(written from a Production point of view)
Todd McFarlane (born 16 March 1961; age 63) is a Canadian comic book writer, artist, and publisher. He is best known for his work on Spawn, Spider-Man, and as one of the founders of Image Comics. While working at DC Comics, he made his only contribution to the Star Trek comic universe, three illustrations in "Who's Who in Star Trek 2": Orions and USS Surak (both with Al Gordon), and the Triskelions.
A second contribution to the Star Trek franchise followed in 2017, when he, as founder and chief executive officer of McFarlane Toys, acquired a license to produce merchandise based on the Star Trek television and film franchise, including Star Trek: Discovery.
McFarlane was interviewed in the 2018 "Star Trek" episode of the Netflix series The Toys That Made Us, the same year the first Star Trek merchandise by his company was released.
Career[]
McFarlane began drawing comics in high school and in March 1984 got his break with Marvel Comics doing pencils for a back-up story in Coyote. For the next three years, he worked at DC Comics, where he made his only contribution to the Star Trek comic universe.
Rejoining Marvel, he had successful runs on The Incredible Hulk and Amazing Spider-Man, and was given full reins on the brand-new Spider-Man comic, which he wrote, penciled, and inked. A year after the title's debut, he left Marvel to form his own publishing company, Image Comics, along with Marc Silvestri, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Erik Larsen, Jim Valantino, and Whilce Portacio.
Image Comics was the outlet for McFarlane's Spawn comic, debuting in May 1992, and led to several spin-offs, an HBO television series, and a theatrical movie. The movie, released in 1997 featured work by Rhythm & Hues, Ron Balicki, Tony Brubaker, Jay Caputo, Doc Charbonneau, Donna Cicatelli-Lewis, Melinda Clarke, Harry Cohen, John Cothran, Jr., Charlie Croughwell, Nick Danger, Greg Funk, Caroline Gibson, Tabby Hanson, Kane Hodder, David Howe, Kerry Hoyt, Alex Jaeger, Hubie Kerns, Jr., Stewart Lew, Faith Minton, Larry Odien, Jimmy Ortega, Mark Pacella, Michael Papajohn, Cristina Patterson Ceret, Denney Pierce, Ben Scott, Mary Jo Slater, Laura Interval, Scott Strozier, Wayne Toth, Alan Tuskes, Frank Welker, and Spice Williams. The television series featured work by Digital Muse, Richard Bennett, Ronny Cox, John DeMita, Carlos Ferro, John Hostetter, Jim Lau, Victor Love, Mike Manley, Dwight Schultz, and Kurtwood Smith.
The namesake company he founded in 1994 has become renowned in collector circles for its high quality, the accuracy of its sculptures in particular. (The Toys That Made Us)
External links[]
- McFarlane.com – official company homepage
- Todd McFarlane at Wikipedia
- Todd McFarlane at the Internet Movie Database
- Todd McFarlane at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works