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The Spawning of Todd McFarlane
August 30, 2007

DVDialog contributor Ed Hulse recently spoke with renowned comicbook artist and impresario Todd McFarlane about this most famous creation, the occult anti-hero known as Spawn.

Okay, a little bit of history, first: After establishing himself as a top-drawer artist for DC and Marvel Comics in the late Eighties and early Nineties, Todd McFarlane went on to become one of the founders of the

creator-friendly Image Comics in 1992. For the new company, McFarlane developed the occult anti-hero, Spawn, whom he’d created at age 16 while living in his native Canada. “The original concept was more futuristic and science-fictional,” he recalls, “but I put it into a contemporary setting while keeping the same basic story elements.”

            McFarlane licensed live-action feature-film rights to New Line Cinema and sold HBO on a Spawn animated series, over which he retained creative control. “I was executive producer and made the major decisions,” he recalls, “but, of course, HBO surrounded me with skilled people.” The 1997 pilot opened with a bravura sequence, three minutes long, of unparalleled atmosphere and intensity. “It did what I hoped it would do at the outset—really grab people. ‘Wow! You can do that in animation?’ We established right away that this wasn’t a show for eight-year-old kids.”

The series ran to 18 episodes aired over three seasons in groups of six. HBO Video’s new, repackaged, and digitally re-mastered Todd McFarlane’s Spawn: The Animated Collection, released to commemorate the show’s 10^th anniversary, sports enhanced color and Dolby Digital 5.1 audio along with behind-the-scenes featurettes, episode storyboards, character profiles, audio commentaries, and an interview with the creator himself.

McFarlane remains proud of the animated Spawn. “When you’d say ‘cartoon’ in the United States, people used to have a knee-jerk reaction. ‘Oh, you’re talking about kiddie stuff.’ But that attitude has changed, thanks to the success here of Japanese anime and more daring home-grown shows that followed ours. I think Spawn proved that the choice of medium—in this case, animation—doesn’t preclude the treatment of mature, graphic subject matter.

            “I had been approached by traditional animation producers to do a Spawn show for Saturday-morning audiences, but I knew it wouldn’t work in that format. In my first conversation with HBO, I made it clear that I wanted the freedom to do an adult, R-rated type of drama. They gave me that freedom and so we were able to produce a groundbreaking series.”—Ed Hulse

Posted by Laurence Lerman on August 30, 2007 | Comments (0)