Todd McFarlane One on One

Our author, Fernando Bueno, got the chance of lifetime, to sit down and interview Todd McFarlane:

Not everyone gets to live their dream and make a living of all things leisure-time like sports, comics, movies, and so on. One person has, however. Todd McFarlane, Spawn creator, founder of Image Comics and McFarlane toys, was kind enough to grant me an interview recently. We talked about his involvement in creating the Halo collectible action figures, his approach to work, and his view on video games.

Todd McFarlane

Fernando Bueno: Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to speak with me, Todd.

Todd McFarlane: No problem.

FB: So tell us, how did you end up here?

TM: Well, I broke into the comic book industry out of college and sort of hit the ground running there. I worked my way up the ladder, working on some big characters like Batman, Spider-Man, and Hulk. From there I started my own comic company, Image Comics, at which point I pulled this comic character named Spawn out of my portfolio that I had since high school and made him sorta the flagship title of my studio. From there, I started to push Spawn up the mountain, if you will.

I decided that I needed to get into other things like TV, movies, toys, and video games. Sometimes I used other companies, and in the case of the toys, I couldn’t find any that would understand what I was trying to do artistically, so I started my own toy company. As time went by with the toy company, I decided that I couldn’t have all my eggs in one basket so I decided to make toys of other stuff. I mean, what happens if people don’t like Spawn after a while? So from there I was able to dive into doing all the sports figures, because, well, I’m a big sports geek. I went to college on a baseball scholarship, y’know. Anyhow, as we began growing the toy company, we started doing sports and comic book [characters], and [taking on] movie licenses, music licenses, and TV licenses. In fact, I think our first video game license might have been Metal Gear Solid 2 a few years ago. That did pretty well for us.

FB: McFarlane Toys has covered a lot of ground!

TM: To me it’s all pop culture. It’s moving the radar across the nation and trying to tap into that.

San Diego Comic Con Festivities

As E3 winds down, San Diego Comic Con approaches hot on its heels.  We here at Prima Games have some fantastic festivities planned:

First, of course, is our Halo Panel: Halo Wars and the Halo Universe.  This panel includes some of the biggest names from the Halo World: Joseph Staten (Bungie Team), Eric Nylund (author), Tobias Buckell (author), Graeme Devine and  Frank O’Connor (Halo Universe Writers), and Jon Goff and Corrinne Robinson (MacFarlane Toys).  Did we also mention the fantastic prizes that will be there.  Now, I can’t tell you what they will be, but I can tell you there are some from both the Halo Team and MacFarlane Toys and they’re amazing.

Study up for the gaming tournaments!

Then, there is our fantastic little booth.   We’ll be holding two gaming tournaments: Mario Kart Wii and Super Smash Brothers Brawl. The prizes include copies of the games and we’re also giving away 2 Wiis.  Yes, count ’em…2.  Free.  Nintendo Wiis.

Meet some of the Prima Team (myself included.  I know fans…don’t crowd the booth…I’ll be there everyday…for you ~_^).  Living, breathing, gaming!  And what’s our favorite thing to do?  Give away:

SWAG.

Come get some Master Chief!

Yes, you read that correctly.  Swag, and do we have a ton of it.  From posters (Halo 3 pictured above, Pokemon, Hellboy, etc) to Limited Edition Lithographs (Metal Gear Solid 4) to hint books, guides and more!  We’ll also be giving away about 1500 free eGuides–first come first serve!  We will be giving a lot away, so remember to visit us often.

So come visit us in the Random House section by the Hall B entrance.  Play some games, get some swag.  See you there!

Prima Games Site News for the Week

Hi everybody, the PG Digital Ninja bringing you the Prima Games Site Wide News for the week.  This week we’ve featured:

Site Wide Discount on all eGuides – that’s over 500 to choose from!

New Fan Site Program Launched Today – become a fellow fan, and get free traffic and content, as well as being one of the cool kids…

Halo Wars and the Halo Universe San Diego Comic Con Panel Announced – free shwag will be available and check back for more info on our awesome Comic Con booth, tournaments and giveaways.

And we’re doing a little site maintenance as well, so if something isn’t quite right, we’re working on it to make it more awesome.

Artistic nimbus

I wrote the original guide for Halo. Looking back on it, seven years later, makes me frown. For the time it was good stuff. Fully labeled maps, excellent weapon vs. enemy tables, and some decent tactics. But ah…if I knew then what I know now.

That’s as may be, but we’re talking games and comics. And wouldn’t you know it, the Halo GN coincidentally passed through my hands recently. I had heard of this video game cross-over, four story collection before but hadn’t sought it out.

Why? I asked myself. Cross-over material is historically bad. Rushed to launch with the primary media, pieced together by fast-but-not-good hacks, and pushed upon us like so many Batman & Robin plastic Taco Bell promotional drink cups (which, I found out on Saturday, last a mere 11 years before shattering in your hand when you squeeze them…).

Reading the introduction I found my first glimmer of hope. It was revealed that Bungie felt the same way I did. They didn’t rush out a comic to match the game’s release date. Instead they bucked the advice of every marketing professional and decided that instead of “timely” they’d settle for “quality.” Considering the faithful devotion of Halo fanatics this wasn’t really a big, nail-biting risk to take. And while the intro does spend a bit of time patting themselves on the back for this decision it’s exactly what I want my cross-over material makers to do, so good on you, let me add my hand to the latissimus whacking.

Crap, I just blew the surprise.

The comics, though I just gave it away, were good. Surprisingly good. Four distinct stories created by different author/artist teams that include some luminary figures (nah, don’t worry, you don’t need to know who they are, just take my word for it: Luminary). And the key to their goodness is simple. They had very little or nothing to do with the main characters or storylines of the Halo games.

The main media for Halo is video games. That is where the grand stories are told and the big revelations are made. Which is as it should be. Created in the pixel palaces and unfolded on the small screens of millions of fans, Master Chief’s epic tale should have its brightest moments upon the discs where he was born. To do otherwise is to rob players of the connection they feel when controlling the movements of the hero.

Instead, the comics are depth charges. With an entire universe, vast cultures, myriad races, and millenia of history to explore in the ficticious bounds of the Halo mythos there are more stories then we as a race can tell. From the very beginning Bungie knew that Halo would be a vast reality. With too many layers to squeeze into the narrow beam of video game cutscenes. Too many layers to expose each of them completely.

But with the right equipment (like, say, a short comic story) small holes could be drilled deep, allowing us to peer into the depths and realize that below the surface there lay an entire universe of possibility. The graphic novel does just that. We see minor, often unnamed characters who live out dramas just beyond the edges of the story we saw in the three games. As though their experiences were played out a few feet to the left of the TV screens that featured Master Chief blasting his way into legend.