Hanky Panky
10-30-2008, 07:27 AM
Candid interview by Todd on Spawn, including his drop from #1 and the commitment of this new team.
The thing that surprised me was his guess that the book's standing might be #65 on Diamond's Top 300 when in actuality, it's sitting at #121 in it's September ranking.
The other thing...Whilce mentions how he likes some of the toys of Spawn which he wants to include into the book. Todd said we'll see some of those figure appearances. Sounds to me like a little of the tail wagging the dog, but I digress.
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McFarlane & Portacio talk Spawn
by Kiel Phegley
Posted: Wed, October 29th, 2008 at 11:28AM PST
Todd McFarlane has never been a comics creator to mince his words, and when it comes to the artist and writer's return to his signature Image Comics series "Spawn" with this week's issue #185, McFarlane laid all his cards on the table for CBR News.
"The reality is that 'Spawn' used to be a #1 book for a long time. It was a top ten book for a very long time. It is neither right now," McFarlane explained in a conference call with artist Whilce Portacio, who joins the character's creator as well as co-writer Brian Holguin as part the new monthly creative team. And McFarlane -- who also rejoins the art team as inker after a few years absence -- admitted that blame for the sales drop in the "Spawn" series since its '90s heyday falls on his own inability to creatively jumpstart the adventures of reanimated soldier and family man Al Simmons.
"The end result is still that it doesn't matter if we think what we're doing is right. The result is that it's not quite working the way it used to,” McFarlane said. “You can either get married to your ideas, and say, 'It doesn't matter,' or you can say, 'Maybe the problem is us.' What can we do to try and get it to be if not a top ten book, than how can we get it – and I honestly don't know where it's sitting right now, but if it's sitting at #65, what can we do to push that boulder back up the hill and get it there?"
Step one for the new creative team's revitalization of “Spawn” came by putting all three partners in one room and hashing out what worked and didn't for their vision of the character and his story. "We had a two-day conference in Phoenix, and Todd had us say, 'Let's take these characters that we know we're going to use in the book and give them each a box to say, ‘this is their story,'" recalled Portacio. "So we all agreed in big, broad strokes where these characters are going to go in their boxes. The whole idea was, 'Now that we all agree where these guys are going to go – maybe ten, 20, 30 issues from now – we all have an idea of where everything is going to go, and now we can just concentrate on the details.'"
And talk of 30 issues into Spawn's future is more than spit-balling. McFarlane and Portacio are dedicated to a long, thought-out run on the book with issue #185 serving as a brand new launching point to expand the scope of the Spawn universe. "I wrote some very big things that are part of the tapestry that I've always had in my head,” McFarlane explained of teases hinted in the issue. "I know that we've talked a lot about big concepts, and as long as you know about the big concepts and where you're headed, how you get there, to me, is the exciting part – not completely mapping it out but going, 'Okay. That person has to get from here to there in 25 issues. How do we get him there?' I don't know, but that's going to be the fun part."
Read rest of interview here...
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=18617
The thing that surprised me was his guess that the book's standing might be #65 on Diamond's Top 300 when in actuality, it's sitting at #121 in it's September ranking.
The other thing...Whilce mentions how he likes some of the toys of Spawn which he wants to include into the book. Todd said we'll see some of those figure appearances. Sounds to me like a little of the tail wagging the dog, but I digress.
--------------------------------------------------
McFarlane & Portacio talk Spawn
by Kiel Phegley
Posted: Wed, October 29th, 2008 at 11:28AM PST
Todd McFarlane has never been a comics creator to mince his words, and when it comes to the artist and writer's return to his signature Image Comics series "Spawn" with this week's issue #185, McFarlane laid all his cards on the table for CBR News.
"The reality is that 'Spawn' used to be a #1 book for a long time. It was a top ten book for a very long time. It is neither right now," McFarlane explained in a conference call with artist Whilce Portacio, who joins the character's creator as well as co-writer Brian Holguin as part the new monthly creative team. And McFarlane -- who also rejoins the art team as inker after a few years absence -- admitted that blame for the sales drop in the "Spawn" series since its '90s heyday falls on his own inability to creatively jumpstart the adventures of reanimated soldier and family man Al Simmons.
"The end result is still that it doesn't matter if we think what we're doing is right. The result is that it's not quite working the way it used to,” McFarlane said. “You can either get married to your ideas, and say, 'It doesn't matter,' or you can say, 'Maybe the problem is us.' What can we do to try and get it to be if not a top ten book, than how can we get it – and I honestly don't know where it's sitting right now, but if it's sitting at #65, what can we do to push that boulder back up the hill and get it there?"
Step one for the new creative team's revitalization of “Spawn” came by putting all three partners in one room and hashing out what worked and didn't for their vision of the character and his story. "We had a two-day conference in Phoenix, and Todd had us say, 'Let's take these characters that we know we're going to use in the book and give them each a box to say, ‘this is their story,'" recalled Portacio. "So we all agreed in big, broad strokes where these characters are going to go in their boxes. The whole idea was, 'Now that we all agree where these guys are going to go – maybe ten, 20, 30 issues from now – we all have an idea of where everything is going to go, and now we can just concentrate on the details.'"
And talk of 30 issues into Spawn's future is more than spit-balling. McFarlane and Portacio are dedicated to a long, thought-out run on the book with issue #185 serving as a brand new launching point to expand the scope of the Spawn universe. "I wrote some very big things that are part of the tapestry that I've always had in my head,” McFarlane explained of teases hinted in the issue. "I know that we've talked a lot about big concepts, and as long as you know about the big concepts and where you're headed, how you get there, to me, is the exciting part – not completely mapping it out but going, 'Okay. That person has to get from here to there in 25 issues. How do we get him there?' I don't know, but that's going to be the fun part."
Read rest of interview here...
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=18617