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TODD MACFARLANE INTERVIEW

RINGGENBERG: I'm speaking with Todd MacFarlane. It's December 10,

1993. Todd, my first question is: How did the Spawn/Batman book

come about?

MACFARLANE: How did Spawn/Batman come about? I always think of

stupid things, you know. That's how I entertain myself every day,

and so I, and more than that, I like to come up with jokes and

stuff like that, so I like to mess with people.

RINGGENBERG: Go ahead. I've got a good sense of humor.

MACFARLANE: So, when I mess with people then I like to have a

joke. So, I had this evil scheme that I had with Frank Miller

that I phoned him because I was talking to him about maybe doing

issue number eleven for "Spawnù. And I go, `What if I could come up

with a way for you to do Batman but you didn't have to work for

DC Comic Books, and you could write it and draw it and pencil and

ink it and you wouldn't have to listen to anybody?' You know, now

at this point, you know, again, like a lot of people, he just

thinks I guess I'm thinking far too much. But, what I ended up

doing is I thought about it more and more. See, the original joke

went something like: I get this deal. We kill Spawn in the first

page. Oh, beauty! Now we've just got Batman. I break my arm on

the second page and Frank Miller gets to write, pencil, ink and

draw this cool Batman project because that's what I would want to

see. You know? Oh, coolccBatman and Frank Miller all over again.

But since it wouldn't be that easy and somebody would probably

catch us halfway through it, the more I thought about it, then

I'd go, Ah, we could never pull this off. It was just a bad joke

anyway, Frank. But then I thought about it and I'd go: We're

never going to be able to just get a Batman book all to

ourselves, but we could probably get the next best thing. So,

when I phoned DC Comic Books and offered that they do one book, I

do one book, we swap characters and we both kind of do our own

gig and see who puts out the best book. At that point, then I'm

able to turn that around to Frank and go: `Frank, have I got a

deal for you. It's not quite as good as what I told you a couple

of months ago, but it's not so bad.' And after thinking about it,

he decided that it would be kind of a cool thing to do.

RINGGENBERG: When did you approach DC?

MACFARLANE: I don't know. Months and months and months ago.

RINGGENBERG: Like '93? '92?

MACFARLANE: Yeah. In '93. At the beginning of this year,

probably.

RINGGENBERG: Who did you approach to make the deal with?šj&127ÜŒMACFARLANE: Who was it? Let me think. I think it was Paul Levitz,

to tell you the truth.

RINGGENBERG: That's who I assumed it was going to be. And they

seemed receptive, pretty much?

MACFARLANE: Paul was, like I said, Paul, he was more than

generous, you know? I mean he was like, yeah, cool! And it was,

you know, he was easy. I mean they've been easy on me at this

point. I've been easy on them. So, we've, it's been working out.

There's going to be two cool books coming out in March and

essentially they're standcalone books. They don't cross over to

each other or anything. So, you could buy one or the other, if

it'll make any difference whether you have to collect both. It's

not like a necessity on a kid's part. But, again, to me, the

competitive edge of trying to outdo them is what will try and get

me to do a better product. And hopefully, they will have the same

competitive edge to try and outdo our book and the end result

will be two good books.

RINGGENBERG: Why did you bring Frank Miller in, just because you

wanted to work with him?

MACFARLANE: Why'd I bring Frank in? Because again, one: out of

fear. You know, this was going to be a pretty big project and I

didn't really know whether I was up for it, you know, in terms

of: you know, the last, big standcalone book, you know. I kept

thinking like, "The Killing Jokeù, you know? And I'd go, but that

was Brian Bolland and Alan Moore and I go, I'm known for my art,

but I don't that I can write a story that goes down in history,

you know? So, again, out of fear, I go, well, I'll take one crack

at getting Frank and if he says no, then I'll just do it myself.

And luckily, you know, he came around.

RINGGENBERG: Was it because you were a fan of Frank's work in

general or because you knew he'd written Batman?

MACFARLANE: A combination. I don't think you can be a fan of

Frank's without ever having read his Batman stuff, you know? It

was one of his benchmarks. So, and in terms of marketing, I mean

that's a hell of a plus, you know? So, "Spawn/Batmanù and

MacFarlane is always going to sell anyways. And I was going to

sell it anyways, but for me to throw in that one little jab: `Oh,

by the way, Frank Miller's writing it.' That just solidifies that

project to go, Wow, we got a winner project here. We could sell

this project.

RINGGENBERG: Sounds like you're excited about it.

MACFARLANE: Oh, yeah. Frank and I are like kids. Because deep

down, with all the crap and all the stuff that we do, and we're

always like barking at the establishment, deep down we're just

like little superhero comic book fans, you know? Like: Cool, we

get to do Batman and we don't have to phone up DC Comic Books.šj&127&127Ü

Cool! And we just get to do it, and it's kind of like we think wegot away with something, and we're like little kids.

RINGGENBERG: How did you and Frank work up the idea for yourstory? Did you both contribute ideas? Or was it mostly Frank's?

MACFARLANE: Yeah, I mean I had some because again, I didn't knowthat Frank was ever going to say yes. So I had some ideas myself.So, I threw some of them out at Frank, but essentially, you know,

I mean, when people work for me, I like to give them as much

freedom as possible. So I threw a couple of ideas at Frank and

told him, you can use any, all or none of them, I don't care. And

that's exactly what he did and then he brought in his story.

Because, again, I don't want him to do my story. I want to do his

story. You know because I think he'll do a better story if he's

working from something that he wants to do. And that's what ended

up happening. You know, he just did his thing and I'm just happy

to be a part of it. So...

RINGGENBERG: Did Frank do a full script for you?

MACFARLANE: No. Just, no. On "Spawnù eleven he did, but I don't

like those, so he just gave me a plot outline, you know, that I

can, like, expand and contract at will.

RINGGENBERG: And then he's going to go back and dialogue it

later?

MACFARLANE: Yep.

RINGGENBERG: Okay. So, he did go ahead and do an issue of "Spawnù

eleven?

MACFARLANE: Yeah. "Spawnù eleven he wrote.

RINGGENBERG: Yeah, that was the first project I heard he was

working on. This Batman thing is new to me, so I was surprised.

That's an interesting idea, doing two different comic books with

the same character.

MACFARLANE: That don't relate to each other and stuff.

RINGGENBERG: Yeah, the stories are not connected at all, correct?

MACFARLANE: Kind of two What If? universes, you know? What if

they met on this planet, and here's their idea. And what if they

met on this planet, there's our idea.

RINGGENBERG: How are Batman and Spawn brought together in your

book?

MACFARLANE: Because of an illegal arms shipment that's coming

into America that's got some kind of military background to it

that Al Simmons, who's "ùSpawn, used to be in the military and itšj&127&127Ü

somehow draws both Spawn and Batman into this thing in New York,and they have to kind of get along together to solve this problemeven though they dislike each other.

RINGGENBERGo: Ah, so it's not going to be a happy relationship?

MACFARLANE: No. Quite the opposite. And they don't really like

each other?

RINGGENBERG: So it's going to be grudging allies?

MACFARLANE: Yes, that's it. I mean like I said, we got a cool

ending to it that we insisted on keeping because they had a bit

of a problem with it when they read the plot, but we were able to

keep it because it's got kind of a funny ending to it. I mean I

think it's funny. Maybe other people won't. But it's, you know,

instead of them going out hand in hand into the sunset, we wanted

to end it with a little bit more of a pizazz than that, so...

RINGGENBERG: Well, do you think fans of the regular "Spawnù book

are going to be happy with it?

MCFARLANE: Yeah. I mean, again, they got a Frank Miller story,

they got Spawn. They got the guy that they're used to drawing

Spawn on the book. And so, just in terms of if you like Spawn and

you like Todd MacFarlane then I don't see where you're going to

have any problems with it. Then you got the bonus of Frank

Miller, who's been associated with Batman. And you get to see

Todd draw, who you haven't seen him do that for years and years

and years.

RINGGENBERG: Did you ever draw Batman before?

MACFARLANE: Yeah, oh yeah. Years ago. I did three issues of

"Batman: Year Twoù".

ùRINGGENBERG: Ah, I didn't remember that. Are you going to be

working with your regular production crew, like Steve Oliff on

the colors and so forth?

MACFARLANE: Yeah, oh yeah, yeah.

RINGGENBERG: When's the book due out?

MACFARLANE: Both of them are solicited for March, so I think

theirs is going to come out in, like the second week, or the

first week in March and mine'll come out a couple weeks later.

RINGGENBERG: And DC's pretty much giving you a free hand with how

you put yours out and everything?

MACFARLANE: Yeah. I mean, that's part of the deal. They don't

really saycso over how I do it, you know. So, in terms of

packaging, in terms of paper, in terms of production, in terms ofšj&127&127Ü

who I hire on the book, and vice versa, you know? That's part ofthe race. You do yours and I'll do mine. I get to pick my tennis

shoes and you pick your tennis shoes. If you think yours are

going to, by picking those, you're going to run faster, so, you

know. If we get too crazy, they'll like crack the whip on us and

otherwise, I'm sure they'll just sit there and go: `Not bad! Not

bad! But we got this.' And I'll go: `Not bad, but we got this.'

And so, we'll be going back and forth, trying to outdo each

other.

RINGGENBERG: How long is the book going to be?

MACFARLANE: We've got a minimum of a fortyceight page count right

now. I might have to expand on that.

RINGGENBERG: So, it's going to be like a little graphic novel?

MACFARLANE: Yeah. Again, I just see it like kind of like you

know, "The Dark Knightù and "The Killing Jokeù, and these square¦bound books and stuff like that?

RINGGENBERG: Oh yeah, with like nicer cover stock and so forth?

MACFARLANE: Right. You know, for $3.95, you know, get in there. I

mean, you know, so ours is $3.95, theirs is $4.95, so I already

got out of the blocks. You know, I'm already one step ahead. I

beat 'em in price. So, I just, again, you got to do anything to

survive out there in the marketplace. So I go: Okay, they did a

better job on this, so I got to try to do a better job on that,

so...

RINGGENBERG: Are you doing anything special for the cover, like a

painting or something?

MACFARLANE: Uh, no. No. Actually the cover just came in.

Essentially the way that they color the books these days almost

look like paintings anyway, so I mean I don't do paintings and

stuff like that, so...I wish I did, but you know. But we'll just

give you a slick cover.

RINGGENBERG: Yeah, I noticed in the "Spawnù books that there's a

lot of modelling in the color. I think yours is about the best¦looking of all the Image books, just in terms of overall art and

everything and presentation.

MACFARLANE: Yeah, I mean, you know I think that Steve's doing an

awesome job, but I think that Image comic books as a whole has

the best production out there in the industry right now. You

know, we've raised the level of comic books that like everybody

else now has to try and color their books a little sharper and

maybe put better quality paper on the book and stuff, so, another

byproduct of trying to outdo your neighbors is that, again, you

raise the level of everything, which is good for the kids.

šj&127ÜŒRINGGENBERG: Who's doing the DC version of "Spawn/Batmanù? Is it

the regular Batman writers, right?

MACFARLANE: Yeah, the three regular writers. Doug Moench and Alan

Grant and Chuck Dixon. And then Klaus Janson's doing the

pencilling and inking on it.

RINGGENBERG: How do you feel about the DC guys doing your

character? Does that make you uncomfortable at all?

MACFARLANE: No, not really. I mean, I hope not any more

uncomfortable than me doing Batman. They've been used to doing

it, so...Again, I get a little more testy on Spawn when it's tied

to my regular book and my regular continuity. But because this is

kind of like a What If? story then again, I'm not all that near

and dear to the project, you know, so I just hope that they do a

good job and they don't kill him. And I know they're not going to

kill him, so.

RINGGENBERG: Can you tell me a little bit more about the plot

besides it revolving around an arms shipment. Like, does it start

with Spawn first, or does it start with Batman?

MACFARLANE: Yeah, it starts with...Frank wants to give you an

action comic book. And he doesn't want to do anything deep and

philosophical so we start it off with right in the middle of a

fight and it basically takes off from there with Batman. I mean,

it's just going to be action. If you've seen some of the stuff

that Frank has done like with his "Sin Cityù and stuff, he likes

action. He likes to keep the pace of the stuff going quick,

quick, quick, quick, quick and he doesn't want to rest to go into

these long, eloquent, you know, speeches and testimonials and

stuff, so. I mean, there's no Joker, there's no Violator and

stuff like that, because, again, we didn't want them to fight

costumed characters. We wanted to keep this kind of grounded to

kind of an urban setting of two guys running around on building

tops chasing arms guys and terrorists and stuff like that, so I

think a lot of the Frank stuff is going to come in some of the

dialogue and the snappy patter and stuff like that, so.

RINGGENBERG: Does trying to ground it in reality more, did that

affect your art at all? I mean the way you approached it?

MACFARLANE: Um, no. In a weenie kind of way I think that, other

than when Spawn is fighting some demon or something, he

ostensibly lives in the back alleys of New York with a lot of

bricks and garbage cans and a lot of crap, you know, so, I'm used

to drawing buildings. I haven't drawn too many spaceships in

Spawn recently, so you know, I'll just be continuing to do what I

do right now.

RINGGENBERG: Do you have any future Spawn crossovers in the

works?

šj&127ÜŒMACFARLANE: Nope. Nope. No, I keep him pretty close, you know.

And again, I don't like to lend him out because, again, you can

oversaturate your characters so I want to make sure that when he

goes out, he goes out in a big way and there's a reason to bring

him out, and then bring him back in and let him out again when

there's a big reason to let him back out again.

RINGGENBERG: Why were you having Frank Miller and Alan Moore come

in to do scripts for you? Was it to give you a break?

MACFARLANE: A couple reasons. One, there's a glut in the market.

And when there's a glut in the market, it's tough to survive out

there. I mean, anybody's book it's tough to survive. I knew I was

getting up to issues seven, eight, nine, or ten. And I knew

they'd buy issues one, two and three, but, you know, after a half

a year, every now and then you've gotta send up a flag and

go,`Yoochoo! I'm over here in the corner. Don't forget about me.'

And so it was my way of drawing attention to my book without

basically having to put foil on it like everybody, because that's

what everybody else is doing. And I'm not saying that it's right

or wrong, you know, I don't like that they have to raise the

price. But, if nobody was doing foil, I would've. But because

everybody's doing foil, I'm always looking for ways to do

something different. And it's served me well in my career so far,

that it's like, how can I get attention on my book without doing

the same thing everybody else is doing? I'll do this: Blap! And

it seemed to work. So, you know, it's just like the Spawn and

Batman crossover, you know, it's got, you know, again, I, two

books coming out simultaneously, but they don't cross over to

each and I'm able to bring on Frank Miller to do a character that

he hasn't done for years and years. So again, it becomes a little

different than the standard crossover comic book again, you know,

so.

RINGGENBERG: As far as I know, I don't think anybody's ever done

a crossover exactly like this before.

MACFARALNE: No, I know they haven't, in terms of, I mean, at

least in terms of the contract, the way that it's written.

RINGGENBERG: Well the idea of two independant books with the same

main characters is kind of interesting. Do you have any idea of

what the DC book is about?

MACFARLANE: Oh yeah, I've their script and saw some of the

artwork already.

RINGGENBERG: How do you like it?

MACFARLANE: Not bad.

RINGGENBERG: Not bad?

MACFARLANE: Well, I mean I like mine better.šj&127ÜŒRINGGENBERG: Well, of course.

MACFARLANE: So, but, you know, I mean, again, whether it was

good, bad or indifferent, I 'm here to just say Hallelujah to

them, you know. I'm not here to really make their book any better

or any worse, you know? I'm just here to say:`Just don't kill my

guy.' So, even if I saw something I didn't like, I wouldn't

necessarily change it. I'd just go, `I love it!' Because why

would I want to make their version better than mine? So I just

keep sending it back going: `I love it!'(Laugther from the

interviewer) Even if I don't love it, `I love it!' And they think

I'm the easiest guy to work with right now, so...

RINGGENBERG: Did you find them pretty easy to work with?

MACFARLANE: Yeah, so far. They've been pretty cordial about

everything. I mean, who knows? We'll get into some arguments, I'm

sure but for the most part we'll solve all the problems

relatively easily.

RINGGENBERG: I was wondering about that because DC has a

reputation for footdragging and red tape, you know.

MACFARLANE: Yep, but that's okay because we'll solve the problem

because again, ultimately, the worst thing that they could do is

get me mad or get Frank mad 'cause we'll quit, and if we quit

their book goes down the tubes. And I don't think they want their

book to go down the tubes, so, you know...But we're just stupid

enough that we would walk away from it even if we were ninety per

cent done. Again, I don't care about this, you know? Becaus,

again, I don't have to make a profit and I don't have, you know,

stock people and I don't have a boss over me, so it's like we can

do illogical things if we want, so.

RINGGENBERG: I guess that's one of the nice things about being

your own boss.

MACFARLANE: You bet! you bet. So, that's right you've gotta deal

with psychos, that's right.

RINGGENBERG: Well, in general, Todd, how's everything going with

your book and your various deals?

MACFARLANE: Good! Good! Couldn't be better. Couldn't be better,

so, I mean, we're still hanging tough. The issues that I didn't

even draw, that Greg Capulo drew, came in at either number one or

number two for three months in a row, so I mean I've made myself

expendable. So that's proven to me that they actually like the

character, which is my, one of my big goals when I left the

company was to see if we could create characters that they care

about. And they seem to like Spawny right now, for whatever

reason.

RINGGENBERG: Any plans to work with some other artists, maybe tošj&127Ü

give yourself a break, a vacation or something?

MACFARLANE: Um, I mean, you know Greg Capulo did issues sixteen,

seventeen and eighteen. Bart Sears is doing this Violator

miniseries, and then if I need a break on anything, I'll probably

see if like Greg or Bart could come back on because they'd be

proven commodities, to come back on the book.

RINGGENBERG: Well, when you're in your regular work groove, how

fast can you get a page out, pencils and inks?

MACFARLANE: Ultimately it always depends on what's on the page.

You know, if you've got a couple of silhouettes and the guy with

the big cape, you can get in and out of that. If you got like

twentycseven guys on the page and the commando fleet coming in in

the background, that becomes a lot longer of a thing. So, there's

really no set pattern on any page, so.

RINGGENBERG: What about the writing? Does that come pretty easily

to you or do you have to slave over it?

MACFARLANE: Yeah, well, I don't slave over it and it doesn't come

easy, but you know. I probably don't pay as close attention to it

as I should, so and I should probably do like twenty rewrites on

the stuff, but I don't. Again, given that you have a monthly book

I should probably redraw a lot of stuff too, so, you know, when

you've got a monthly book and you've only got x amount of time on

every single one of the chores you just kind of do as good a job

as you can and hope that they like it. And then go on to the next

project.

RINGGENBERG: Are you finding that monthly deadline on your own

book a grind, or is it...?

MACFARLANE: Yeah, it can be tough, but again, I chose it so, it's

my own problem if I don't like it. I guess I have to fire me as

the writer then.

RINGGENBERG: In that case would you have to give yourself

unemployment?

MACFARLANE: That's right.

RINGGENBERG: Do you have any other future Spawn projects in the

works like maybe an animated series or movie ideas or anything?

MACFARLANE: We've got some, but, again, it's not even that it's

too early 'cause they're done deals, it's just it's just not the

time to...Because again, right now, you and I are talking about

Spawn/Batman and I've got enough to talk about that keeps people

interested for the next couple months. So what I'll do is when

nobody cares about Spawn two months after this book comes out,

then I'll pull out these deals that are done and I'll go: `Oh, by

the way, did I mention this?' You know. So, right now, you know Išj&127&127Ü

don't ever pull out my aces when I'm going good, I pull them outon the way down. So, when people go: `Who cares about Spawny?'Then I'll go: `what about this?' Oh, cool, I care about Spawny.So, right now the talk on the street is, they're talking aboutSpawn and Batman, so I can actually ride that wave right nowwithout actually telling anybody all that much more about Spawnbecause that's enough right now.

RINGGENBERG: Yeah. I'm sure that'll keep the fans going for a

while with the two books out. All right, Todd, I've been through

my questions. Anything to add?

MACFARLANE: Not really. I don't got anything deep and

philosophical to say, you know. I'm just here to kick butt and

keep kicking butt and try to be as somewhat nice to the readers

as possible by returning the favor of them buying the books by

giving them more books. So, that's always been my goal, and

everybody between the readers is really for the most part

interference in a lot of respects, so...

RINGGENBERG: Are you still having fun doing the character?

MACFARLANE: I love that guy. He's the coolest thing, because when