technology and other things distracting them, but we shot ourselves in the foot by using short-term mentalities. If the book is not selling very well they generally cancel and re-launch the book. Failing that, they’ll put seven covers on the book. The same thing happens in the music industry. If the band doesn’t come out of the gates with their record selling, then all of a sudden the record label moves on to the next band. That mindset would never have allowed groups like The Rolling Stones or even Bruce Springsteen to exist, who took three or four albums before they found their stride. I think that’s the reason why we’ve got a smaller audience.

“On the other hand we’ve had some tremendous talent come in,” he continues, expressing particular enthusiasm for the Brian Michael Bendis-Alex Maleev run on Marvel Comics’ Daredevil – where the characters were portrayed as realistically as possible, despite the superhero trappings.  “For me it’s nice to see that in spite of some of the silliness that’s running the corporations, there’s still some enthusiasm for the new generation coming up that’s inspiring us to be better and better”.

The Supanova Pop Culture Expo 2009 will feature a huge array of guests from film & television, books, animation, comics and games at the RNA showgrounds Apr 3-5. There’ll be cosplay, wrestling, gaming, panel discussions and a huge dealers alley, where you can stock up on comics, anime, collectibles and much more. Major guests include Richard Hatch (Battlestar Galactica), Eric Roberts (The Dark Knight), TODD MACFARLANE (Spawn), Jhonen Vasquez (Johnny The Homicidal Maniac) AND Heroes’ cheerleader Hayden Panettiere in an exclusive Brisbane appearance. For tickets and information check out www.supanova.com.au.

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