Home > COMICS > ['SPAWN' HIGHLIGHT] TODD MCFARLANE Q&A AND A PREVIEW OF ISSUE #186
['SPAWN' HIGHLIGHT] TODD MCFARLANE Q&A AND A PREVIEW OF ISSUE #186
The creator discusses the launch of his brand new 'Spawn' run and offers up images of this week's issue
By Kevin Mahadeo
Posted 11/18/2008
In Spawn #185, Al Simmons lost his mind. That's what happens when you blow off your head.
Todd McFarlane, Whilce Portacio and Brian Holguin—the new creative trifecta of the long-running series—began their run by changing the game and eliminating Spawn's now-former lead character Al Simmons. The issue raised questions and opened doors for both fans, the creators and the characters themselves to explore.
To help navigate the twisting tunnels of the new Spawn Universe, Wizard joins McFarlane every month to explore Spawn's new world and give readers a glimpse into the future with PREVIEW PAGES of upcoming issues.
Why'd you decide to go in this direction with the ending of issue #185 and the suicide of Al?
TODD MCFARLANE: I think that we have run the course somewhat on some of the initial ideas. Issue #1, he's lamenting for his wife, by issue #185 he's sort of still lamenting for his wife. You have to let go of that. I tried to do it a few years ago when Wanda says, "You're not Al, and you just have to give up the ghost and we just move on with our lives." My intent at that point was to walk away from her. Some of the other writers decided to pull her back in.
So our concept more was to go, "Okay you know what? Looking at the title of being Spawn," which to me is a curse in and of itself, "What if we applied the curse to a new character and started getting the character to evolve with the curse much differently than the first character did." The first one hit the ground running and you never wondered what it would mean to even have this costume, and what's good about it, what's bad about it.
Our new guy doesn't even know it's a costume. He just thinks it's some f---ing disease he's got. We, the reader, intellectually know it's a costume, but we have to turn that switch off and we've got to go, "Look if your arm started turning sort of weird and black, wouldn't you just think it was like gangrene when your arm turns a queer color?" You wouldn't think "Oh, I've got a massive bruise on my arm, I wonder if that's a symbiotic costume on me." For me, we've got to stop applying these comic mindsets to what is otherwise a real situation.
Now, this Patient 47, we don't know anything about him. And you obviously can't say much in fear of spoilers. But can you talk a little about how his past plays into the story?
MCFARLANE: His past is much more complicated than Al's was. We already set what that is and how we are going to start getting to it. He's a guy—without giving away too much—he's smack dab in the middle of a lot of stuff and he actually seems sort of passive about it. He's in deeper than Al ever was and we'll get to that. The big surprise is that Patient 47 is not a stranger to this comic book.
Wait. What?
MCFARLANE: We'll eventually get there. He's not actually a new character.
So, you have a grand plan for all of this stuff?
MCFARLANE: Yeah. There seems to be this over-riding comic book mentality—which is understandable given it's comic books—of wanting to get to everything so quickly. I understand the counter to that argument, which is, "Todd, we hate it when you drag it out too long." Our intent has always been how to move this in a smart way so that we're not letting anything drift and still pushing certain plots forward at a steady pace. But not to the point that 12 issues from now everything single thing is answered. There's way too much that we have planned that we couldn't even contemplate getting there that fast. I want to move them at a steady clip, but not at a standard superhero clip, which is get done in one page or one issue and move on.
Have you heard any criticism on the first issue?
MCFARLANE: I understand it was a quick read, but the reason it was a quick read is because you're thinking of it as a singular issue. So as a singular issue, it's a quick read. String it together for the next seven or eight issues, that pacing will make more sense to you.
Pretend you're reading a two hour movie. Issue #185 was the first 15 minutes. What movie have you watched that gave you everything in the first 15 minutes? If you did, that's a bad movie because the rest of the movie is you going, "I already knew that in the first 15 minutes. There's no suspense." It wasn't meant to be enough information, enough meat and potatoes in that first issue to get you to make a decision. You need about three or four issues. I'm not saying you've got to love it, I'm just saying that you don't have enough information to love it or hate it. I'm asking for a little bit from my audience, which is okay because I think I have a slightly different audience than from a standard superhero comic book.
As a bit of a cap to this first interview, can you talk a little about what readers can expect in the future?
MCFARLANE: This is where readers say, "You ignore everything that came before." I'm actually not going to ignore everything. I'm going to put a new piece on the board. I think we entitled this "Endgame" and our advertising is chess pieces. When you play chess or checkers, you're used to the rules, you're used to the game pieces and you're used to how it goes. What happens if one of those pieces got changed and henceforth it modifies how the game's played? What does that do? It's going to confuse people. To some extent it may even confuse my readers because the status quo just went out the door. If you keep applying status quo, it's not going to make sense to you. Not only to the readers, but it's not going to make sense to the characters within the book. We're going to show that. We're going to show characters that have been in for 185 issues say, "Hey, that's not how it used to be" and the answer is because it isn't yesterday, it's today and today is a new day. It's not the same game. It's not the same rules. "Well that's not how we played it."
It's the only way I could sit down and think about it with Whilce and Brian. How do we present the Clown in a different light if something hasn't changed? If we don't change anything, the Clown is going to act exactly the same way. Mammon, if he comes back, is going to act exactly the same way. Wanda's going to act exactly the same way. So everyone's going to act exactly the same way. There's one way to get them all to change how they act: pull out the lead character and replace him with someone else. It's not the same guy. You can't react the same way.
SPAWN #186
Story: TODD McFARLANE & BRIAN HOLGUIN
Art and Cover: WHILCE PORTACIO & TODD McFARLANE
32 PAGES, FC, $2.95
Last issue, everything changed! The world of SPAWN was rocked by the most stunning moment in the series' sixteen year history. And now, the mystery deepens... Sides are chosen and secrets are revealed... Experience SPAWN’s bold new direction with the all-star creative team of TODD McFARLANE, WHILCE PORTACIO and BRIAN HOLGUIN.
