5 Questions With Dan Schawbel Episode 165: Todd McFarlane
My guest today is McFarlane Toys CEO, Spawn creator, and Venom co-creator, Todd McFarlane. Todd has established himself as a force in the entertainment world with 1 Grammy Award, 2 Grammy nominations, 2 Emmy Awards, 2 MTV Video Music Awards, 1 Canadian MuchMusic Award, and more than 150 International awards in the fields of action figures, comic books, and publishing. Aside from creating Spawn, and co-creating Venom, he’s the co-founder and president of Image Comics, has launched an NFT marketplace with Steve Aoki called OddKey, and two new premium TV series “McFarland” and “Thumbs”. We talk about his history with comics, and all of these new projects, during this podcast episode.
The 5 questions I ask in this episode:
- How did you originally develop your interest in comics and when did you know it could become a career?
- What was your creative process like for creating generational characters like Venom and Spawn?
- Aside from being a comic book icon, you’re also an NFT icon with VeVe’s first NFT of your #100 Batman Todd McFarlane statue and your new NFT marketplace with Steve Aoki who was a previous podcast guest. As someone who has worked in both the physical and NFT worlds, do you think both will complement each other or will one replace the other?
- You have so many different projects happening simultaneously between your TV shows, comics, toys and NFTs. How do you decide which characters you use in different mediums at different times, while ensuring there’s no oversaturation?
- What’s your best piece of career advice?
Video interview
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