Broken Frontier

Todd McFarlane discusses his plans for San Diego Comic-Con, how it’s a different convention today, and shares some memories on the legendary artists he has – or hasn’t – met at conventions.

This edition of McFarlane’s Mark was produced by Sam Moyerman and Frederik Hautain.
 
BROKEN FRONTIER:  There's another Image panel planned for this year. What can we expect?
 
TODD MCFARLANE:  We'll see. There’s no joint big announcement to come out of it this year.  I think most of the questions will start and end with “Where’s Image United?” and then once we got past that I don’t think there’ll be much time to discuss anything else. [Laughs]
 
BF:  And you usually do your own panel at San Diego don’t you?
 
MCFARLANE:  Sometimes.  But again, San Diego has become a very difficult place to do what it is you want to do.  People are there to see the big movie releases and all the Hollywood and movie star stuff.  I don’t begrudge it at all, heck, I’d be doing the same thing if I were there as a fan. 
 
What that means is that those people get the premiere space and time for the panels.  If you’re a fan you’ll look at the schedule and if there are 4 panels going on at once, even if you are a big fan of Spawn, Image and me, if there’s a big movie star in the other room debuting their new film you’re going to pick that one.  I get it.  Somewhere along the line you have to learn your place in the pecking order.
 
When it was a true comic book convention we were the kings.  Now we get lost in the shuffle, and rightly so, because there are bigger names and bigger businesses than comic books.
 
BF:  Last time you mentioned meeting Stan Lee and said it was a huge thrill for you, as it would be for anyone; is there anyone else who hits that status for you at these shows where you have to go meet them?
 
MCFARLANE:  Sadly, a lot of the guys I would have put in that category have unfortunately passed away.  People like John Buscema, Jack Kirby, Gil Kane… people like that I really admired and borrowed stuff from their teachings.  But they are no longer with us.
 
The one guy who I would like to have a long conversation with would be Gene Colan.  I was a big fan of what he did with Dracula.  That was one of my favorites when I was collecting.  You asked me before if there was anything I looked for at conventions to buy.  I gave away my Tomb of Dracula collection when we, my brother and I, started a store and now I go back and think “Damn I should have kept these!”  His sense of mood and light and shadow was just awesome. 

For raw action, Kirby and Gil Kane were bigger in terms of their super heroic stuff.  But Gene Colan brought something else to the table that they didn’t have which was his sense of shadow and a slightly more realistic art style than those guys had.
 
BF:  Did you ever get a chance to meet some of those guys?
 
MCFARLANE:  Actually, I was lucky enough to not only meet Jack Kirby but also to ink a couple pages of his late in his career.  He was such a gracious gentleman and even let me keep one of the pages I inked for him.  I still have that, a page of Jack Kirby artwork.
 
I never got to have a chat with John Buscema.  He’s one of those guys I just missed, but he was always one of my favorite super hero artists.  Maybe a little more mainstream than what you would think of from Kirby.  Kirby was fantastic in his storytelling but his artwork wasn’t “mainstream” per se.  Kirby taught me drama – everything big.  It confuses people when I tell them I learned so much from him because my art looks nothing like his, but I wasn’t trying to draw like him.  I was going for the same “WOW!” factor his style conveyed.
 
I was able to talk to Gil Kane briefly.  Whether he knew it or not, he taught me so much about drawing superheroes.  When you hit a guy, you hit him out of a canon and break a wall.  His stuff was so big, everything was big and dramatic.  There are 4 or 5 guys who I borrowed influences from that I was able to meet for a little bit.  Some more than others but I have others I didn’t get to meet before they passed away. 

I’ve been fortunate enough in my career that I’ve been able to do some work with Stan Lee over the years though.
 
BF:  Do you ever talk to him about working together again?
 
MCFARLANE:  I was actually thinking about visiting him and bringing that up to him.  Let him know, I’m no spring chicken anymore myself, but what would happen if we both put our heads together to see.  The granddaddy and one of his offspring (and there are dozens of us that were influenced heavily by what he did) getting together to see if anything good would come out of it.  I’m always curious, especially when you think about creating new stuff.
 
BF:  Have more people come up to you asking if you would work with them? Especially after Robert Kirkman asked you a few years ago at Comic Con?
 
MCFARLANE:  Not really.  Most people realize that it’s all about timing.  Most of them are thinking “Kirkman got him, there’s no way he has time to do anything more.”  Plus, they can all see my workload right now and see that I’m not holding up so well trying to do 3 books at once. 
 
Even Robert is finding that out.  With his TV show, he’s getting a dose of what has become my reality – that a 24-hour day gets eaten up really quickly.
 
BF:  It’s worth it though right?
 
MCFARLANE:  Yeah.  We like it, but it’s hard to fit it all in and do what we need to do.
 
I knew going into Image United, that it could be a problem.  I warned everyone that I lead a busy life and there are things that happen where I have no control.  And then that eats up my time away from being able to draw.  But everyone is aware of that.