Todd McFarlane
Credit: McFarlane Productions
As the saying goes, everything old is new again.
Spawn creator and Image founder Todd McFarlane has launched a Kickstarter campaign for a remastering of the original Spawn figure from 1995. McFarlane displayed the proposed figure at Toy Fair this year where Newarama talked about the upcoming campaign and releases.
With a $100,000 goal, McFarlane’s campaign has four tiered levels which includes a classic costume version, a modern costume version (with new head), an artist proof (what they’re calling the ‘black and white’), and lastly, the 3-pack bundle. Each of the single figures will have a never-seen-before cover remastered by McFarlane himself. Backing levels range from $40 to $160 based on the offerings.
Newsarama talked to McFarlane about the campaign, what he remembers about setting up the original Todd Toys, and why he went to Kickstarter to for this project.
Newsarama: So Todd, you announced at Toy Fair this year you were going to kickstart a sort of remastering of the original Spawn toy line from 1995. What made you want to circle back to this?
Todd McFarlane: Well you know, one, it was 25 years ago. It’s a nice round number to celebrate.
Two, this is going to be our first license out from the comic company and the toy company. We were going to head down this way anyway, but with the comic industry shutting down, it’s like c’mon, we’re still all geeks and our geekdom isn’t going away. If there’s not going to be any comic books out there, let’s try a few other things. Doing nothing doesn’t seem like an answer so I got to do something.
Nrama: Take us back to 1995. You”ve got a top selling comic with Spawn, a top-selling publisher with Image, and you’re trying to build yourself an empire and you founded Todd Toys. What do you remember about those early days?
McFarlane: Aside from trying to get the money, it was easier than expected. Again, it was another lesson I had learned with founding Image Comics and later on with the toy company that people in the marketplace want you to think it’s more difficult than it is. The difficulty was people trying to get the resources. The ideas are sound, as are the enthusiasm and skill sets of the people involved, but getting the financial backing to get if off the ground, not a lot of people had. I asked “How hard it was to make toys?,” and it’s just as complicated as you think it is.
You make shapes. You take molds, you get plastic, you heat it up, you make toys. It’s a more systematic version of making Jell-O molds as kids, get your mold, plop in the Jell-O, put it in the fridge and soon you got a T-Rex that tastes like cherry. It’s a little more sophisticated than that, but it’s easier than brain surgery.
Nrama: How did you set everything up? Who did you go to for those resources?
McFarlane: Oh when I started the toy company? I made a couple of calls and just asked a very simple question: “Do you know anybody who makes toys?” A few more calls later, we cobbled a bunch of people who had dabbled here and there or worked for one of the big companies and had the expertise. For example, Ed Frank was one of those first calls and he’s still with us to this day. We just took a bunch of us ambitious and low-level employees and asked if we can do what the bosses are doing and we said “Yes.”
Let me just say this though: making the toy was hard, but once you get over the hurdle of the money, it’s a little easier. The art part was easy to me and then you need a manufacturer and China will build anything if you can pay the bill. The steep part of all of this is even though you can make the product, you can design the product, do you have somebody to put it on the shelf? That’s the magic, especially back then with the internet still in its infancy. If you can’t get it on the shelf, nobody knows you exist, right? Fast forward 25 years later that area doesn’t really exist as the internet became this great equalizer.
Nrama: Let’s go through this first initial wave. You’ve got Spawn, obviously, Medieval Spawn, Clown, Violator, Overt-kill —
McFarlane: And Tremor, yeah.
Nrama: Tremor! Yeah! That was the one I couldn’t remember. But here for the Kickstarter, you’re just doing the first Spawn. Now, aside from the upgraded sculpting and paint job, what will be new about the packaging?
McFarlane: We tried to do an upgrade on everything. Will the sculpt be better? Yes. Will there be more articulation? Yes. Will the paint be better? Yes. Will the cape look cooler? Yes. Will we have better weapons? Yes. Will the overall packaging be better? Yes. Will you have to tear up your original packaging to display your toy? No because we’re going to be doing a resealable package, that’s almost like tupperware. The comic book cover will be redrawn and reinked, so every aspect you’re going to see will be getting an upgrade. It’s not any one thing we were looking at to improve, but five or six things. So even if you upgrade everything 10-15%, that’s at least a 60% upgrade from the previous model.
Nrama: What accessories will be included with the figure? You have the comic, a base, so what else?
McFarlane: So what I want from you is from the time you open the cardboard box, the experience begins. The thing about it is like buying a cellphone. It’s cool to open your box, get your headphones, but they give you those 30 seconds to where you don’t even want to throw the box away. I want to give the same sort of experience so by the time you get to the toy, you can put it out there then all back in if you want. So it’s not all about the sculpt and design, it’s really about getting that toy again for the first time.
Nrama: What sort of incentives will you be including in the Kickstarter?
McFarlane: Here’s the thing: I think crowdfunding is the great equalizer because it brings the product directly to the consumer. So I’m going to guess that 95% of the merchants out there are being entrepreneurial for the very first time. I think that they might have to do a little bit more work because they haven’t made their name yet.
Then you have the 5% of people, like myself, that have made a reputation. People already know our product and name, but retail isn’t made for the one-offs. We’re selling something from a known entity and a known creator, it doesn’t have to be complicated this time around. I don’t need 22 steps or 84 tiers. Everything comes signed or unsigned. Keep it simple.
Nrama: This is just for the first figure but are there ideas, concepts, or desires to just remake the whole first wave?
McFarlane: Well yeah, but again the question would be if there’s a demand for it. We’ll let people dictate that. But if I take off my comic book hat and put on my toymaker hat, I get to wondering if I could do another Movie Maniac, or another McFarlane Dragons, maybe Tortured Soul or Twisted Oz. So the answer is yes, if this works.
Nrama: There’s a little bit of criticism from some saying now that you have the resources, you have your reputation, why did you turn to Kickstarter for something like this?
McFarlane: We talked about it, but the reason is that at some point you go where the eyeballs are. I will say to critics though is that don’t buy it. That’s easy. You’ve solved your problem. Go buy what you want to buy, go support what you want to support. So it’s always weird to me like if you don’t like Tom Cruise, don’t go see Tom Cruise movies, ya know? I don’t know.
Kickstarter has millions of eyeballs and people looking for quality products. If you want to complain, that’s fine, but please move to the side because there’s two people behind you who want to buy it.
Nrama: Was it weird making the transition more to toys? Yeah, you’ve always been a comic guy but you’ve got the DC license now, on top of Mortal Kombat and now this 25th anniversary style figure. What do you think is the main difference for you between the both?
McFarlane: Let’s go back 25 years ago. Here’s who I sold to: Babbages, Tower Records, Kaybee Toys, and I could go on and on, but those stores don’t even exist now. We would have outlets and these people were the ones that said I don’t want something that Walmart or Target wants. It was a good time, but those outlets dried up and we decided to sort of go in a new direction. We got sports, Shrek, whatever, and I could sell those to Walmart, Toys R Us.
I don’t think my audience has dried up, but those stores and shelves disappeared, but now I can ship directly to the consumer. It doesn’t mean we’re not having fun with the licenses, but now I’m about to open that box a little bit wider.
Nrama: Would you want to Kickstart your other lines? I mean you had Wetworks, Danger Girl… all of that.
McFarlane: Oh yeah! The answer is yes. They’re all on our whiteboard. Essentially, we’ll probably let the consumer guide us in a direction, but we don’t need six Spawns in a row. I’ll probably engage in a little bit of a straw poll and survey, but I don’t know what the reaction will be.
We’re living in a different retail world and even more so now in a [coronavirus] world. To what degree, I don’t know. To what demand, I don’t know because people are losing their jobs and money will be hard to come by. I get all of that. I don’t need this to be a giant success to do the next one, and we might have to lower our expectations, but if I can find that small pocket of people that are willing to go along for the ride, we can keep having some fun.