Todd McFarlane is the former Marvel Comics designer ofVenom’sfirst full appearance and founder of Image Comics and McFarlane Toys.
Since Venom’s inception on the page, the anti-hero has become an instantly recognizable superhero antagonist.
“Could Venom Be One of the Bad Guys or Good Guys?”
Todd McFarlane:I’ll answer strictly from a fan point of view.
I think that people who are comic book geeks understand that Venom and Spider-Man are connected pretty tight.
Sony hasn’t even put Spider-Man and Venom together, and they have the rights to both of them.
So forget Disney at this point.
Sony hasn’t done it.
I don’t know.
I mean, I’ve been doing that since I was a kid.
And then finally they did.
They put them in the same film.
What we don’t pay attention to as fans is, who owns the rights to these different ones?
And how do we get the money?'
And it gets really frustratingly complicated from a fan point of view.
Give us Spider-Man and Venom standing next to each other.
Worst case scenario, there is bound to be room in the expectedly-stacked Avengers combo ofDoomsdayandSecret Wars.
Todd McFarlane:Invincible is a comic book from the the brain of Robert Kirkman.
I think Hollywood was asking him, ‘What else do you have?’
I mean, AMC’s got Walking Dead all locked up.
It wasn’t, like, five issues.
He had 120 issues of it.
And so he was able to make a deal with Amazon.
Reflecting onInvincible’s success, McFarlane believes the concept of it initially"surprised the executives at Amazon.
They’re like, ‘Superhero cartoons that are R-rated.
It doesn’t make much sense right now, Robert.’
Now it’s like, ‘Oh, what can we do to do it again?’
Adult animation there, which is a lot more prevalent.
I hope I’m not speaking out of school, but I think it surprised the executives at Amazon.
If they were like, ‘We thought this thing was gonna come and people are gonna go.
This is silly and walk away.’
And now they realize.
when you’ve got something that works.
then the next obvious step is to go, ‘How do we get more of it?’
Why not, right?
Everything from traditional superhero stuff, which is what I do, because that was from the beginning.
If you just want superhero comics, Marvel and DC will supply that to you in spades.
They do a really good job at it.
It’s the books that have come after that have really sort of given us our company identity.
Although I’m trying to look for something.
I’m shopping for something for myself.
What I’m trying to technically buy is the creative people.
Creative people, whether they’re writers, artists, colors, or whatever.
I’m looking for talent when I’m going up and down.
And you go, ‘Hey?
What do you do?
What are you doing?
Are you happy where you’re working at?
![Thunderbolts: Why Taskmaster Got [Spoilers], Explained by Marvel Director](https://images.thedirect.com/media/article_thumbnail/taskmaster-why.jpg?imgeng=/w_auto,280 280w)
Do you have any interest in doing something for Spawn?’
They’re new talent that hasn’t been afforded the big opportunity.
And I go, ‘Shoot.
You want to come do some stuff for me?’
I’m collecting talent.
It’s really fun.
And the competition is looking at our books, too.
You want to do a Batman cover?
You want to do a Wolverine cover?'
All of a sudden, they become in demand.
Some of them have built pretty good reputations.
When your talent is, ‘Put me on the field, coach.
I begged for that opportunity, and finally somebody gave it to me.
I’ve been fortunate enough that I’ve been able to keep that going for almost 40 years now.
I look for the diamonds in the rough before anybody else hopefully finds them so.
The thing is, it’s on them.
It’s really interesting.
I’ve had lots of them say, ‘Todd, I’m so thankful.’
I appreciate that to a certain point.
I was just smart enough to give them the opportunity.
Somebody was going to discover them anyways, they were too good to be hidden.
And now look at them.
They’re big shots.’
Invincibleis streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
