Todd McFarlane Quotations

I'm tired of trying to get other people to see into my brain. I'm done.

You've got to let it go and say it was the best I could do at that time and place in my life. You hope that the thing you're doing next is a little bit better.

Here is a fear for me, I never wanted to be one of those guys that was defined by a body of work 20 years old.

If I ever do anything, it actually might be some fantasy elf thing or even some cute, funny thing. Just to do something a little bit out of the ordinary. I've done my superhero gig.

That became a big time in comic books because it's when people were starting to break out into independent stuff, the market was getting choked with speculators and everybody was trying to do their own trick covers.

A lot was happening, plus there were an enormous number of people in the industry that were going to conventions, so it was a pretty fun time. Also there was a lot of controversy and I was at the forefront of some of that.

It can't really happen today the way it did back then and part of that is because I think there's a bit of a competitive scare over at Marvel and DC so they lock guys up with exclusive contracts.

I still do some inking here and there and I've actually got a book that I'm going to ink entirely.

But again, I put in my time with Marvel and DC so there was that period of my life of trying to learn how to draw and tell stories in a proper fashion.

Image has to be its own fortress, in spite of the owners. People can't separate that or they don't comprehend that you can turn that on and off for each one of the different entities.

The deal is that you can do it, you don't really owe me anything, but at the end of it, I own the film. Then I can actually go out and reprint or not reprint if it I want.

To me, I was always just standing on the sidelines because up until issue 50, we were just doing Spawn. I wasn't recruiting anybody because I didn't have any books for people to work on.

Anthology shows as a whole scare people. The networks can't quite get their heads around it.

Obviously Spawn was at the top of the charts at that point so you get a lot of opportunities.

Given that I have to share my computer with my three children, it's not usually a site that I get to spend that much time on. I'm usually on the Nickelodeon site, coloring with my little five year old or something.

I even knew some of the dialogue but it was definitely cool to look at. We always argue that the movies should be loyal but in this case I could argue that it might have been too loyal.

I think people would actually be surprised by what we put out. Unfortunately the shadow that the original founders cast was that they were just artists that can't write books so people swept the whole of Image with that paintbrush.

That was my fear, which is why when I was took over a book, I was always trying to tweak it a little bit so that it looked like I was trying to add something instead of keeping the status quo.

The attempt is that we want to get a couple of minutes under our belt, depending on how good the tests are and take that into Hollywood. The fallback is we're going to DVD anyways. We've got that covered.

I'm a guy who likes to watch something cool, creepy and suspenseful and there is no show to watch as an adult that would scare me at for even four seconds.

I've been fortunate to come on places where the question isn't why did I do it? The question to me is always, why didn't anybody else do it before me? Those are the ones that I scratch my head about.

It works in the comic book, but as the audiences have gotten older and more sophisticated, I think the stories need to grow up with them. This is a story about a couple of rival gangs and what goes wrong in a couple of days.

We knew we wanted to make the soldiers look realistic,

The plans this year are for me to finish the script that I'm working on and to finance and direct the live action Spawn movie myself.

I believe the nature of the Hanna-Barbera brand will allow us to bring to life a wonderful new world of action figures, which will be embraced by collectors and fans alike. We will be utilizing the full range of McFarlane talent for this collection and applying our characteristic style and finesse to the timeless Hanna-Barbera characters.

...my toy guy is going to have a heart attack if we push that one through...

My wife is pretty and she actually puts on makeup, curls her hair and puts on nice clothes. I'm sure if she were a model, she'd still do that.

We aren't selling these products to just retailers, we're selling them to our fans as well, ... And I think they should have a chance to see this cool stuff too.

There hasn't been a big show in New York for a few years. It's sort of like the NFL not having a team in Los Angeles. It will be a good old-fashioned geek fest.

Why can't plastic figures appeal to 22-year-olds? ... The answer is they can. It's just subject matter.

This is the new generation's cult classic film; fans will be repeating the lines over and over just like my generation did with three or four movies when I was 13.

Once the character was established, I felt that I had to build a strong foundation for the Spawn brand name, ... To build a strong foundation you need four pillars. In the comic book industry, those pillars are television, video games, movies and toys or ancillary products. If you have a good foundation and pillars, you'd be surprised what you can build. You could even build skyscrapers

I have to believe that a soldier doesn't do everything by the book when bullets are whizzing by their heads in battle, ... That's when survival and preservation instincts kick in and it's at that moment where you will find the best, authentic pose.

I guess The Grudge made over $100 million, but none of them had long legs after they came out but they all opened up and found an audience. If you could make those movies for a price, which is what I want to do with Spawn, then you could have some success.

I want to go to my grave a free man. Surviving against giants-that's victory.

I remember there was someone. Someone to love. Someone to hate. And I was something. Something special. And proud of it. For a time. Then they turned on me. He turned on me. I remember . . . dying.

As much as we stereotype the women, we do it with the guys. The guys are all good looking, not too many ugly superheroes. They’ve all got their hair gelled back. They have got perfect pecs on them. They have no hair on their chest. I mean, they are Ryan Gosling on steroids. Right? They are all beautiful. So we actually stereotype and do it to both sexes. We just happen to show a little more skin when we get to the ladies.

Ive been fortunate to come on places where the question isnt why did I do it? The question to me is always, why didnt anybody else do it before me? Those are the ones that I scratch my head about.

I got sort of disinterested in working for the system.

About 85 percent of what you see is just because I get on the phone and [say], 'Let's go do this'. I don't do any market research or test groups or focus [groups]. I just go, 'It's my company; would I buy it, personally?'

I don't belong. Not here. Not now. I have to get back there. The bet was rigged, he made me believe. Now there's darkness in my soul. I want to die . . . again. But I choose to come back, why?

I guess The Grudge made over $100 million, but none of them had long legs after they came out but they all opened up and found an audience. If you could make those movies for a price, which is what I want to do with Spawn, then you could have some success.

If your motives aren't clean, money itself becomes evil. But When we don't have money enough evil, the world tells us we're losers. So what determines our place in society is not how much kindness is in our hearts but how much evil is in our wallet.

Batman is easily my most favorite character beside Spawn.

Once again your mind explodes with a searing pain. A floodgate of memories bursts wide. Yet it is her face that keeps haunting you. Always her face. Who is she? Then things begin to crystallize. You remember your funeral. Begging and pleading for someone to release you from the darkness. You're not dead. You can't be. Then you feel her presence. Warm, caring, soothing. But somewhere deep inside she feels empty now. She has no reason. No meaning. No soul. But your soul lives. While her's is dying.

I guess we're all just wired different. I just got to the point where I got tired of people telling me what I can and can't do in my life.