NYCC 2022: Todd McFarlane And Friends Talk Up December’s `Batman/Spawn’
by Tom Smithyman
Todd McFarlane is many things – from a groundbreaking artist of Spawn, Spider-Man, and Venom fame to a savvy businessman who knows how to build his own empire. Chief among those things, though, MacFarlane knows how to sell.
That salesmanship was on display during a packed panel session Friday during New York Comic Con, and his fans ate it up. He predicted that December’s Batman/Spawn would become biggest-selling comic of the 21st Century.
With a little help from industry heavy hitters Jim Lee and Greg Capullo, McFarlane told the story of how Spawn was created more than 30 years and 300 issues ago. When he and Lee were founding Image Comics, each of the artists was tasked with creating a new character for the fledging publisher.
“Mine was Spawn,” McFarlane said. “Nobody knew at that point that it would still be published, let alone stand shoulder-to-shoulder [with Batman] 30 years later.”
While some details of the 48-page book have already been revealed – including the antagonists from the Court of Owls – McFarlane announced several variant cover artists and showed off several of the covers from such creators as Sean Murphy, Jason Fabok, Brett Booth, Gabriele Dell’Otto, Jorge Jimenez and J. Scott Campbell. McFarlane’s and Lee’s own variants have yet to be drawn.
“We wanted to do literally a who’s who of not just artists but cover artist the fans would want to see,” McFarlane said.
He also showed off Capullo’s Spawn-dominant version of the main cover, which is a mirror image of the Batman one previously revealed. And he quickly flashed a few of Capullo’s interiors, which he is inking himself.
“The most fun I’ve ever had in comics was the time I worked with Todd,” said Capullo, who spent a decade each drawing Spawn and Batman. McFarlane praised his artistic partner, saying he was the only person he wanted to work with on the interiors.
Batman/Spawn will be available to purchase on December 13, 2022.
