[SPEAKER_01]: What is up everybody?
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Comic Book Club on Alex.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Justin and we're coming to you live from a couple of places on the internet We're live on LinkedIn of course for all your jobing needs.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's where we start.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where we got our start.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, we did that's where we met up through a LinkedIn chat.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is not true.
[SPEAKER_01]: YouTube twitch kick maybe some other places maybe you're listening later wherever you get your podcast
[SPEAKER_01]: Apple Spotify, etc.
[SPEAKER_01]: If so, you can get ad free versions of this podcast and all the podcasts we do at patreon.com slash comic book club and folks I've got a great show for you this evening.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm very excited about our guest.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is an absolute legend.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to talk about a lot of stuff including the
[SPEAKER_01]: latest reboot re-invention of spawn that's been going on among other things latest gentlemen Todd McFarlane Todd welcome to the podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are your big boys doing today?
[SPEAKER_01]: We're talking about grown-ups.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're actually grown-ups.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell by my toys behind me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a big guest.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I appreciate you guys having me on today
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Big fans, of course.
[SPEAKER_01]: Before we get to the spawn, this is a general question, and I'm sure you get this a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you've been in the comic industry for a very long time at this point.
[SPEAKER_01]: What keeps you coming back?
[SPEAKER_01]: What does the thing that keeps drawing you back to you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Comics specifically?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, I mean, in a simplest form, it's a medium that allows you to create.
[SPEAKER_02]: And for whatever reason, we have personalities when we get wired.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I guess I was just wired to be competitive place sports and drop things and create things.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so,
[SPEAKER_02]: that, I don't remember a day when I didn't have all that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's just, it's just who I am, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'm sure other people when I talk to them, but what I do, I board them, but they maybe do something that I'm not interested in.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's actually good that we actually both fall into the ones that were excited about.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: When you when you
[SPEAKER_02]: when you just have it in you, it's, it's, it's easy.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not a chore.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not work, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been with my wife for almost 50 years and it's like, I loving her is as easy as breathing and that's 50 years.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I hope I get another 50.
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope I get another 50 years of drawing like it just, if there's no effort, there's no effort for the people that it's an effort, it shouldn't be doing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Does your wife love comics as much?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, she has shamed her.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, she's one of those practical spouses that's like you go do your thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll be here.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll support it, but she doesn't geek out.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's not a geek.
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, you've got your own things going, which again, we'll talk about in a moment, but how is your feeling about the comic book industry right now?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, what in particular gets you inspired, are there books you're reading or looking at or artists or writers in particular that you think are just like, getting you fired up about continuing of this?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, not really, my time in the industry is sort of looking at it from a holistic point of view.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I have lots of conversation with some of my peers about the details.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe we'll even have some of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: What matters most to me is really only two things.
[SPEAKER_02]: One, the things I can control, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So I go, hey, these are my books.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the people I choose to hire.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the quality that we're gonna put out, and we cross our fingers, and hope you got enough people that will support it.
[SPEAKER_02]: The beyond what you can control, then the next one is, what's the health of the industry as a whole,
[SPEAKER_02]: and the reason that that's important is because it doesn't matter what I'm doing individually at any time in my 40 years.
[SPEAKER_02]: It never has mattered if the big boat that we want to call comic book industry, if it wants to sail fast, it's going to, and I get, I get to go with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if it wants to take on water and begin to sink,
[SPEAKER_02]: then I sort of go down with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when especially when I was doing only one book, like I'm going, I don't really, I don't have much impact here.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the industry wants to commit, you know, self-inflicted suicide.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't do anything to stop that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And still, even with even with the number of books we do, image,
[SPEAKER_02]: given that I'm president of image comics, we have a sort of a bigger impact than an individual like myself or Robert Kirkman.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I just like to watch a little bit and just make sure that we're doing okay and we're not doing too much dump stuff, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because we need you guys know, we need
[SPEAKER_02]: We need the loyalty of the readers, you need the loyalty of your viewers, and at any time they believe they're being taken advantage, they'll just go someplace else where they can enjoy their time and effort in the money.
[SPEAKER_02]: So
[SPEAKER_00]: But it feels like image for all of the years, you've been there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it's expanded and shifted.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's become this creative engine for so much of the industry when it started as something, you were sort of escaping a certain part of the industry and creating your own island.
[SPEAKER_00]: But now that island feels like it still has that philosophy but it's gotten so much bigger and pushed in different directions.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I would say it's been like that for quite some time, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And my epiphany came and I don't even know what the year was, but we did an image convention or image expo or something like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was an Oakland and it was just all things the image, the whole show was all things image.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember walking around that show and that was a long time.
[SPEAKER_02]: That seemed like at least around 10 years ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: Man, I could get hit by a bus, and so could every founder, the original founders get hit by a bus, and image is going to be healthy as heck.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because everything I saw was all the new energy and the new creators and the new books, and I could see the fans were coming, and they were like, so excited about those other books and couldn't give two cents about like what I was doing on
[SPEAKER_02]: And I took, but I took that as a, has a sense of pride that that means that image is going to survive.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's going to survive for a long time, even long past the, the, the, the wife's hopefully fingers crossed them of all the original founder will.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that.
[SPEAKER_02]: That should be sort of the goal for any creator of anything is to create something and that it lives you, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Not, I mean, on a day-to-day basis, that's your children, you never wish upon anybody to see their children pass away before them, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: sadly, I have a handful that have and it's just gut-wrenching.
[SPEAKER_02]: What you want is to put something into the world, especially creatively, and then hope that it prospers, and even though people will be sad when you die, their next question is going to be, what's
[SPEAKER_02]: So once the next issue or the next movie or next video game that character coming up, that means they still want what you gave them and that's the victory.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that image will outlast my life.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm open.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll go out with the smile.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you feel that way about, is that spawn, as well?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, is that the thing that you're like, really trying to push out there?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it was that I'm telling you, I'm telling you, Alex, it was one of the goals I had from day one.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can I plant a flag of a character?
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't know it was going to be spawn.
[SPEAKER_02]: If it didn't work, I would have had to come up with something else.
[SPEAKER_02]: But could I, can I create something that will, let me because, yeah, like, when I was younger and I was born in the 60s, like, you know, Walt Disney was the guy that I just go, oh, man, look at all those characters he helped create.
[SPEAKER_02]: But Walt Disney, the company is a whole groove and bigger so that we had things like Toy Story and Pixar comes along and now they acquire Marvel.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's gotten bigger, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Stanley, again, I would put him in the same box as Walt Disney, a single person who created a massive amount of intellectual properties that are, I mean,
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the steepest hill you can get.
[SPEAKER_02]: We can all catch a lightning in a bottle once, maybe twice if we're really lucky.
[SPEAKER_02]: But to do it eight, nine, ten times like Walt Disney and Stanley did with the people that they helped help them co-create all those characters.
[SPEAKER_02]: Man, that like wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, but
[SPEAKER_02]: You can I've also I've also said the people somebody walks up to you and says hey hey here Justin here's the copyright trademark for Superman here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's my advice to you take it and fucking get out of that room as fast as you can for nature for the change
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't ask about superboy, don't ask about crypto, don't ask about supergirl, run, run because then with that one main character you can then go I can build another universe away from all those other characters because I've got the centerpiece of it so you've got a foundation to go with it so I guess you could say that's way close to what I've done with one
[SPEAKER_01]: It first of all, it's very funny, though, I think you're 100% right to think about spawn as your Mickey Mouse because they're wildly different characters.
[SPEAKER_02]: But again, I say that only in that Mickey Mouse, again, that's just the story.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mickey Mouse outlive the idea of Mickey Mouse outlive its creator.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, what I'm hoping for is that when I die, people will still enjoy spawn and will want more spawn.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the victory for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was my goal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, what is it then?
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, we have our opinions for our reader perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: From your perspective, what is it about spawn that hit?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is that the thing that's stuck?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, let me just sort of digress a little bit and tell you like, why me?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because people go, Todd, you've been doing for 35 years.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, what keeps you going?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, here's the simple thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I need my spawn comic book in my life, creatively.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the reason is, because I do enough things in other places of my life, and especially on the toy site with McFarlane toys, where we go out and get other people with brands, we have to get permission, and we have to get approvals, and we have to get sign-offs, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And during those processes, I've been doing it for over 30 years on the toy site, it can be somewhat aggravated.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, I'll write my memoir someday, but but no matter what's going on in my life, I have this glowing light in the corner for me personally and it's my spawn book because I can get up tomorrow come up with an idea and and and and just implement it and I don't need anybody's approval.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not saying it's great.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not saying what I'm doing is better than anybody else.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not saying any of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just saying for me personally, I get to create and not have to get turn around and get a sign off.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's why I need this book.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I remember Robert Kirkman I was talking to him when he was quitting, um, walking dead.
[SPEAKER_02]: and he was up to about 190, and he was talking about quitting, and I just go, come on, man, you should go up to 200, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Come on, man, go 200, and he's like Todd.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to quit it like 130.
[SPEAKER_02]: He goes up, he goes, if I've got to go, and at this point I was nearing or we had just passed or whatever, issue 300 to spawn and set the record.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I never forget him saying, Todd,
[SPEAKER_02]: If I got to do another hundred issue, well, I can dead, I'll put a nail on my head.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, so, so again, at some point, at some point, everybody has, every creator has a length of time, and then they just have other ideas that they want to go manifest.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or again, your kids grown up and it's time to send them the college and then go raise another child.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, but for me, 300 and now we're pushing close to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It'd be less than two years before we get the 400.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, but again, I'm not doing it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not doing it all.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's just be clear.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not writing pencil and making every single page like Eric Larson is on dragon.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I understand that the only way
[SPEAKER_02]: to get to 400 issues is by getting help from other smart people.
[SPEAKER_02]: If it was me completely having to do all of it, you know, not probably I would have burnt out maybe, you know, in the 120 issue of myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting to tell you about timelessness because it sounds to me that like, spawn keeps you personally timeless.
[SPEAKER_00]: It keeps, that's a little pocket that you get to keep being in.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it keeps my joy of the industry because I have my little warm blanket that I get to wrap myself around and enjoy it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, Kudos to everybody who has any
[SPEAKER_02]: success with characters that they don't own, because I mean, I did it, you know, when I was on Spider-Man, a little bit on Hulk and stuff like that, and it's a good ride, it's a good ride, but haven't been on both rides, I, for me personally, and I think Grab a Kirkman would tell you the same.
[SPEAKER_02]: The ride that you're the pilot, not the
[SPEAKER_02]: more enjoyable run because you can you can just come up with like big thoughts about anything whether it's comic books TV movies video games version of it people come knocking on your door you have lots of conversation they have to come to you right I I was saying to somebody the other day I had a this conversation with Donnie K. It's one day and Donnie K. It was had fallen me because he was I think doing this 50th issue of them and he wanted me to do a cover.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I go, no, no, no, I'm going to do a cover.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm present in an image.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, but he said, come on, talk, come on, talk, come on, talk.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, but we got into the conversation where I was just going, you know, it's weird that you've done 50 issues of fandom, but you haven't done 50 issues of any book that you want.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, even 25 like those kind of half even 25 and I go here's the thing it's it's it's it's really a nice accomplishment and I and I tip my hat to you or any other creator right you different the issues of the ball right but I go you walk into a Hollywood meeting tomorrow and I walk in with you and you say to that executive hey I did 50 issues of venom
[SPEAKER_02]: And I say, I co-created, then, in fact, the look of end of my creative.
[SPEAKER_02]: Who do you think gets more attention?
[SPEAKER_02]: And here's the sad fact.
[SPEAKER_02]: Neither of us.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the reason is, because the executive is gonna go, oh, so you guys are here to sell me venom.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, right, so you wrote the most issues and you created the most issues or you created the character like okay, but neither one of you have anything to offer me today.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why you in my office?
[SPEAKER_02]: But come back when you got something.
[SPEAKER_02]: that you can offer me other than bragging rights, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's it, like I like to be in rooms where I can offer something to somebody potentially, and it's viable.
[SPEAKER_02]: And because right now somebody wants to go make a hat or t-shirt or video game or anything from any character I'm doing or Robert Kirkman or anybody that's got a book at them.
[SPEAKER_02]: They got to go to the creator.
[SPEAKER_02]: right anybody wants to make a hat t-shirt of Captain America.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't care how many issues you've done.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't care how many awards you've won.
[SPEAKER_02]: They got to go to Marvel.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, you don't get the fruits of your labor, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So, but anyway, that's my, that's my president of image feature.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's good.
[SPEAKER_02]: The grass grass is good on the side of the fence when it works.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why does one work for readers?
[SPEAKER_02]: I just, I think on his best day,
[SPEAKER_02]: He's just a cool badass character that people just go, fuck, go get them, stop, don't like, but he didn't really have a lot of rules.
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess it would be like as creators of image.
[SPEAKER_02]: We just, there are not really too many walls around it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think there's a space for that because the corporate characters can only go
[SPEAKER_02]: so far, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's really interesting to me with happening with some of the absolute stuff, because you're sort of going into that vein, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: That dark harsh, I would argue sort of spawnish world.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what's going to intrigue me is how does Warner Bros. the parent company
[SPEAKER_02]: what are they going to do with it because for so long they've nurtured what Superman and Batman and flash are two moms and eight-year-olds that now is something they have to say well not really I don't know and know by the way if it's
[SPEAKER_02]: If we go as harsh as it is in some of the comic books now, we might not sell as many toys and T-shirts and stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a, I would, I would like to be a fly on the wall of those combos.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for the go.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've got this massive hit.
[SPEAKER_02]: but the style of it is not conducive to what we've been doing on our public front has a big giant fortune 500 corporation.
[SPEAKER_02]: So great comic books.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what they're whether they're going to make an absolute Batman movie.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe.
[SPEAKER_00]: You mentioned Eric Larson.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you guys in a lifelong game of chicken for continuing on
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, no, and I, I give the crown to Eric anyway, because Eric, as you know, is done every single page of his book.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, he, he, it's a, it's a, it's a, I think what I've done, which
[SPEAKER_02]: Potentially going to become an unbreakable record.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think what Eric Dunn is a freakishly unbreakable.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think that you like, I don't, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought my head.
[SPEAKER_02]: Even somebody like Jack Kirby, who maybe did a hundred issues with the fantastic four, it's still 150 issues short.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's, I mean, Dave Sim did, you know, the vast majority of the artwork and the writing on a service for the 300 issues.
[SPEAKER_02]: So maybe once Eric gets fast 300, then he will be the true true true undisputed creator, right, not in the first spot.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was the longest running comic book, not Todd.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was the character in the book.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, he had to do this.
[SPEAKER_02]: That do this.
[SPEAKER_01]: so dedicated that at some point I question the sanity this is getting back to something you said earlier in terms of bringing other other people there is a reinvention of spawn going on right now we had Matthew Rosenberg on the show a couple of months back good friend of the show
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was telling, I don't know if he was big bodice, but he was saying that he got essentially a call from you, that he felt like came out of nowhere, he didn't know what was going on, and then you talked to him about coming on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Spawn went through a bunch of iterations, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_01]: The thing that I'm wondering about beyond that story, like, was he lying to us?
[SPEAKER_00]: He's lying to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's lying to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's lying to us.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's lying to us.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's hard for me to hire somebody without talking to them, but yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I guess what I'm actually curious about is like, what put somebody like that on your radar, where you say, oh, Matthew Rosenberg or ex-person is good to take over respond?
[SPEAKER_02]: For me, and again, it's my bias, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So again, doesn't mean that it's right.
[SPEAKER_02]: sensitive about dialogue, and when I watch TV and movies, my kids have caught me many time to go down, why are you groaning?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't even know I'm doing it, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I just think, I just like, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, because it's just, it's what I call common, it's comic booky dialogue, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so every now and then somebody comes along and they can write what feels like real people
[SPEAKER_02]: given that there's a fantastic element in there that is the the piece that how do you get there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you don't want to ignore that.
[SPEAKER_02]: You want to play up to that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But why can't you deal with it in a way that treats these people like real people like that there's real consequences.
[SPEAKER_02]: So
[SPEAKER_02]: I've said many times when I was growing up, I didn't go to the action movie, PG13, action movie, the Schwarzenegger's Swester Stallone and Steven Segaldo's type movie.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't go to any of them because I thought it was what I called chaos with no consequence.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was just visually amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: But there was really no consequence, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, blow up cars, flip cars, blow up buildings, crash in the things, and while you're trying to get away, go through intersections, what you can hope you make it, other cars crash in each other.
[SPEAKER_02]: And at no time in any of those movies, did anybody go, hey, I wonder what I want through those four intersection, and I caused five collisions, did anybody get hurt or killed?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because of me.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I blew up that building or whatever, and when I flipped that card, it looks super cool when it ran over the other card and flipped.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's amazing on screen.
[SPEAKER_02]: But how do I know land on a 21 year old woman who had a two year old baby, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, there's just no, and the next day, there's nobody going, looking to paper, going to internet, did we kill anybody?
[SPEAKER_02]: It never happens, it's just like, I got away.
[SPEAKER_02]: good on me who cares what the chaos is and there's no consequences to the chaos so every now and then somebody writes in a way that I feel like
[SPEAKER_02]: that it matters that you live on earth, with how do you end up being?
[SPEAKER_02]: I've got Brian Bendis when he first came on and still to this day can do it, but I thought he was one of the best in his heyday.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, wow, I just, I'm going for the ride.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think these are real characters that happen to be endowed with powers.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he played a lot of it up with drama
[SPEAKER_02]: with fantasy on top of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, it's a long way of saying I've read a few things that Matt has done that I felt the same way.
[SPEAKER_02]: that when I just read dialogue, I don't even really care what's going on.
[SPEAKER_02]: I read dialogue.
[SPEAKER_02]: When people give me movie scripts, some of the first things I do is I just read dialogue.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't even care what the story is.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just want to go, are the words coming out of these people sound like fucking human beings, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's, I don't understand why that's such a difficult thing and I ache for it and I've been searching for it for a long time ago in book industry.
[SPEAKER_02]: that like you don't have to do the glib lines.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I keep telling my writers, if you got to do a glib line, keep it silent.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or write a caption.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or write a caption, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: But that whole, do you know who your missing was?
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You're going down.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you know what kind of trip?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's all PT 13 action movie lines, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, Matt, Matt, I thought had written a nice amount of stuff that I want pretty solid.
[SPEAKER_02]: Pretty solid.
[SPEAKER_02]: It feels like people.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we'll see if we can if you can bring some of that charm to the spot and comment.
[SPEAKER_01]: it's interesting to hear you say these two things back to back because talking about spawn people liking it because it's a cool badass that almost feels like a trojan horse to get what you really want which is to connect with something more human and more real.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, well, I think you can have both.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think if you think about
[SPEAKER_02]: like Clint Eastwood and some of his Western movies.
[SPEAKER_02]: He didn't really talk a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: He just fucking ditched shit, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: He just was like, because again, again, I'm not a fan.
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, I tell my writer to go, I don't want my hero asking a bunch of questions.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because at some point, they should know what their goal is.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna go save that girl or whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: and everything else to some extent, it's white noise.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when the bad guy just goes, hey, I'm shooting you, you can't.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why aren't you dying?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I don't need him to say, because I've got these ectoscler plasma, I'm super energetic born from the gut.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't need any of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: The answer should be, and maybe because I just, I just project all these heroes that'd be in me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I don't give a fuck what you want, bad guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't care what you're wants and your needs are right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: How come you all die?
[SPEAKER_02]: Where's the girl?
[SPEAKER_02]: And the second time you do it while you're choking them out, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I don't care what you think of me, what you're astonished at, whatever it's irrelevant to me, do the job.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just like, I also tell my writers like, I don't want to see any of my heroes doing this.
[SPEAKER_02]: They have been a hero for a long time, and I consider being a hero against evil as being a war.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, if you go to a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a,
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't get to a point in your five where they find the atrocities of Hitler and go, oh my god!
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god!
[SPEAKER_02]: You're doing experiments!
[SPEAKER_02]: The answer is of course he's doing that.
[SPEAKER_02]: because why?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because we know he's a clock sucker.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is what the bad guys do.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's no to me, there should be no shock valve.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is nothing that anyone of my characters that have been around for a while should be shocked at.
[SPEAKER_02]: Given that they are going up against pure evil.
[SPEAKER_02]: nothing should shock them at this point.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if anything, it should be, I'm surprised it took so long for me to come across this insanity.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm looking at right now, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Come on, man, just, let's go, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: These are, these are characters been around for a while, just right on, right on, right on that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe not, you know, and I understand, we all have different personality.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some people tell jokes to get past their fears, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So you gotta, and you don't want every character to be the same.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just, and a movie when the action begins, nobody talks.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Go watch born identity.
[SPEAKER_02]: Man, once they get going, there is, there is a lot of sound effects, but there is no words.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nobody's saying something every panel.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we in comic book
[SPEAKER_02]: sometimes that we have to like put dialogue during that exact same scene and it's like why?
[SPEAKER_02]: Especially if the art is great, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I did this was one of my writers recently, and there was a shot where the artist did a great, and maybe because I'm biased, I'm an art.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he did a great shot where the guy came behind and like,
[SPEAKER_02]: and you want like this, you pull on his arm, you could see the drip of blood and you could see the cut in the throat.
[SPEAKER_02]: He cut his throat, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, one, I don't even need it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that drawing was so good.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't even need it.
[SPEAKER_02]: First of all, I don't need a caption and I don't need it, but a word belong.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I'm going, I don't need the sound effect like this, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because it adds a little comic booky looking at that drawing was harsh.
[SPEAKER_02]: it was harsh and I and given that I I want like our rate at drama and I want I want real then it be in harsh is okay so get out of the way when you've got a great artist get out of the way of the great art let it like you don't have to say anything when when the panel says everything possible in a great fashion
[SPEAKER_00]: If you were sort of in that vein, if you were redesigning spawn today, if you were just launching the comic and the idea is the same, but know the empty canvas, would you draw him differently, would you design spawn to be different looking?
[SPEAKER_02]: probably.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think there are shifts in costume designs that probably happened like every 10 years and stuff, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And my career, when the X-Men be got got like super famous and popular and they were number one, all the book.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, rarely, if any, I think I'll
[SPEAKER_02]: They had a bunch of like belts and pouches and things that had strapped, so they sort of kind of had their utility belts so they could do it, and then they had their power.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they were way more practical, I would say, and their costume design.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've done it from time to time where he sort of put just a capable way.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, and again, I don't know that I
[SPEAKER_02]: necessarily would cover him from head to toe.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was, I mean, I told people for, look, I created him when I was 16, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: It was in the mid 70s and everything about him is a cliche, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like he's got a cape, he's got gloves, he's got boots, he's got it full costume, and he even got like a full mask.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because superheroes have to have mask and Spider-Man had
[SPEAKER_02]: people didn't recognize it as such, but he had the mark on his chest, which was basically the bat and the s symbol, or the green lantern symbol, or whatever it was, the spider, like the symbol on him.
[SPEAKER_02]: So all, like I took off all the all the eight-year-old sort of things that you do when you draw a superhero.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then when 1992 came around and I dusted them off,
[SPEAKER_02]: then all the the only thing I did was sort of add some of that a little bit more modern stuff, which was the spikes in the chains and the cup of out and the pouches and stuff, but essentially the goofy design I came up with, I just sort of aren't.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I call like it, let's see how it goes.
[SPEAKER_01]: the stuff that Matthew Rutherberg is doing and like Erica Schultz as well who is also great are providing to you.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's doing and Erica just to let the people listening, Erica took over Gunslinger from me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so Matt was supposed to, again, when I found him, he might say, yes, they're taking over Spawn and before he knew it, I had talked, they didn't take it over Spawn and King Spawn.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because again, it was like, man, that sounds really great.
[SPEAKER_02]: But wouldn't be cool if like one person was right in both books, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's why I just, I just drew a little bit of guilt and then hung up.
[SPEAKER_02]: Click.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: And because again, then somebody's not stepping on your toes.
[SPEAKER_02]: You get to basically do the whole painting yourself.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I, I would play in a little bit to the ego.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got to.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, man.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here we go.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the phone back pretty quickly when you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're right, I probably should do both of those.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he couldn't see me because there's on the phone, but I was like, oh, God, I'm good, God.
[SPEAKER_02]: But Erica, Erica, is taking over Gunslinger, which is him in the modern time, where Jimmy Palmiati is doing Gunslinger in the Western time.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he's killing it.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you haven't read the deadly tales of Gunslinger book, it's one of my favorite books I publish.
[SPEAKER_02]: Especially when Patrick Reynolds is drawing it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's just...
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just everything I had in my mind when I closed my head.
[SPEAKER_02]: I go, that's what I wanted that book to be.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just gritty and dirty and ugly, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're delivering on it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, and Jim, you're doing a good job.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, wait, we talked about what draws you to a writer.
[SPEAKER_01]: What about an artist?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because a lot of these books, you know, there's a, for a very outside perspective, you would think, oh, you want people who draw like Todd McFarlane, but there are a vast array of styles.
[SPEAKER_01]: on all of these books.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what pulls you in about an art style?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, sometimes the easiest thing to pose me in is when I'm jealous because I know I can live to be 400 years old and I'll never be able to draw like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't care how long I live.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll never be able to do what Billson coverage does.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's just, he's got something, he's wired a different way and I'm like, oh, man, I can do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: or a man's version that best, but that's it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't have, so I like people who have styles that are different unique, but I also understand that because there's a superhero element, especially to some of the sponsor, I need people who can do that very well at it.
[SPEAKER_02]: What I've learned is that, and if you can see it, if you,
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I've been somewhat paying attention to the 30-year spanish spot.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've write stories based on the artist's skill.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, if they're really good at dark, pretty ugly shadowy stuff, then I bring the stories down and we make it really clandestine and they're incorners and nobody knows what's going on and it's just like more horror and more creep.
[SPEAKER_02]: If they have a bigger style, a grander style, I would put Steven Sagovia in that who's drawing spawn right now, although I'm trying to flick his ear and just go dude, you're the most favorite color you're ever going to have in the world is black, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Especially on a character like spawn, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: He's like Batman, he just looked better when there's black around him.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, we're gunslinger, he can be out in the sunshine a lot more to me than Spawn, and he still kind of works.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're Spawn, I have this role and they don't always follow it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Spawn would never, ever, ever be disconnected from a shadow.
[SPEAKER_02]: So even if it's high noon, he would find the lamp post.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's got a little bit of shadow and he would stand there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not because he can hide, not just because that's just where he's at.
[SPEAKER_02]: Another Y is like a vampire who's mouth, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, it's not true.
[SPEAKER_02]: He can actually stand in the sun.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just, he's way weaker in the sun.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want him to go that my vitamin is the darkness.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because at some point, as time goes by,
[SPEAKER_02]: I want the shift to go and it's getting there and hopefully to get there in a grand way at some point where Spawn was on the defense and all the shadow players and all the dark players were coming after him and he's like, hey man, I don't know what's going on, leave me alone.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't wanna be a part of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know, whatever stop it, stop.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I wanted to get so that he actually ended turning the table eventually and that his reputation will proceed him
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's what he is to me, he's just a beast on his best day.
[SPEAKER_02]: When the beast walks in and you're the bad guy, you gulp, because his reputation has preceded him by a lot, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So I've walking into a room and it's five by five, and there's a hungry, fucking tiger in front of you, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: That you just go, this might not end well for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: So and and that's one instead of being on the defensive now says I know the game.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am not afraid of the game.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's matter of fact not only am I not afraid of the game.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've taken everything from me that matters.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't even give a shit about me, which is the most dangerous man on the planet, the man on fire, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: That it's like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm dying anyways.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do I give a shit?
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm going to take as many of you guys down with me as possible.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I like
[SPEAKER_02]: having to, I don't have to get false sports, but like in the hockey let's just say, there's always like this enforcer guy, right, to do whatever you want, and everybody hates the boom when he plays for the other team.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when he's on your team, you love that dude.
[SPEAKER_00]: Love the good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, because why he's your protector and he will do anything you'll walk on glass to make sure that none of your teammates get get the short end of a stick.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so to some, you don't have to go out with that guy whenever he made him that could be a little crazy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I bet a couple of these athletes and you gotta have a little bit of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But to me, just in the movie, I think it's a victory if somebody comes out of the movie at some point and goes, wow, that's fun, is a badass.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know that I'd fucking want to spend a minute with that due to long, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like it's like pulling a tiger's tail.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know that I'd want to do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm glad he's on our side.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's called him called the hero.
[SPEAKER_02]: But man, I don't know about that guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's, again, oddly part of his charm.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I hope continues.
[SPEAKER_02]: then you've got plenty of versions of those and you've got the OGs of those anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you sit down at an empty blank page, what do you draw to knock out the cobwebs?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like not spawned, but what do you like warm up with at this point?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't do a lot of interior anymore, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Man, if I go on with doing none.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I do a lot of, sometimes I'll do oddly, I'll do like ruffs from my artist when I don't think that their stuff is kind of sexy enough, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll just go, hey, hey, let me just, I'll lay on this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me show out this page here because I think you're being, I would call it like you're being polite, you're being a polite artist, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And the polite artist goes like this, all my hands coming at the camera,
[SPEAKER_02]: right now no fuck dude there like there's the hand is that bit like everything is like polite and you're and then you go okay now I'm gonna do a close-up right this is I've seen that guys I've seen it close up here I'm where I'm going no dude this is the fucking close-up
[SPEAKER_02]: My camera movement from, you know, foreground, mid-ground background is probably a football field, where other white artists, it's like 45 feet.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, whatever, but if I'm just sitting around doing stuff like that, it's easy to just draw sort of heads and expressions and silly things, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I was very careful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's awesome.
[SPEAKER_02]: So these are the ones that I'm way too late.
[SPEAKER_02]: I gotta get these out.
[SPEAKER_02]: I gotta get them out, hopefully tonight after the, some of the sketches I've done for this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I did this thing called the 50, 50, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I, but then I was going, man, I'm so late on them.
[SPEAKER_02]: I better, I better do a good job and draw.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I can't, I can't be like a bad sketch.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I go they've been waiting so long.
[SPEAKER_02]: I better put a little bit here in Monolith, don't you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, yeah, that's awesome.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, just goofy.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then even the ones with the black again, should be sort of cool and gritty and ugly.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: But oh, okay, here's the number.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everyone like this dude.
[SPEAKER_00]: Violator, who don't like the violin.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, anyways, anyways, I'm just, I just,
[SPEAKER_02]: draw to entertain myself for the most part, but if I've got a cover that I'm doing that I'm penciling and thinking, then you just come up with composition and then other times I get the luxury of ink and over other people.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, my son is 11 years old.
[SPEAKER_01]: We go to the comic book shop every week at the other day, coincidentally, you didn't know you were coming on the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: He asked me about the spawn character and where,
[SPEAKER_01]: what what he's about and where he potentially he should start with him I made some suggestions we also asked the comic book shop and there was a very heated debate going on do you ask the creator when somebody's like where do I start with this do you just say well start with number one or what's your suggestion
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there's so many issues now.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a great question.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you get like the first trade paper right, it gives you a bit of a primer to just go, okay, I now know what I'm sort of entering into.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then after that, you know, I sort of proud that you can almost count on two hands, the number of artists that have been on the book for,
[SPEAKER_02]: 300 plus issues.
[SPEAKER_02]: At some point, I guess it would depend on what kind of stories you like to read.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like Shimon Kajranski who did issue 201 to 250, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: He has a very realistic, cinematic, no-ar feel.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, doesn't suit a lot of people want super hero stuff, but if you like it, there's 50 issues of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the follow-up of that is then, you know, I brought on Jason, Sean Alexander, who's got like this horror feel.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was right with stories that sort of had that.
[SPEAKER_02]: When Brett Booth came on and Carlibarbery came on, then to me, those were more sort of superhero.
[SPEAKER_02]: sort of classic look and then and then Greg full loan his 100 issue run almost he could just cover it all all right there was just like like you I don't think you can go wrong I think someone and I'm I'm probably biased but I think some of the best comic book art ever put on paper it was done when Greg and Danny Mickey was thinking in him and and and that sort of spawn
[SPEAKER_02]: about 70 to 100.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just visually, just visually black and white.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just staggeringly good to look at.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the each, as you can imagine, each one of them has a different tonality to it because of the art style.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I guess it depends what your level your kid wants.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want some more superhero, there's
[SPEAKER_02]: pockets of that, and if you want, it's like kind of cool by that stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's pockets to that, and then if you want, it's like just creepy stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's pockets of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did a, I think it was issue 296, 297.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I did a reader, if you buy those two issues, it's kind of a reader digest of the first 300 issues.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, because I knew I was heading towards the third 300 issue, and there's going to be new people coming on board.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I went, oh, let's give him a jump on point.
[SPEAKER_02]: You read these two issues.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're kind of caught up the speed, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like very quickly, but you're caught up the speed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sort of like at the beginning of a TV show where they do a recap.
[SPEAKER_02]: So those two issues recap kind of what the overall theology and story is of spawn.
[SPEAKER_02]: and then there was the prequel and then going into 300 and then 301 because I was trying to figure out to the retailers, I could give them like six issues, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: The two, the two, the two, the two, reader's digest, the prequel's 300 and then the record's set or instead of just making it out, like, oh, an event, you're, you're one and done.
[SPEAKER_02]: Boom, boom, out.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was trying to figure out how I could get the retailers to say, oh no, either by spawn, but then here's why you need to buy the next one, and here's why you need to buy the next one, and this one, and then this all sort of formulates the world, and then you can go from there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And at the end of 301, the world blew open in all these characters came pouring it, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Which is now the spawn universe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have, are you the kind of creator that has the full Bible with all of the mythology?
[SPEAKER_00]: I was the, I'm thinking of the, the violator origin series was it that came out a couple years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like this wild, deep dive into violator mythology.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now is it all just in your head and you're like, oh, I think there's something about this.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, I, I've said it before.
[SPEAKER_02]: If writers saw how, I do my issues, I would be horrified.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because sometimes I literally sometimes just make it up as I go, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And part of it is because I know what it's like to draw.
[SPEAKER_02]: So sometimes I'll give half an issue plot to my artist.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if he's on time,
[SPEAKER_02]: then I I follow through with what I sort of thought the second half should be.
[SPEAKER_02]: But if something comes up like his ant gets you know sick or he's got to go and do something or he gets a bunion or something like life gets in the way and all of a sudden he's like three days behind.
[SPEAKER_02]: I I alter I alter my plot to make it easy on him.
[SPEAKER_02]: or her.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that they can get through it so we can get through the deadline.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so how do you do it?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've got some, I've got some cheat, the biggest cheat of them all.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've got a reporter's page.
[SPEAKER_02]: And each one of them has created their reporter pages to three heads.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, once they've drawn it once, you don't have to ever draw it again.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So sometimes I save and it's like they're going on a little bit behind it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Go don't worry.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll put it before his bed yet.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's important.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you get?
[SPEAKER_02]: And you get paid and you get paid for.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes I think they intentionally are late one page every issue.
[SPEAKER_02]: So thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I get paid.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get paid for a page that invades.
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, but.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or I did this one, I remember with Jason Alexander, and he was like, oh man, Todd, and it was this big fight in I think near the White House.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I go, all right, but here we go, right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so what happened was I got the good guy in the bad guy together.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the first thing that the bad guy did was he went and he put a dome around the two of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he put out the smoke.
[SPEAKER_02]: I go, you're going to have to draw one panel where there's a bunch of little people, like sort of trying to press up against the dome.
[SPEAKER_02]: But for the rest of the issue, it's just going to be the two of them beating each other in a smoke-filled room, essentially, which means you don't even have to draw background.
[SPEAKER_02]: What a long detourist.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't have to draw background, and I will just continually put captions going, and the thousands of people
[SPEAKER_02]: are still straining to try and see the horror that's inside.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now it just becomes writing and you have to paint a picture, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: But we got through the issue and Jason was thankful.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he's like, oh, man, thanks, Todd.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is that part where I run into a writer that I just like go, I think you guys are a little more rigid than you should be.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you should be a little more flexible.
[SPEAKER_02]: full script, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I, because I want to see what they draw so that I can write to the expression of the body language or whatever they're doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've said before as long as you're getting the gist of it, I don't really care the order of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I know that might horrify people.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I really, I don't, I don't, I don't.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I got a three page scene where Alex and Justin are there,
[SPEAKER_02]: And all I need, all I need knowing my next scene is that Justin has to be mad at Alex that's it that I need that that's them that's the move now
[SPEAKER_02]: To my artist, you can make it so Justin says and does something or physically or verbally and Alex gets pissed off in the first two panels and then Alex is mad for all three pages before I go out.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or you can have Alex and Justin have an a nice conversation, a nice conversation, and then the second the last panel, Justin says something about Alex's mama.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now Alex got part of part of what did you just say about my mom and then both either way the last panel is the Justin and Alex are not on good terms.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's all I need because I know what sort of what's going to happen later is I need that guy to be solo and he can't call on his buddy because everybody's pissed off at him.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't really sort of care how I get that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not rigid at how I get there and I'd rather let the artists have fun of going, no, I'm going to have them happy and then sad instead of sad and then have like, I don't care.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is this is the ongoing debate I have with writers.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure they're way smarter than being like I said, it would horrify them to know that I
[SPEAKER_02]: I got eight pages.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't worry about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll get there.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a couple of questions from the comments here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to bring up with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all right.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is from the name changes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wish he could have finished the animation any chance of returning to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I assume this is spawned the animated series.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the answer is, yes, I've, again, I've had conversations with Jason Blum and stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think that the move after the movie is to go and do live action TV episodic.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's, I think it's to then do, we did, we come back with animation.
[SPEAKER_02]: and a really, an animation is sort of move in leaps and bounds since the HBO show.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's things that we can do now that we couldn't do, you know, 20, 30 years ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, to me, once the sort of the small snowball,
[SPEAKER_02]: goes down the hill which is spawn the movie and it gains any momentum again it has to be successful.
[SPEAKER_02]: It will just be got other things and one of the first things that we'll be talking about then will be let's let's bring back the animation.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think of a crush.
[SPEAKER_02]: What are you talking about?
[SPEAKER_02]: HBO comes back and says it brings back, spawn the animated show.
[SPEAKER_02]: They'll kill.
[SPEAKER_02]: It'll kill.
[SPEAKER_02]: And by the way, everyone in the rival should want it to go.
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't want HBO to get it back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean on the movie, I may have missed something, but the last thing I remember is we saw the front of a script page for King's spawn a year back maybe something like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there any obviously it's been a long journey but very careful with it, put is there any progress on that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I've had a couple of scripts given to me that I've not signed off on, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to even a couple of weeks ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I'm over it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm over trying to
[SPEAKER_02]: get others to understand what I think this character needs to be and I thought one of the scripts weren't like too far like ignoring everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: Gotta keep trying to give as much rope to the writer's possible and the other one I just came in I thought was way too loyal, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I, I, and I told them I go guys stop looking at the first 10 issues this spawn, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's like, that's like telling me that, that, that you're, I'm a major league baseball player and you're going to study my first 10 at bats in the majors.
[SPEAKER_02]: I promise you they're not my best 10 at bats.
[SPEAKER_02]: right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Stop it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was just planting some seeds and I'm now 375 into it and there's like pieces that are way more meaningful now that like weren't there and that's maybe some of the stuff you were talking about Justin besides visually what would I do some of the stuff that I think worked better now I would have I would have I would have put it in earlier um so like guys like the
[SPEAKER_02]: If you do a word cloud of spawn with a hundred, if not a thousand people, I think the dark creepy cool badass are the four biggest words in the in the clouds, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I go just keep that piece with a little bit of horror.
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, there's a guy Greg Nikotero, very famous, you know,
[SPEAKER_02]: But he's now done all the big directing of the Walk and Dead, and he's done his own little movie stuff, but he's a great, he's a great concept guy too, and in a studio.
[SPEAKER_02]: recreated these busts.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wish I could show them to you because I remember We designed them and I was like, oh man, great, and then he he actually made it without telling me He made it 3D version of each one of them and brought me to his hotel.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was New York Comic-Con.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was doing something because Walking Dead was in the hayday, but he was like, hey Todd, we should have breakfast.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then like, okay, cool, the sub-breakers, great.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you go, uh, you should have it at my hotel, where's your hotel?
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, what, your hotel, your hotel is like eight miles away.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mine's like a block and a half from the convention.
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you going to the convention?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, let's just go to them.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I think we should eat at my place.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I'll go eight miles to your hotel and then we can go back another eight miles, but okay, great, and then we had some breakfast and then he's like, I got to go up to my room and get something.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, okay, okay, whatever you got to get, you know, it's like a kid telling you they got to go pee.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, and then you're like, you're coming with me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, elaborate.
[SPEAKER_02]: Really?
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a trap.
[SPEAKER_02]: I will just wait here and say, I think you should come with me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, all right, Greg.
[SPEAKER_02]: I will come with you to your room so you can get your stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we had to plan that a little bit better than lure it up to the end.
[SPEAKER_02]: But no, I'll do this for, I'll do this more.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm going.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to go for it and then we go into the room and he opens the door and he stands inside so I can go in first and he has unscrewed every light bulb in this room and he had brought his own lighting.
[SPEAKER_02]: and he brought head of stalls and there are six pedestals and on each pedestal with this great fucking moody lighting on each one of them were the where the six designs we came up with of sponsored and and and and when I and I again I'll never forget them when I held it it was like that's
[SPEAKER_02]: my movie.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I keep given these bus to my writers going, if you ever have a day where you're in doubt, pull out one of those buss, because my plan was to use all of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And all the different looks, because I again spawn, can transform, so I don't think he should look the same all the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just pull out one of them and go, whatever I'm writing, does it sort of drive up to this?
[SPEAKER_02]: get there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So anyways, I sat with you.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what I was last week and I pitched them an idea that I go, this is that this is the movie because I am exhausted and either I'm writing it or you're finding a writer who will co-write it with me or we're going to be stuck at the hip because I cannot let this I am done.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm getting away to all I am done
[SPEAKER_02]: letting this just be given to somebody and hoping that it turns into what I want.
[SPEAKER_02]: And luckily, luckily, you get these moments where recently, for things like obsession come out and back rooms come out and you go, see, you don't need all this big extravagant stuff that's in there.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been telling you guys for 10 years, it just needs to be this dark,
[SPEAKER_02]: creepy moody thing and people will go for the fucking ride, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So Anyways, we'll we'll see I like we'll see we'll we'll I'm gonna need to set a hotel room trap for these Get them in here.
[SPEAKER_02]: I
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, anyways, so where we are still pushing the ball there up the hill, although everybody is still helping me push it, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So again, nobody's jumped off.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nobody, I'm actually supposed to be going to Jamie Fox out tomorrow, right, and talk about a couple things.
[SPEAKER_02]: So nobody, nobody's abandoning ship, we just want to make sure that we get the right thing that's
[SPEAKER_01]: that's a miracle in itself to keep a group together like for sure and when if the movie happens would you want Greg Nick Carrot to direct as well do you think?
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, well, we're talking a couple of directors, but uh, but uh, yeah, at some point, if, if I can't find a right people than he, he's already created the look.
[SPEAKER_02]: So like, let's just go on.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's just go on.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is this walking dead episodes are great.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're actually directed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, just, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what?
[SPEAKER_02]: Man.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, okay, but like I said, we're we're we're talking to the handful or talking to the handful of directors and some of them pretty big.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, uh, but yeah, that's a great because I said that I was saying to a couple of the directors, I was like, going, hey.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, Greg Nicotero helped me create these matter of fact, he had a big input and like, we should all together, like, all of this talent, you, that's not fair.
[SPEAKER_02]: The producers wouldn't like it, like all this to get, like it should be working.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what's taken so long for this to gel, but Jason Blum,
[SPEAKER_02]: probably two years ago, three years ago, I don't know, maybe as long as I said something to me that irritated me.
[SPEAKER_02]: But in hindsight, he was dead on.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he said, I thought it was taken too long, and that probably after five years.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he said, Todd, here's on Guantaya.
[SPEAKER_02]: A movie will get made when it's ready.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just want, easy for you to say,
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's easy for you to be passey about it like whatever, but as time's gone by, then he was right in that I could have insisted on some of the stuff that I wasn't comfortable with getting made, whether it was my version or anybody else's version, and maybe it might work or maybe it might, but if it didn't, we would all be wondering myself more than anybody else of going
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe I should have waited longer, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So I can live with failure as long as this is like, why do you have spawn in your life?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I said, like, I need that it's chicken noodle for my soul in the corner.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like I can live with failure and I've had tons of it, my career.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can live with failure if it was, if I was part of the decision-making of stuff that
[SPEAKER_02]: I own right instead of like given it away somebody makes a decision and then if it works you kind of go want it and much to do with that and if it doesn't work you're going oh man I would have done this right yeah so so like if we if we do a movie and it ultimately fails then I actually will be able to sleep because I go well this is what I always thought it should be and I would guess I was just wrong my bad
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm hoping not.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm hoping that as I tell people in Hollywood, I think I can draw a million fans, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And usually a million fans don't go by themselves.
[SPEAKER_02]: So let's say they eat to bring a pile or somebody.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's 2 million, 20 bucks a ticket, that's 40 million.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I said a couple of a good number.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the first 40 million is mine.
[SPEAKER_02]: The question is, what are you, Hollywood studio going to do beyond 40, 40?
[SPEAKER_00]: They love hearing that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because if I can go independent and do 40, so help me get to 80.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's go and we can get the 80 and we know that we've got a sequel two days later because it's going to economically work because we're not going to spend a bunch of money.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's go.
[SPEAKER_02]: And by the way, then all of a sudden there's the animation and then these other projects with some of these other characters, like, what do you talk about?
[SPEAKER_02]: Gunslinger?
[SPEAKER_02]: Shit.
[SPEAKER_02]: Gunslinger.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm getting Gunslinger on the screen.
[SPEAKER_02]: I promise you that, like, he's coming too, so.
[SPEAKER_00]: Make a good pitch.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll tell you that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's solid.
[SPEAKER_00]: Spielberg just disclosed your day did while like 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, all right.
[SPEAKER_02]: But, and again, it's a good number, but it's interesting that with the budget and his pedigree, it still has half of what back rooms.
[SPEAKER_02]: 100% right so that's that's that's the piece and now it'll be interesting because there's a lot of competition going on right now Right and you saw it like master's the universe got knocked down real quick Why because there's obsession still going strong you've got back from still going strong You got scream came out again.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you got three horror movies and and and a scream came out at 55
[SPEAKER_02]: So, and then scary movie, scary movie, scary movie, scary movie, and then you've got and then you've got a Spielberg movie, and then you've got some other wriggle and it's coming down the pipeline, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: The war drums are starting to beat for the Odyssey, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So here we go.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know, and they're, we're now starting to have conversations potentially like we used to years ago before the pandemic where it's like, oh man, who's going to, who's going to get the air out of their sale knocked out because there's so many, yeah, there's so many options for us, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there was, there was a spell, a dry spell there were, I don't know, we're like, maybe there was like,
[SPEAKER_02]: really four or five go to movies in one year like you and everything else you go I'll go but you weren't really enthusiastic about it and now they're starting to feel just a little bit kind of like what it felt like a little bit before the pandemic obviously the dollars aren't back but it's like when I go to theaters now I'm starting to see more people in the lobby then life either.
[SPEAKER_02]: in three years ago, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And once you get us to be habitual, which is all you ever want from your consumer to be habitual, what you never want from an addict, which is habitual, is to get them to go straight.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so you're never, as you're selling crack, you don't ever want them to fucking go too weak without it, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And we went with the pandemic, we like what?
[SPEAKER_02]: And we said, you can stay home.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like we're not even gonna put it in theater.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're gonna and you've rewired us to go.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we don't have to go And then and then all of a sudden the pandemic's over and I go nobody's going to the movies
[SPEAKER_02]: because you train this, you train this, not to go, oh, and by the way, you took out the middle, you took out the middle movies that a lot of adults would go to that was counting programming to the big superhero sci-fi and then the Kitty horror stuff, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: There was a lot of adult stuff in between.
[SPEAKER_02]: You stop making it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So why would my wife and I go to the theater if you're not making movies for us anymore?
[SPEAKER_02]: right we don't we we'll wait for Star Wars don't worry about it so but anyway that's that's that's I hopefully hopefully they've got a little bit of a smile on their face and they'll start to loosen the purse strings and we'll start to get a little bit more of a floodback on on good movies that we can go and enjoy
[SPEAKER_01]: uh just to sort of loop it back to comics and thank you by the way for being so generous with your time I just wanted to ask you this before we go since it's been a hot topic in the comic book industry um the speculator market that's something obviously you were right in the middle of the back with it first mm
[SPEAKER_01]: group and then pop the first time.
[SPEAKER_01]: People are very worried seeing all the blind bags and very in-coveres and everything that come out.
[SPEAKER_01]: You get like a little bit of this PTSD, coming off with people because of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where do you think we're at right now?
[SPEAKER_01]: And how does the comic industry not make those same mistakes again?
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, the, the quickies and answers.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Names thought only rhyme would God, so I, I don't have the pronunciation.
[SPEAKER_02]: But, uh, and I'll honest the Alex, I'm asking the exact same question, almost, almost daily.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because, because I, like I said at the very beginning of this interview, my books are tied to the pulse of this industry and if this industry wants to implode itself,
[SPEAKER_02]: or double on size, I either get to go for the ride or I go down with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't have enough power to do anything with that tide.
[SPEAKER_02]: That tide is just way too strong.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm asking the same question because I'm seeing some of the stuff that eventually wore people out in the 90s,
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, we have to be careful of not taking advantage of the consumer because the consumer is actually pretty good eventually, not at the beginning, but eventually we'll see what happened with SpaceX stock.
[SPEAKER_02]: It came out today, it passed Amazon and Microsoft in terms of value.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's now the fourth largest, I guess it died at the end of the day and went back down.
[SPEAKER_02]: But at one point, it actually had passed those two.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's the fourth most valuable company on the planet.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now based on what based on like and so you can go there's a lot of hype and maybe they'll pull it off.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what's happening with all of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's here's Potentially A caution tape that people would be very good
[SPEAKER_02]: you have to have the majority of people going, hey, let's just, let's just be mindful.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's be mindful with be mindful.
[SPEAKER_02]: But if one of the equations are public companies, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's where Marvel and DC come in.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the other one is,
[SPEAKER_02]: either speculators and or stores that are going in man I can take that book and I can take a book for 50 and flip it for 100 I can do it both of these want the same thing more cash more cash more cash more cash and that they're both going for the same goal which is maximize maximize and and the thing I've found that I I've seen it over and over and I'm and even like outside of the conical industry
[SPEAKER_02]: never, because you have a cow and it will give you milk, don't milk it dry for no reason.
[SPEAKER_02]: Milk it dry, if you have to, I advise you not to, but milk it dry because you're thirsty and you need to feed all the thirsty babies.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then you've got a good reason.
[SPEAKER_02]: But milking for the sake of milking,
[SPEAKER_02]: which is just, we can make money now, let's make money.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's when businesses and companies and industries have historically gotten in trouble.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because they eventually take advantage of the consumer and the consumer who is buying something, 10 bucks can't sell it for $3 a week later.
[SPEAKER_02]: Eventually they go, you know what?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll go someplace else and spend my $10 where they're not taking advantage of me.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, but we also live in a different time with the internet, so you can bring in more speculators and you can get the stories told and whatever else, but I, Alex, I am as curious to that answer as possible.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right now, new people are coming in, my only thing is if there's going to be new people coming in, can I deliver any quality books that those people are going to buy more than absolute Batman?
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, so can I be one of the books since they're there in the store they go I got money.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to buy 10 issues.
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope it's not all the very In covers maybe but can I give them some other things that might turn their head that's on me at that point, but do
[SPEAKER_02]: do I do all the things that are kind of working and making cash, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I don't.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I just don't.
[SPEAKER_02]: I pride myself took me 17 years before I raised my price.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the only reason I raised my price, I had to say it was somebody put a tariff on it.
[SPEAKER_02]: and I and I and I just wouldn't work otherwise.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I had to.
[SPEAKER_02]: So could I have raised it to $3.99, 10 years ago?
[SPEAKER_02]: 12 years?
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course I could have.
[SPEAKER_02]: What have been the same price as everybody else?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Would I have been a bad guy?
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: Would I have made more money?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why do it, Todd?
[SPEAKER_02]: Other than I would have made more money, why would I do it?
[SPEAKER_02]: That was the question.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, okay, Todd, I make more money.
[SPEAKER_02]: and who else and what other value is there other than me making money and you know what I've lived a charm to life my wife and our happy we got money we don't need more of it we're okay so what we need are loyal customers
[SPEAKER_02]: And the way you keep loyal customers you treat them fairly should be a two-way street if they're loyal to you You should be loyal back to them as much as possible.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know we'll see Alex I year for now six months from now.
[SPEAKER_02]: We may have this conversation and maybe a drastically different answer one direction to the other.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I appreciate your insight, regard this Todd.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for coming on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for taking the time to talk.
[SPEAKER_01]: All the stuff going on
[SPEAKER_01]: We appreciate it so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's the luck to you guys too.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can do what you're doing all right Thanks Todd have a good evening.
[SPEAKER_00]: See you soon.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, be good.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right there we go Todd McFarlane You know him you love him check out everything for the spawn line spawn and King spawn by Matthew Rosenberg As mentioned Erica Shets is now on gun slinger spawn is a great jumping on points for all of these books You can check them out in it comic book stores right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're great
[SPEAKER_00]: Very good, and always SpaceX is the ultimate blind bag.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, too many variant covers that I got to be honest with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lot of variants in that space, thanks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And folks, we're going to move on with our next section, which is my favorite section, because you all make it up.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is your audience question.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for all these questions all you got to do is drop a question in the comments It can be about absolutely anything and we will get to it while we're waiting for those questions to come in And I do want to apologize there are a bunch of folks on here who did ask some great questions for Todd But obviously we're having a lengthy conversation and couldn't fit them in so apologies about that We can answer them, but we won't have the answers But just in what are you drinking tonight if anything?
[SPEAKER_00]: uh... just having a little sear in a vada spring fest IPa i'm very seasonal yes just like everyone's allergies
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got a question here from Stanley where his peat is off this week dealing with some personal stuff, but hopefully should be back soon This is from easy reader.
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you guys celebrate the nix win Justin?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: I You know, I'm not a huge NBA guy, but it was impossible not to get swept up in the next story the last few weeks Why watch game two at a bar so exciting?
[SPEAKER_00]: uh... the ups and downs the the loss they took the game for was uh... watch at home in my wife who has now purchased like nine next t-shirt for the serity game she showed up in a jersey that was like when you get that she said i bought up i bought two i was like oh okay brunson let's be this
[SPEAKER_00]: but yes I didn't our kids got into it as well so I was gonna go out into the streets for for game five but the kids wanted to watch the games and I was like my wife said could we take them to a watch party I was like imagining what happens right after all the from pure joy to absolute terror try to get back home so but we we had a screen with some other families at our school and party didn't want you to so far that's so nice
[SPEAKER_01]: uh yeah the vibes here in New York for anybody who doesn't New York were impeccable pretty much for weeks at this point um the one just talk it like by one not negative experience with the next thing but
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it was the night of when when was Trump there?
[SPEAKER_01]: Trump was there for game three I did game they lost.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the one game they lost he was there for I was at a screening at the AMC 34th Street And I was just scrolling my phone while I was waiting for the screening They were like hey, they're gonna be closing down the entire area around Madison Square Garden nobody's But it'd be able to get out of here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah after this point.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, oh no, that's half way through
[SPEAKER_01]: but it all worked out.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was still fun because you could see like the crowds packed in around MSG.
[SPEAKER_01]: They repainted all the subway stops and nicks colors and put if anybody's never been to New York.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's like little lights on the posts around the subway.
[SPEAKER_01]: They paid to them to look like basketballs as well, which is incredible.
[SPEAKER_00]: The fives are very funny.
[SPEAKER_01]: Vives are very funny, and it was just like even the next day, the next board, they walk around like everybody had like a little skip at their step.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody was really happy on the street, everyone was happy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, yeah, even if you're not a basketball fan, it was the most exciting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, Jalen Brunson is like a superhero character.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like a down and out spider-man, style character, except he doesn't quip nearly at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he's like, he's such a bulldog and came through and won that final game in historic fashion.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, huge, just a great story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Great stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for anybody who was worried like there,
[SPEAKER_01]: There was no violence.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was nothing like, I mean, I think still taking your kids not to take your kids on the street.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good idea because people were just packed and going nuts for hours.
[SPEAKER_01]: But people were just having such a great time the entire time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's really like that is New York.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what gets my goat when anybody is like, oh, New York's a hell hole where people are going to ride all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, any situation, New Yorkers are nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: New Yorkers are nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: New Yorkers stick out for each other is great city.
[SPEAKER_01]: Take that.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is from Nattausen.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are some alternate spawn forms that you'd like to see, EG, business, casual spawn or Hawaiian vacations spawn?
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are the most natural EGs I find.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe like ice cream, man spawn, I'd love to have spawn had me in ice cream cone or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: uh... spawn and king spawn uh... to see the bicycle uh... obviously uh... uh... my first thought was like uh... like you'd be in the bucket movie the only place i've seen people ride bicycles before any bicycles i should look around yeah maybe uh... what other spawn forms i mean
[SPEAKER_00]: I think Todd was talking about sort of the genre power of the spawn and that's why Guns saying or I feel like I believe him when he says he's going to bring that to some sort of screen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: So jumping into, I don't know what that, what the next genre of would be.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Romcom.
[SPEAKER_01]: Romcom.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have serious drama.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just picturing it like vision, but he's wearing a suit and he's spawned and he has a family and it's Thanksgiving and things are hard, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, things are.
[SPEAKER_01]: This room Keith Standish, are you going to add spawn titles to the stack?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I would love to.
[SPEAKER_01]: We should definitely get caught up with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We do it every or so occasionally, and I will say for the record, we will probably say this on We Can Geek or Patreon podcast again.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's too bad Pete wasn't here because he is really the spawn super fat.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll usually throw it in for him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Man, this would have put a smile on his face.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, whoa.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shrekler says, what's the greatest length that you've ever gone to or would go to for comics?
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, pushing the limits.
[SPEAKER_00]: Greatest length to just get comics?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a tough one, I think.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like what's the,
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the furthest you've got or the most you've done for a comic book?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, first thing that comes to mind, this is a good answer, but free comic book day, every year, we light up for hours at a shop to get free comic books, which I certainly don't need, but my kids want, you know, that's a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've certainly traveled when I'm traveling.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've traveled long distances to get to a comic book shop in a foreign city, and that's fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I, I've told this story before perhaps, but when I, right after I graduated college, I was on a grant for a year studying political street theater.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I, how's that working out, by the way?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that really good?
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, honestly, you, you laugh, but it sort of is.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's us, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I was gone for like a year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't come back to the country as part of the grant.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my comic book shop and my dad saved all, they kept my box open even though I was gonna be gone for so long.
[SPEAKER_00]: And every like two months, my dad would go by a obscene stack of comics and just piled them up in my room.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, just foreign again, this wasn't very far anything, but when I was on vacation a couple years back in Oslo,
[SPEAKER_01]: uh we went to Oslo and Copenhagen and up in various places in Norway every city we went to I was like is there a comic book shop and the one place I felt it was in Oslo where there was this great Norwegian comic book shop and I I think I got you guys copies of the walking dead in Norwegian in Norwegian yeah there you go very cool
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... triple it says question for Alex was impossible to not get caught up in the next vibe uh... i mean i fell asleep before the game was over i did i didn't watch it before the game was over yeah but i enjoyed that's definitely not being caught up in it uh... do do do do do do have they done spawn on the high seas yes i believe so wasn't their pirate spawn or something like that
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I believe so.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, this is a question I believe for you, Justin.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is from Stanley.
[SPEAKER_01]: Have you ever had Jim Lee on the show?
[SPEAKER_00]: We've never had him in person, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We've interviewed him at cons a couple times.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, just bad passing at near Comic Con.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was with Nat Towson and we said hello but
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he doesn't, he's someone like a lot of people in his spot who don't like interviews.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I was telling you up for he's been on your show specifically.
[SPEAKER_01]: what you're what you were drunk and galt of the king of San Diego I told many many times you avoided saying that only because I literally told it the show you weren't here like oh okay and I can't say it that frequently fair enough that's fine yeah no but I don't think me for we've interviewed him definitely yeah like New York comic on booth stuff but never in the podcast I would argue that was his show that we were on yes we were in his hotel room
[SPEAKER_01]: Great related question.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you ever done anything like for example, dedicate your entire life to a comic book podcast, just once.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just once.
[SPEAKER_00]: But like the deal with the devil from Spider-Man, you just have to say it once and happens.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got a couple of great suggestions here, space spawn, frog spawn, spawn babies.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a good one.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are all great, I guess.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are all great ideas, but I mean that, I think, especially having just spoken to Todd, he seems pretty happy with just doing spawn spawn.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, regular spawn.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what do we wrap up with this one?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is from Keith Standish.
[SPEAKER_01]: We halfway through the year.
[SPEAKER_01]: What have been some of the best comics so far?
[SPEAKER_01]: this one is top of mind because they've been talking about a bit over the patreon discord but sort of crisis events is pretty great very good uh all of the absolute universe stuff is pretty great across the board i would throw out uh w maxwell prints in martin rosos non ice cream and stuff has been released and out for me their superman book and now deadman it's very cool
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll give a shout out while we're talking about creators, Kyle Starks, a lot of his stuff has just been absolutely great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Russell Heist was a delight.
[SPEAKER_01]: I loved every single issue of that, and there's a couple of hard books.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, what was the one that he did about the revenge, the revenge town, the woman?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, uh, yes, forgetting the title of it, but it's one of those titles where it's like, I'm going to kill you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're just coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stop.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very Matthew Rosenberg title is the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I think Matthew Rosenberg's new book.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, that it's interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Got a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that first issue is very good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm looking forward to the second one.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're just got to be coming soon.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I had so many other thoughts in my head.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard to top of my head, but that's a couple to start with, I think.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And normally we would do trivia at this point, but Pete is not here.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we don't have to.
[SPEAKER_01]: So instead, what do we talk about?
[SPEAKER_01]: What is coming out this week that we're looking forward to coming out tomorrow?
[SPEAKER_01]: Justin, you got any kicks there?
[SPEAKER_00]: Coming out tomorrow?
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, there is.
[SPEAKER_00]: a book coming out that it was such a pleasure to just see that there's a new concrete coming yes so excited for that this is a book that we're talking about in our comic book club book club um which is now I think we're doing that next month right or late this month
[SPEAKER_01]: later this month we had to shift it because a couple of people among other things had nicks hangovers, which is fair.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had that but I was ready to talk.
[SPEAKER_00]: Concrete stars over sand number one comes out tomorrow, Paul Chadwick just absolute great book if you haven't read it go back and read any of the volumes they are sort of sequential like you want to read them in order
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a progression.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would just say so very much looking forward to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll also give it up for If destruction be our lot number two like I just said that's gonna be a good one.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm certain
[SPEAKER_00]: and um i mean red coat number 18 i feel like i go to battle with that book a lot and um it's good we're in the middle of a sort of circling back to the beginning characters arc with fanfacing his mortality after he settled down
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm looking forward to amazing spider-man number 31 Marvel has been hyping this up as the talk with some big revelations coming from at May, curious to see how they handle that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, I'll give a shout out to Uden number two, the first issue that from image comics was extremely messed up with a bunch of Nazis going into the snowy Norse wilderness.
[SPEAKER_01]: and not buying comics but doing some absolutely awful things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then what else?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, did you mention of the earth number two?
[SPEAKER_00]: I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that was gets Chris Condon's book, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and that's he talked about that on the show a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was like, he described it as a roller coaster ride where the first issue is like Greek to the top that it's just downhill after that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So excited to see what they do with the issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: the first issue like has that horror setup that like we were talking about with Todd with movie like it feels very horror movie in a way that's really good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would also shout out absolute green arrow number two.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love this comic by Poinsack Penachet Pena Show and it's really just intense, very topical.
[SPEAKER_00]: The bad guys seem very bad especially because they
[SPEAKER_00]: are easily mapped on people that are in other news right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And all those books of many more are going to be in our stack podcast to post Wednesday at 9 a.m. in the stack feed in the comic book club feed and folks.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is it for this week's show.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much to our great guest Todd McFarlane for coming on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Check out everything from the spawn universe and everything else he does.
[SPEAKER_01]: Next week, we're gonna have another legend on the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: Billy West is gonna be here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, if you don't know who that is, that's the voice of Stimpy.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have a voice of Doug Funny, Fry on Futurama.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has a new book called The Voice of Verse, finding my voices behind the mic.
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll be here to talk about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, so that should be pretty awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so psyched for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Me too.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just confirmed that earlier today, and I was like, Eee, can't wait to say all everybody on the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: Comic book club news are daily news podcasts coming up Monday through Friday.
[SPEAKER_01]: Check that out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Also Marvel Vision, our Marvel podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: We take to special episode with Pete talking about the Punisher.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that should be coming out soon.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's my bad for not putting it up yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can subscribe on Apple, androids, Spotify or the app of your choice, comic book club on blue sky, comic book, club live on Instagram, TikTok and threads, comic booklublive.com for this podcast and many more.
[SPEAKER_01]: Until next time, we'll see you at the comic book.