999: Todd McFarlane | Reinventing Spider-Man and Spawning an Empire

999: Todd McFarlane | Reinventing Spider-Man and Spawning an Empire

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[00:00:00] Jordan Harbinger: Coming up next on the Jordan Harbinger Show.

[00:00:03] Todd McFarlane: the question, ladies and gentlemen, and this is the piece of my life that is the biggest head scratching. It's not, how did I get it so accurate? It's how did they not?

[00:00:19] Jordan Harbinger: Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger Show. We decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers, even the occasional special operator, real life pirate, hacker, astronaut, or national security advisor.

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That'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit Jordan harbinger.com/start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Another quick reminder, Google Pods is closing Google Podcasts. If you use that, you can't get skeptical Sunday or feedback Friday. Once it switches you over to YouTube.

You gotta get something like Cast Box or Pocket Casts, or you're not gonna be able to get every episode of this show. So just a little PSA there if you're using Google Podcasts today on the show, Todd McFarland, creator and founder of one of the largest comic books and toy companies in the world image comics.

Todd got his start at Marvel, where even though he was making basically peanuts for his drawings, he reinvented Spider-Man, a little character called Venom before he left and created Spawn, which is a massive runaway success in the world of comics. To be honest, I didn't really expect to be so interested in this stuff.

I was into comics as a kid, but I figured I was kind of done with that era. However, getting to know Todd, having this conversation has just been an absolute masterclass, not only in the business of comics and toys, but I think anybody in any industry can take something away from this one. There's a lot of sort of general I.

Really good advice about creating things, marketing them, doing deals. Todd is also an Emmy and Grammy Award winner. Really just a Renaissance guy. Super impressive. And I think you're gonna dig this one. So here we go with Todd McFarland. I never thought I would do a show about comics or the business of comics, not because I don't like comics.

I just kind of figured, outgrown isn't quite the right word, because when I see them I'm still like, oh, these are really cool. I just stopped collecting them, I stopped buying them, and that era kind of fell behind me. But the business of comics is no less fascinating, man. And you're kind of a maverick in that, that world.

And so I appreciate you coming on today to talk about that a little bit.

[00:02:42] Todd McFarlane: Yeah, sure. Thanks for having me today. Appreciate it.

[00:02:44] Jordan Harbinger: So it's hard to know where to begin because you kind of, you worked at Marvel, which is like, okay, everybody knows Marvel, and then it's like, oh, I'm gonna change Spider-Man, I, I'm guessing, I'm missing a few steps here because they probably don't let you just draw Spider-Man, however you want in the beginning.

[00:03:01] Todd McFarlane: No, they don't. No, they don't. So. Here's the typical sort of path you strive to get into the business. If you're lucky, you catch your break. I caught mine three weeks before I graduated college. Wow. And I had been sending off samples all the way through. So although I have a degree, never had to use it. And so I went in to comic books.

And then the way they promote you, like every time you ask, it's an interesting way they do it and they still kind of do it today, is every time you ask for a raise, they will go, no, I'm not gonna give you a raise. They don't really say that.

[00:03:34] Jordan Harbinger: Right.

[00:03:35] Todd McFarlane: But what they'll do is they'll find out who your favorite characters are.

Like if your favorite character Jordan was

[00:03:40] Jordan Harbinger: the Punisher, captain

[00:03:41] Todd McFarlane: America, let's say, okay, Punisher.

[00:03:42] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:03:43] Todd McFarlane: And you came in for a raise, right? And you go, Hey man, I'm only making a hundred bucks a page. I like 110. Then they go, yeah, you know what? We'll take that in consideration. But you know what, Jordan? We're thinking about maybe putting you on a Punisher mini series.

Possibly there's a probable chance, like basically they use all these sort of outs. And what ends up happening is you walk out of that room and you're going, oh man, I possibly do maybe a Punisher. And my question is, did you get your raise? And the answer is no. The answer is no. So I started collecting comics light.

I wasn't like a fanatic all the way up to 16. That's when I started collecting. I. I didn't really have a favorite, right? So they couldn't kind of use that on me. But the gist of what ends up happening is the way they promote you is with characters, right? So you go from doing characters that your mom and dad haven't heard to doing characters that they had.

So I'd been in the industry probably two, three years, and then eventually I got to draw the Incredible Hulk, and that was when my parents went, man, you've made it. You've made it. Yeah, right? It's like I go, I've been doing this for years and I get paid the same amount. It's just that it was a name that they had heard.

So I was now legit. Yeah. And then eventually I ended up getting fast enough. I could do two books and I was doing Hulk, and so I said, Hey, I'm gonna go look for another book. And without knowing my personality, like you never tell me not to do something because it gets my eye up. So all the editors were saying, Todd, whatever you do, you're looking for another book.

You're starting to sort of get a little bit of sunshine on your career. Don't go into the Spider-Man office. And so I was like, dude, what do you think? I made a beeline to the office. Now they were right. The office was in flux. They couldn't keep creative people. And at that point, I believe Spider-Man, and again, they had multiple books, but let's take the big book, amazing Spider-Man.

It was number 21 at their company for like sales ranks. You mean? Sales ranks. Got it. And they just said, Hey, we're looking to put a creative team together. Whatever you guys can do to boost this up, do it. So I looked at it and went, oh cool. Okay, cool. I'll, I'll take that challenge. And then a writer came on.

And Spider-Man, Peter Parker was wearing a black costume at that point. And although most employees, if they give you their granddaddy, their icon, their status quo character, yeah. You just go, man, thanks. But I was not that guy.

[00:06:19] Jordan Harbinger: You're like, I'm gonna change some shit. Yeah.

[00:06:21] Todd McFarlane: I just go, I'm not, I'd like to draw Spider-Man, I'm not gonna do it.

He's got a black costume that's not Spider-Man. Spider-Man's got the red and blue with the webbing. That's like, I don't have any interest in that. And I go, but if we get rid of the black costume, then we'll be okay. And they were like, no, you know, we're doing it. And the editor in chief likes it. He had something to do with it and whatever else.

And so I went, okay, how about we do this? How about if I create a new character and we take the costume off Peter Parker and we put on another character, and then we can get back to the blue and red costume. That character ends up being venom. Right? Wow. So Venom ends up being this happy billion dollar accident that was only created because I was too stubborn to just listen to my bosses drop Peter Parker in the black costume.

I just went, no, I'm not gonna do it. So we go off there. Then I jump into Spider-Man, and here's the change. And here's a little bit of sort of looking at your career. I, amongst tens of millions of people have to survive in industries where you have a lot of competition.

[00:07:22] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:07:22] Todd McFarlane: So I was up against hundreds and hundreds of other creative people.

How do you make yourself different? And the answer is you've got to not repeat. I think at least in our industry, some of the tricks that have already been laid down because you just become a copier, right? I've always told people, look at if you're gonna, I don't recommend painting like Norman Rockwell, and here's why.

Because if you become really great at it, you know what the best you can hope for is that they'll go, man, that guy is a great Norman Rockwell imitator. You will never get rid of Norman Rockwell out of that sentence. You will never be on your own two feet. So I was looking at Spider-Man, and I looked at it and it essentially, I.

Had been repeating the same tricks from 1965 until I'd walked into that office, which was about 19 88, 89, something like that. And I was staggered that they had not updated it in almost two plus decades. Yeah, two plus decades. I'm like, it still looked like a 1965 comic book to me now. The look was brilliant.

Let me, let me go on record of saying, yeah, the look. It was done by an artist named John Romita Sr. And he created the iconic look of Spider-Man, that we all close our eyes and we think about that look in our head as our child, right? In our childhood. That's the look. So he was my Norman Rockwell, and I go, I'm a fool if I try to imitate that because I've seen 25 years of people doing it.

So I go, no, no, let's see if we can't sort of first modernize him right at, at the time, it was funny, Jordan, I didn't think I was doing anything out of the ordinary. I just want his name. It's Spider-Man. And the only difference I did, and I've said this before, was that they did Spider-Man, emphasis on man.

And when I took it over, I did Spider-Man, emphasis on spider. So I made big eyes and I made his costume where it was blue, added a lot more black, and I put way more webs on his costume and then I created new webbing for him because the webbing to me was super bland and it wasn't functional. And so I created this sort of new way of doing the webbing and stuff.

Anyway, the gist of it was I was messing with the icon.

[00:09:32] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:09:33] Todd McFarlane: So it was a little Canadian kid, you know. Every now and then I'd go into New York and they would call me on the carpet and they would go, Todd. You gotta stop doing that. Right? You gotta stop doing that now. A couple things were happening. I knew sales were going up.

Right? Okay. And so, again, I think the average, and I think this is a safe bet for an employee, that when a boss tells you to do something, you, you do it. Mm-Hmm. I wasn't that guy. What I would do is I would say, yes, I'm gonna do it. And then I wouldn't, 'cause I knew it would then I knew it would be another 90 days.

I mean, before they would come around and check.

[00:10:08] Jordan Harbinger: Right. It's a risky dice roll though, man. Like sometimes you just get fired when you do that.

[00:10:13] Todd McFarlane: Uh, yeah, but I knew that. I knew that the fans were there and so we kept going back and forth and back and forth on this. Right. To the point that that webbing, I've told the story before that the editor in chief at that point was an Italian guy and he just got so mad at me.

'cause every time he came in there, they would just wag their finger at me and they would go, man. And then one day he just went, you gotta stop making the big eyes and you gotta stop doing those crazy poses and all that. And then that spaghetti weapon, you gotta stop it. And alls I heard, it was like a Charlie Brown scene where I just went Wah W wa spaghetti weapon, because I didn't have a name for him at that point.

And I went, wow. Spaghetti web. So I'm getting abused by him verbally. And alls I hear is spaghetti weapon. I go, man, he just gave me a name for it. That's super cool. And so I, I said, yes. Okay, I'll, I'll make sure that I change it. And I walked out and I could show you the issue. I actually made them twice as long and twice as big as they were before.

The webbing. The webbing. Yeah. All of it. All of it. Everything I was doing, the final meeting sort of comes in and again, they're wagging their finger at me and it just goes like this. And here's what I don't understand about corporate America. Here's what I don't understand about life and humans as a whole.

There are only, from my perspective, I'm an old man. From my perspective, there's only two constants in life. Two things that I can bank on. One, we're gonna all die. That's a given. That's a given. Number two change. It is inevitable. 'cause we'd all be living in caves still. It's inevitable change. I don't understand, and this is, I guess, personalities.

I am disinterested in yesterday. It's gone. It's gone. I can't do anything about it. I can learn from it, but I can learn from it and then apply it today and tomorrow. I don't care about yesterday, which is. Status quo. And I've told young people, I think the biggest enemy you will run into in your life are people protecting status quo.

Mm. And so the last conversation I sort of had with them was, I don't understand why we keep having this conversation. First off, by that point, Spider-Man was the number one selling book.

[00:12:20] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. And you changed it to fettuccine webbing from spaghetti webbing,

[00:12:23] Todd McFarlane: whatever. Yeah, whatever. I think I'm doing my, my job.

You hired me. You're in the publication business. Your job is to sell comic books. I have the number one selling comic book currently. Number one, I make more money for you than anybody you employ. And yet I am the bad guy. I sit here and yet I'm gonna get reprimanded one more time.

[00:12:46] Jordan Harbinger: You're messing with Mickey Mouse though, right?

Like that's their icon.

[00:12:49] Todd McFarlane: But it doesn't matter that you're messing with the icon. They're in the commerce business. That's right. That is their job. They are a public company. They make money. That's their job. And I was making them money. And here's where it gets strange for Canadians. When you do a favor for somebody in Canada, people say, thank you not right.

And so I'm in the room with these people and getting reprimanded because they were more concerned about the process.

[00:13:17] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:13:18] Todd McFarlane: Instead of the goal. And the goal was to make money. And I was making the money. I was accomplishing what they, but I wasn't doing it their way. Right. It's like asking me to come to a party at 10 o'clock at night.

Then I get there at 10 along with everybody else and berating me because I didn't take the same street and highway that you took. It doesn't matter. The goal was to get here at 10 and I'm here. Why are we having this conversation? And eventually Jordan, they just wore me out. They wore me out and I ended up leaving.

But here's the, the funny part of, if you wanna call it that, the ironic part of that story I just told you, the way that Spider-Man has been drawn ever since I left, and that was almost 30, that was I guess over 30 years ago. It still has a heavy, heavy, heavy Todd McFarland influence. Yeah, it's kind of the standard now.

Right? Right. So that guy that I was saying, why would I repeat him? I was the bad guy. But when I left, it was so successful. All you kids now have to draw like Todd. It's weird to me again, I don't think that's what they should be doing. 'cause there may be another kid comes along that could add 10 new things.

That may make the sales go up 5, 6, 7, 8 times. But that's just not how we're built. That's not how corporations are built. We're built to protect our billion dollars, which you should. 'cause they have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits to the shareholders every 90 days. That's their job. I don't begrudge it.

I understand it. In all honesty, Jordan, I take advantage of it. But that's what they have to do. Okay, fine. You guys do what you wanna do. But here's the problem with protecting too much. Every now and then somebody comes along and they build a better mouse trap.

[00:15:05] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm. And they

[00:15:06] Todd McFarlane: have success. And all of a sudden ask IBM how they let Apple come along and take over some of their, like there's hundreds and hundreds of these stories where somebody,

[00:15:18] Jordan Harbinger: yeah,

[00:15:19] Todd McFarlane: in their garage came up with a better idea and was able to take on the giants because they just built a little bit better mousetrap.

Big deal.

[00:15:29] Jordan Harbinger: When Marvel finally was wearing you out, was it obvious when it was time to leave? Like, okay, I know I'm, they're calling me, there's a meeting tomorrow, they're gonna say the exact same stuff, or, or was there like a breaking point? 'cause what I would love is that story, but also maybe any almost general advice for people who are stuck in a job and they're like, should I leave?

Or is everybody putting up with this crap? And it's like, no, here's, you know, if you got a rule of thumb or something like that, I'm all ears.

[00:15:52] Todd McFarlane: So I, I've told my employees, I go, I think everybody should be an entrepreneur at least once. And here's why. Because if you fail, you can go back and do what you were doing before.

To me, it's like cutting your hair. If you don't like the hairstyle, let it grow back and go back to your old hairstyle, right? You can always go back to the system, but you should try it once because you might succeed. And I gotta tell you, as somebody's been out there, freedom and not having to get people to give you a.

The right to move forward.

[00:16:24] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:16:25] Todd McFarlane: I own my own companies. I get to wake up on a lot of the decisions I make and do exactly what I want with nobody's approval needed. I don't need it. And it's a good life. Be your own boss. I think it's pretty easy, but again, I think it's a personality.

[00:16:42] Jordan Harbinger: It is. I'm in the same boat though, man.

Like I was with another company that I also owned, but I had business partners and it was just exhausting trying to get them to do the right. I spent 80% of my energy on some days trying to get them to realize that there was one kind of way to do something and then I would sometimes, so you win some, you lose some, and I would win some and then they would immediately be like, I'm so glad we thought of this.

And I wanted to be like, I could twist your head off. It took me a week and a half to convince you, morons to do this. And I eventually left. It was an acrimonious split. Then I regrew this show inside of a year. What took us 11 years to build with the other business Because it's just you're swimming upstream with, with morons, if they have an equal vote,

[00:17:22] Todd McFarlane: well, what I have to do is say they're a corporation.

They have to do A, B, and C. And in this case, like I said, they have to maximize shareholder profits. So they have to do what they think is best. We can debate what they did was the best or not. That's another conversation, but that's what they're doing. I then have to say, can I personally live in that situation?

And the answer for me was no. My personality wouldn't allow me. I have to eventually just go, I gotta go. I'm not here to say they should change their ways. I'm just going, Todd, they are in their ways, they're locked in their ways. Status quo. Yeah. And so you either have to accept that Todd. Or you've gotta go and do something.

What I am not inclined to do, Jordan, is I'm not a guy who stands by the water cooler and complaint.

[00:18:12] Jordan Harbinger: Hmm.

[00:18:13] Todd McFarlane: I either accept what's in front of me or I go and change it. I mean, this may sound silly, but it's true. I got my sort of life philosophy when I was probably seven, eight, although my personality was there from the womb, but when I was a kid living actually down here in California, and I used to watch way too many cartoons when I was a kid, but like six, seven times a day there was this commercial that would come on and this cool dude would look at me.

He had this sassy looking hat and a cool look, and he'd go, only you can prevent forest fires. Now. When I was seven, I went, man, he's talking smokey's talking about fires. And by the time I got to eight, I want. I don't think he's talking about fires. I think he's talking about my life and personal responsibility.

And so it was like, oh. So he's saying, if you've got a problem, mm-hmm. It's your problem, Todd. Solve it. Solve it. And that was it. And then I just went, oh, okay. This is on me. I can't blame anybody else and expect anybody else to bend their will towards mine. So when I walked into Marvel at the very beginning, right outta college, I had done my homework on the industry and I knew that the industry had used and abused creative people since it's dawn.

[00:19:40] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm.

[00:19:41] Todd McFarlane: And so I went in eyes wide open. Yeah. You learned it early, you learned the lesson early. So what did that mean for me? That meant that all the ideas I had in my portfolio, all the things that were spinning in my head, I kept them to myself. I. Because there was no system that they had either Marvel or DC that I thought was conducive or fair-minded enough to take 'em outta my portfolio and give them to the corporations.

Now, if they give you a plot and a story and they say, draw this character and create another character, and then you, then I did it right and again. I help co-create venom for 'em. Do you get

[00:20:17] Jordan Harbinger: royalties for that? Or is it like, thanks bro,

[00:20:21] Todd McFarlane: that's a whole nother can of worms, but yeah, you get, you get a few shackles.

Okay. Off their billions.

[00:20:27] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I'll look for the lawsuit in the public record. It might be in there zone. Oh man.

[00:20:31] Todd McFarlane: Oh man. Just kidding. We got, yeah, don't like someday. I would love to be in a lawsuit of being the little guy. I've been in lawsuits where I'm the big guy. I'd love to be the little guy. Oh man.

But anyways, so let's go back to your earlier question. I'll tell you the story of the straw that broke the camel's back. Yeah. At this point I had done amazing Spider-Man. And remember they were like, Todd, you gotta stop, stop, stop, stop. Yeah. And then they saw the sales go up and then eventually I go, Hey, I wanna start writing my own books.

I was only an artist. And I go, I'm, I'm gonna quit Spider-Man. Because I wasn't gonna muscle the writer off, which I could have. 'cause my career was shooting way up. And I could have muscled anybody at that point, but I go, no, I'm not gonna do that. 'cause I wouldn't want somebody to do that to me. So, trying to be fair-minded.

So I left and I said, I'm gonna go find another book and, and I'm gonna find somebody probably on a lower selling book that will let me write and draw, but they're gonna want my artwork. 'cause I was winning a bunch of awards at this point. And the Marvel Heads came and they said, Hey Todd, we've been thinking for a while about creating a fourth Spider-Man book.

At that point, they had three and they said if we create a fourth one, then we'll have basically a Spider-Man book come out every week. We can publish them every week. So there'll be Spider-Man, not once a month, which every book comes out once a month. But if you've got four of 'em, then you get one every week.

And so they said, don't quit Spider-Man. We want you to stay on Spidey 'cause the sales are doing so good. What if we let you write a new Spider-Man, number one.

[00:21:56] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm.

[00:21:57] Todd McFarlane: And so, again, I being fair, I said, you understand, I've never written, so what you're saying right now is you're about to give a big giant event book to a newbie writer.

And they were like, uh, yeah, fine. Because it keeps Todd the artist on, even though Todd the writer. Mm-hmm. Was gonna be his first time out of the gate. Wow. So they gave me that book. It set records the record, it's the highest sales for a single creator ever in comic books. And that record still stands today.

And so I'm going, okay, cool. They gave me the book and I was got to write all my stuff and I like monsters. So if you look at my run, I put a monster almost in every book. But we did a crossover that sort of forced this crossover on me with the X-Men or whatever. And then here's the moment. There's a character, his name's Juggernaut, and he's like sort of indestructible.

He is got all this armor on, you can't beat him, blah, blah, blah. So Oh yeah, of course. I came up with this idea that what he does have is isolates in the armor. So I took one of the characters, I had them take their sword and put it in his eye.

[00:23:01] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:23:01] Todd McFarlane: There was literally a crack a chink in the armor, if you will.

[00:23:05] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:23:06] Todd McFarlane: And so I put it in there and then has had happened over the years, the phone rings and it's like, Hey, you can't do this comics code. Right. Isn't there like a, that's it. The comics code and the comics code came in the big Senate hearings in 1960 when they were saying that comic books were destroying children.

It basically is what created Marvel comics, because they were called timely comics. They shut it down. After the Senate hearings, they created this new company called Marvel Comics. The first book out is called Fantastic Four. And Off goes Marvel, right? So the comics code had been up in the corner, Marvel in DC ever since.

And they said, you can't stab somebody, we gotta get you to draw it. Now again, there's nothing worse than drawing and creating something. And then somebody's saying, you gotta throw it out and redo it.

[00:23:51] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, no kidding.

[00:23:52] Todd McFarlane: And again, it's just a page here, a page there, but it's just you. You're constantly on a deadline and you don't want it backtrack.

Right? So whatcha talking about, whatcha talking about we can't stab somebody? And I gave him a couple example. One of the big examples was there's this very famous cover where this bad guy is a stabbing, a character called Lecturer on a Daredevil book. And I and Frank Miller, who became one of our big iconic artists, he did it.

And I go, of course you can stab people. They did on the, on the daredevil and they went, yeah, but there was no rear exit wound. What that means is that you put the sword in the front and it comes out the back. Right now if you look at that drawing, here's the absurdity of life. If you look at that drawing, the knife comes out her back.

It just that it doesn't rip the clothes. So there's like a tent happening in the back.

[00:24:40] Jordan Harbinger: So ridiculous.

[00:24:40] Todd McFarlane: So all the intent is there, and I'm telling you, if you got a child, five or older, they will know what's happening. But because it didn't pierce the cloth out the back, it only made a teepee. It was okay.

[00:24:53] Jordan Harbinger: That's so arbitrary, man. But it was still a stab. Also the punishers like shooting people hundreds of times with machine guns and using gr and it's like, oh, this is fine.

[00:25:02] Todd McFarlane: Well, I'm gonna tell you, it depends on how you, you can shoot the guns or whatever. You couldn't show like blood, you again, the bullets and stuff, they, it was some really weird stuff.

Yeah. I go, guy, this is absurd. So here's what's gonna happen. I'm about to have my first child. You guys have worn me out. So here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna hand you the page. You can do whatever the hell you want. I'll even give you some little drawings to help you fix it, whatever else you guys. Then go in your editorial thing, fix it any way you see fit.

I'm also here to say, this is my last book. I'm done. I can't do this. I just, I need to move on.

[00:25:37] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, no kidding.

[00:25:38] Todd McFarlane: I had to finish that book literally within days of my daughter being born.

[00:25:43] Jordan Harbinger: Wow.

[00:25:43] Todd McFarlane: And I've never drawn a page for Marvel or DC since.

[00:25:50] Jordan Harbinger: I'm curious what happened to the juggernaut pages where they're like, no.

Do you keep that stuff? Or is it like, ah, I just throwing it away? Oh, no, I have it.

[00:25:57] Todd McFarlane: No, no. I used to sell my original artwork. I kept that page, I framed it. I don't, I think it's the only page I've ever framed. I framed it and put up on the wall just as a reminder.

[00:26:07] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:26:07] Todd McFarlane: Of what that sort of system experience meant.

I have the straw. Let me just tell you. Yeah. The thing that broke the camel's back. I have the straw. I'm glad to

[00:26:17] Jordan Harbinger: hear that. I was just thinking what a cool like piece of symbolism where you were like, you know what? To hell with this. This is the page that broke me. And also it's kind of the, it's illegal or whatever against the comics code.

Yeah. It's

[00:26:29] Todd McFarlane: never been printed. Nobody seemed the unedited version of it. Yeah.

[00:26:32] Jordan Harbinger: I was hoping you weren't like, oh yeah, I left it in my office when I left Marvel and they, they threw it like the cleaning crew threw it away. No, but back then. Okay, so you leave and you start, you walk out. But there's only like two games in town with comics back then, right?

Yeah. I mean, there's little games, but Marvel and there's DC and like maybe, I don't know if Valiant existed still at that point, but it's not like there was nothing like big going on.

[00:26:53] Todd McFarlane: No, no, you're right. Marvel, DC at that point probably were combined. 96% of the business.

[00:27:02] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:27:02] Todd McFarlane: And historically, Jordan, that's exactly how it worked, right?

For creative people. If you were at Marvel and you got mad at Marvel, you walked across the street to DC. Mm-Hmm. If you were working at DC and you got mad at dc, you walked across the street to Marvel. Just do that every 10 years, and then when you got mad again, the second time, you basically went back to the z.

I mean, literally, people zigzag their careers back and forth because

[00:27:26] Jordan Harbinger: yeah,

[00:27:26] Todd McFarlane: that's where the opportunities and the steady work was. But again, when you're sort of hopped up a little bit and you just go, screw it, then the thought of creating another possibility, we didn't think we would have the impact that now, fast forward 30 years and we've been the third biggest company for 30 years, we didn't think we were gonna make the impact that we did.

We were all just leaving because we were all just frustrated personally for our own personal reasons within the system. And we got out of the gate and we exploded. And this company that was supposed to last six months and then we were gonna all come crawling back, never happened. And we are, I think in the year 33 right

[00:28:12] Jordan Harbinger: now.

Wow. Incredible. I'm, there's such a fine line between knowing you've had enough and knowing what you're doing and leaving and, and starting something else, and just be having like a delusional ego that gets you in trouble and being like, oh, you burned bridges at both places. Uh, good luck, pal. I mean, you had the talent and you had a lot of connections.

[00:28:28] Todd McFarlane: I'm not an advocate in a lot of cliches, and that's one of 'em. Todd, come on man. Don't, don't burn a bridge. Of course you can burn a bridge if you never gonna walk back over it. Burn it, burn it down to the ground. Of course you can. It's okay to have enemies. It's okay to have stuff. There are a lot of nevers that were there.

Here's what I promise you. I will never go back to high school. It's in my past. It's done. I enjoyed it. It was fine. I'm never going to do it. I'm a glass half full guy that I just, I'm the opposite. I do have my own ego and delusions. I actually think I can do anything. That's my delusion. And so I worry about failure when I finally am confronted with it, not worrying in advance of it, I just go, let's go do it.

Mm-Hmm. And then eventually you have to go, man, maybe we bit off more than we thought and now we're gonna have to readjust on the fly. But for me, that works way better than, than hesitating at the beginning, than doubting at the beginning what to do. So when I go up on stage, Jordan, sometimes I split my personality and I walk over to one side of the stage and I go, okay, I'm gonna talk to you as a, hopefully as a friend, as a father, as a brothers, I'm, I'm gonna say, I think you can do what you want.

I think you can do it. And here's why. 'cause I think I'm a knothead and I was able to just do it. On a scale of one to 10, I think I'm a seven-ish. I think there are thousands that are way, way, way, way, way better than me. And I don't say that humbly. I say that as a fact. As a fact. There are hundreds, if not thousands of people that can outdo what I do.

But there's another piece to it. Then there's the hustle, and I am relentless on that part. I go, I'm a kind of dumb, got a little bit of skill, but I'm dogged. That combination actually can work. You know, I, I recommend that you guys all just try. Whatever it is that you think you're gonna try, you should do it because you don't know, right?

You don't know until you, you do it. The whole adage you, you're never gonna make any basket and basketball that you never shoot.

[00:30:41] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:42] Todd McFarlane: Wake up every day and your prayer should be, why not me? Why not me? I. Now I got a different message. I hope you don't do it. I hope you don't do it. I hope you put doubt in your brain.

I hope you question yourself. I hope you think you're not good enough. I hope you listen to the people who say no. And here's why. I will never have to compete with you. Make my life easy. Make it so that I'm in a race with five people instead of 505 people, I have a chance of winning 500. Wow, too much

[00:31:12] Jordan Harbinger: talent.

[00:31:13] Todd McFarlane: But go ahead and doubt you can't. So I've had plenty of artists come up to me that I have skill, but that doubt to me is the piece. And at times gotta be a little bit, I think harsh of just going, here's what I'll do for you. I will not give and care more about you than you do yourself. So if you don't want to advocate and give a shit about your career, why should I?

I think you're great. I think you could amount to a lot, but if you don't want it. It is not my job to drag you across the line. So here's what I'll do. Once you get over that piece and the majority won't because it's personality, then I'll be your biggest cheerleader, and I help push as much as I can, but I'm not gonna drag you.

[00:32:00] Jordan Harbinger: I. Folks. Well, I don't run a billion dollar comic company and I rely on you to support the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Dell and a MD Dell Technologies has just dropped the cybersecurity tapes, which is a new podcast series that dives into today's biggest cybersecurity challenges.

And I know that sounds a little bit technical, but this is a really good format to teach cybersecurity because it's story-based. So on a recent episode, Gemini, which is a chat bot that's like a customer service bot, it starts leaking corporate secrets, and there's a lot of plot twists in there, which they did pretty well in my opinion.

Maria, of course, is a seasoned security pro, seen it all. She runs her own consulting gig. She knows how to untangle tech messes, and then they put her skills to the test. And I know that it's like, okay, there's a lot of stories about cybersecurity. But reading articles about this stuff is not really the greatest way to learn this.

I love the fact that they've got like a story-based format here that teaches important lessons. And it's not just a story. They're really packed with insights and tips to handle your own cybersecurity nightmares. So instead of throwing facts and figures at you, it uses real life scenarios and characters, which makes it easier and way more interesting, frankly, to understand the risks and how they can impact us.

So while you're listening to this drama unfold, you're learning crucial info on how to protect yourself in the digital world at the same time. So catch the next episode of the cybersecurity tapes on platforms like Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And if you got a cybersecurity horror story of your own, you can drop a review in your story.

Might inspire their next episode. This episode is also sponsored by Better Help. Can you believe how quickly this year is zooming by? What has been a highlight for you in 2024 so far? What's still on your to-do list? I can't believe we should even be thinking about this. It's crazy. Year's almost half over time flies when you're doing everything, and it's important to pause for a moment, celebrate the wins, bigger or small.

I could use some help with that. Maybe tweak a few plans for the rest of the year. This is really where therapy has come into play. For me, it's like having a personal trainer, but for your brain. It also helps you take stock of where you are, where you wanna be, how to bridge the gap, how to stop beating yourself up about every damn little thing that's going wrong, or not even so wrong in your life.

I personally find therapy super helpful, uh, through many stages in my life. So if you're thinking of giving therapy a try, better help could be a great start. It's all online. You can get help from your couch in your pajamas. No judgment. Just fill out a quick questionnaire. They'll match you with a licensed therapist not feeling the vibe of your match.

Switch anytime for free.

[00:34:19] Jen Harbinger: Get it off your chest with better help. Visit better help.com/jordan today to get 10% off your first month. That's better, HEL p.com/jordan.

[00:34:28] Jordan Harbinger: If you're wondering how I manage to book all these great authors, thinkers, and creators every single week, it is because of my network, the circle of people I know, like, and trust, and I'm teaching you how to build your network for free over@sixminutenetworking.com.

I realize you're not booking a podcast. It doesn't matter. This is great for work, great for personal. I don't care if you're retired or new to your career. You are going to be a better connector, a better colleague, a better friend, and a better peer in a way that is non cringey down to earth. Todd McFarland would approve of these tactics that are not awkward, they're not cheesy, they're just practical exercises that'll make you better in six minutes a day, and many of the guests on our show subscribe and contribute to the course.

So come on and join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. You can find the course again, it's all free. It's six minute networking.com. Now, back to Todd McFarland. You've known a ton of creators. I know a lot of creators. The problem is a lot of people, you either learn business yourself or you let other people help you with it.

But the problem is I think that default for creatives is. You know, I'm gonna let my agent handle this. Or like, I, you know, I get this, I gotta hire a manager because I just can't fill in the blank. Like, stick to my calendar, make it to meetings on time, whatever podcasting is. Lar there's a lot I'm hearing that's in common with comics here in podcasting.

You got agents. Yeah, you might need an agent for some things, but you know, and look, my agent, she's very good in at so many things. I don't need them for most of this stuff because I already know what is going on with my business and I can negotiate stuff. And so I end up not needing that. They're, they're like, we wanna be involved in this.

I'm like, no, I got this. Other creators, other podcasters are like, what are you doing? But over 17 years that I've been doing the show, the answer is building a business and keeping most of my money.

[00:36:09] Todd McFarlane: Yeah.

[00:36:10] Jordan Harbinger: What is this about you never having to pee when you're in line signing things? I got a friend who's like, yeah, I stood there and this is years ago, I guess at a comic con.

He is like, yeah, Todd never went to the bathroom. Like, that's not possible. That can't be a thing.

[00:36:21] Todd McFarlane: Okay. So there was a book called The Art of War.

[00:36:24] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, sun Tzu.

[00:36:25] Todd McFarlane: And so I, I do have a few chapters that I'll write someday. Right. So let's talk about the bladder. 'cause I actually think the bladder is undervalued in life.

Here's the thing, I have a camel bladder. I thank my dad for it. 'cause I went on a trip one time, he was driving me down to the San Diego Comic-Con. One night, he got up in the middle of the night, I guess, to take a pee and he woke me up and then he went back to bed and then like, I guess three hours later he got up again, took a pee, woke me up again, and then I think the third time I woke up to him eating nacho chips at the edge in the bed at like five 30 in the morning.

I'm like, what are you doing? He goes, well, I got up for a pee. I couldn't go back to sleep. Peak dad. And that night horrified me. I made a personal mission going, I will never, ever, you don't need again. Ever be that person again. Oh God. I mean, when you're young, you have a good bladder. So, but I go, I'm never gonna get an old man bladder and I don't, now again, let me just quickly give you the way to get there and then I'll tell you how to use it.

The way to get there is simple, ladies and gentlemen. It is biology. If you put nothing in your top hole, nothing comes out of any of the bottom hole. It's just simple biology. I don't drink coffee, tea, I. Drink water. I don't put anything in. So why would I have to go and get rid of what I never put in? So it's easy not to go to the bathroom when you don't have anything in your bladder.

Done. We'll talk about whether you should be doing that. That's another conversation. Chic. You tell your doctor. But I've trained myself, so when I go, like I did a signing not long ago, you know these private signings I do once every three years or something, and I get there at seven in the morning and I would sit there until midnight, geez, whatever that is.

17 hours. That's insane. 17 hours. And I wouldn't eat, go to the bathroom, do anything. And they, they didn't think that was true. I told 'em like, I'm not moving. And then they had to bring in two shifts. They have to bring in the morning, the, and then the night shift. And then they have to have enough people so that the people on each one of the shifts could actually go get food and go to the washroom.

Right? Right. Because those are normal functioning things that most people do. I just have trained my body to not do it. Now, let me tell you how to take advantage of it. If you've got a good bladder is number one. When I go to conventions. Everybody was always either going to the bathroom or going for lunch or whatever.

I don't get hungry. Let me just tell you my, my wife has never heard me utter the words. I'm hungry, right? I eat because I know scientifically I need fuel in my body. That's why I eat. But I've never felt the urge of hunger. That's bizarre. You know that, right? It is. Yeah. Right. But good on me. If you're going to war, right?

So when I'm at a convention and everybody leaves for their breaks, I don't, and guess what? Guess what happens, Jordan, when you're the only guy sitting there doing free autographs. People won't stand in line to the guy who's gonna be gone for an hour and a half, right? They either leave or they go, huh?

Todd's here. I don't know who he is. He's a schmuck. I think his stuff is okay, but he's here and he's free, and I'll get in line and he's gonna give me something. And somewhere along the line you can convert some of those people into being loyal fans. Huh? And so why? Because I got a better bladder than them and I don't drink and drug, which may seem weird.

My wife said if you did any, if you had any vices, Todd, you'd be in jail. Yeah.

[00:39:41] Jordan Harbinger: Billion dollar bladder.

[00:39:41] Todd McFarlane: All of my energy is just self contain. I don't know where it comes from just, it's from bot bottling up all that

[00:39:49] Jordan Harbinger: piss man, over the last 40, 40 years maybe.

[00:39:52] Todd McFarlane: Maybe. My, my oldest daughters are doctors. And you go, dad, that's not super healthy for you.

But yeah, anyways. But let me tell you where it works. In business and in business, and I've done this more than once, Jordan, to exacting success. So people, if you want to try it, it works. I live in Phoenix, Arizona. It can get incredibly hot in the summer. All of you have read about it, right? Stupid oppressive heat.

Yeah. Every now and then I get into quandaries with corporations and businesses and people and lawyers and whatever else, and I try as much as possible, go, well, we're gonna finalize this. We're gonna finalize this contract, we're gonna get this done. Meet at my house. We're gonna solve this. And we don't leave until we solve it.

So I get a couple people from the lawyer's office, usually dudes, and they come into the office and they walk in and they're in their three piece suit. Now, as soon as I see they're in a three piece suit, I already know that I've won. We haven't even begun the match. It's 110 in Phoenix, and they're in their three piece suit.

I'm winning. So they come in because again, they're professionals, right? And I'm just the artist madman. I make sure that the room that I'm in my desk faces the sun. I've done a couple things. I've turned down the AC so that it's hotter and stuffier in the room. Mm-hmm. And then I open up the curtains, which I usually have closed.

I open it up so that that room is gonna get even twice as hot now, just so you know, I've been living in Phoenix long enough. I'm a cockroach. I can live under any conditions. I'm Canadian. I can live under cold or hot. Don't worry about me. I'm just a human cockroach. I'm good. But most people aren't, they actually eat pee and are not cockroaches.

Mm-hmm. So again, all of this is to my advantage. And so they come in there and I know that the room is stuffy. So I make sure there is a giant picture of water and glasses where they're sitting. Because why? I know they're gonna drink. Yeah. They have to. They have no choice. They got their wall suits on and when they walk in from getting out of the taxi or their Uber or whatever, I go, I've got one condition today.

We're gonna sit in this room, I'm gonna draw my back is gonna be to you. Your fear should be if I stop drawing and I turn, 'cause that's a moment where you got my attention and I'm probably not in a good mood, but. There's only one rule today. We do not leave this room till this contract

[00:42:09] Jordan Harbinger: is

[00:42:09] Todd McFarlane: done. And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're not leaving. I don't care if we gotta go through lunch and whatever else, we're not leaving, fine, fine, fine. And then they start drinking. They don't even know they're drinking, right? But they start drinking. And then sometimes I even make sure there's a second picture. If they go through the first picture and then by the end of the day I know what's happening to them.

Their bladder is screaming at them and then they get to the last couple points on that contract and they go, no, we're never gonna do it. And I go, okay, fine. Well we gotta keep going then. And I just push it and push it and push it. And I have heard the words back to back, go something like this. Fine, fine, Todd, we'll give it to you.

Are you satisfied? Fine. Hey, where's your bathroom? I've had that happen on more than one occasion. I literally. Got what I wanted. I literally beat them in that contract because of their bladder. If they, I had tried to argue that point early in the game before they had any water.

[00:43:13] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:43:13] Todd McFarlane: They wouldn't have conceded it or it would've gone way too long.

I probably would've lost, oh my God. Or I would've had to do a compromise. So at some point, I don't know, you just, you take the tools that are in front of you and one of them is me just having a great bladder. Oh my gosh. And I've used it to my advantage on many, many, many occasions. So

[00:43:34] Jordan Harbinger: are you at all worried that someone listening to this is gonna wear a diaper to the next meeting they have with you?

Because that's the, if you wanna play 3D chess with Todd, you wear a diaper to that meeting.

[00:43:44] Todd McFarlane: You know what, I would actually tip my hat. 'cause I go, that's the counter. Yep,

[00:43:48] Jordan Harbinger: that's the counter. That's the

[00:43:49] Todd McFarlane: counter. Good on you. Good on you. So now I'm like, wow. So then what I would have to do, I. If we won't get distracted, I would study to see how uncomfortable it is to be sitting in a wet diaper.

'cause I will outlast you. I will outlast you. Look at, I said I had two commercials that really sort of made my life. One was the Smokey the Bear. The other one was, came a little bit later, was an underarm deodorant commercial. And that one was Never Let Em See You Sweat. Which basically meant, I don't mean physically sweat, I meant never concede that they're better than you ever.

Always consider yourself to be a peer. Never give them more than they do. So if you say to me, Todd, how are you doing? I'm great every day. I'm great. Even when I'm not Jordan. Mm-Hmm. That's my answer. 'cause I'm not gonna concede that I'm less than great. 'cause I'm not gonna give you an edge. Why? I'm just a silly guy and I'm competitive.

I had a younger brother, year, year younger and a brother year older, and we were constantly competition. Everything's a competition, so even how good's your day going, it's going awesome. If I say to you, Jordan, how's your day? Awesome. And you say, awesome, and you go, why? How's yours? My answer's easy. Oh, mine's awesomer.

So annoying. I'm, I'm gonna jump on top of you every time. Right? So go ahead. Also, I think I'm missing the chemical. I have it, but not, I don't think a normal amount of it, of fear. I am not afraid of almost anything my wife leaving me. But other than that, I'm not afraid of anybody anytime, any situation. So when I'm in a, in a meeting with people and I've been in rooms with 20 lawyers and agents and stuff like that, I.

My irritation comes to me a little bit of going, no, no, no, no, no. I understand. No, I understand. No, that's that's an interesting point. No, and I like that. And it's like just one. I got a couple questions here, but just one, I'm Canadian, so I'm a little naive about this in reverse. Would you take your own deal if they don't gimme a response in a half second?

Even a pregnant pause tells me no, because if it was a fair deal, they would've gone. Of course. Todd, what are you talking about? I don't understand why we're even here. Because you're being an idiot. This is a super fair. They should say that. Mm-Hmm. But they never say that. It's like, so you won't take your own deal, but you expect me to swallow it.

That's not fair. Our job isn't me to get a deal over you. That's not what I'm here for. But your job shouldn't be to get it over me. What we should be doing is trying to be fair-minded adults to compromise on a deal. That we can both live with instead of you being greedy, why are you so greedy at this moment?

So if we're gonna make a Hollywood deal and we're gonna do a backend, and we're gonna do something, here's how it's gonna work. A, I don't want your money right now, although they always wanna give you money upfront, and they're always afraid of backend, which is always weird. I want a backend deal, and here's how it works.

I don't get any money outta your pocket till you have money in your pocket. Just so we're clear, you know what that means? A backend deal. I get a percentage of what's in your pocket, but I only get to take what's in your pocket. Mm-Hmm. So if you make a little, I make a little. If you make a decent amount, I make a decent amount.

But here's the piece that you guys don't want to do. If you make a shit ton, you don't want me to make a shit ton, you wanna put caps on the ride, on the rocket ship, that if it goes to a certain place, then that's the max you'll pay me. And I max out at a point where you're making tons. And so in hindsight, if all of us had nothing but the future in front of us and somebody walked in and said, Hey, I've got this idea.

And guess what? In hindsight, we all know it's gonna make a billion. You'd make this deal in a heartbeat and you'd gimme whatever I wanted. But because you don't know that you won't put on paper. If it does make a billion, then you will give me what you would give me. Now if you knew in advance, why? Why?

Creed? Creed. So it's like not happening on my watch. So I learned early in the game, get your deal breaker out. I did one of my big, long two month contracts and then we got to the deal breaker and I blew it up and they went, Todd, you're not gonna walk away from this. We're 98% done. You're not gonna walk away for 2%.

Yeah, I am because it's the deal breaker. And so I learned after that one and they were all mad at me. I learned after that one, get the deal breaker out on the table, but in a fair way. So if I was negotiating with you, Jordan, it would go like this. Jordan, here's my two deal breakers. I'm telling you, I will not compromise on these two.

Like I'm not gonna be selfish. I get two. You get two. What's your two? Okay, good. I know you're two. Those four are untouchable. I have to concede your two. You have to concede my two. And now let's negotiate everything in between. Done. We can get there. There's no red line on anything else. Everything now is just an adult.

Conversation. Right. Cool. But the problem only becomes if their deal breaker and yours is the same, then you just have to walk away.

[00:49:04] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Interesting. I think what everybody is still wanting to know is when you do finally go to the bathroom, what color is your urine at that point? That's what I think, that's what's lingering in people's minds to close this loop.

[00:49:15] Todd McFarlane: No, it's not. It should be the length of it. Like the Austin Powers that scene where like Yeah. Or Tom Hanks in the, in the league of their own. I've easily exceeded some of those by a lot. I mean, sometimes we used to go camp and I, I could tell, I could actually tell my body and I go, kids, you might want to time this one.

Yeah, right. I actually know when there's gonna be like a two and a half, three minute one happening right about now. They used to think, the kids used to think I was turning on the water and then they burst in to sink. 'cause they'd go, dad's just turning on the faucet. Right. Mes? And they're like, oh my God.

[00:49:47] Jordan Harbinger: He's still going. Yeah, he's still going.

[00:49:50] Todd McFarlane: He's still going. But

[00:49:51] Jordan Harbinger: you're from Canada. I'm from Michigan. So I, I can relate. That's why we have the same kind of accent or a similar accent. And these are the kind of peas where if it's in winter and you're peeing outside, the stuff that came out first is frozen solid.

Well before you're done with the rest of it. That's how, you know that's the mark of a good pea. Like it's just, it's already frozen on the ground. You're stacking it up.

[00:50:13] Todd McFarlane: Yeah. I don't know. I, like I said, I the using it to your advantage, it's now valuable to me. So I, I wouldn't waste it there 'cause I know I can use

[00:50:21] Jordan Harbinger: it.

It's as good as gold.

[00:50:22] Todd McFarlane: Yeah. Another place because again, probably the same color too. Sort of continue to trek the, I've gone against giants, I continue to every day. Yeah. Right. And comic books. Our company goes up against Marvel and dc Marvel's owned by Disney. And DC is owned by Warner Brothers. Those are pretty hefty.

They are companies, big Fortune 500 company. And then in the toy business, I've got a toy business. I go up against the Hasbros and Mattels of the world, and those are Fortune 500 companies. So I, I literally am at War against Giants every day in my life. What I'm not ever trying to do, Jordan, when I'm out there is slay the giant.

I'm never gonna do it. I'm not big enough. I don't have enough resources to do it. That's not the goal. The goal is to survive amongst the giants and to thrive amongst the giants. And then you get to ask sort of the ironic question, why can't the giant kill me?

[00:51:12] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm.

[00:51:12] Todd McFarlane: They've got nothing but time and effort and money and resources and they can't squash me.

Here's the thing. If I've got my toys, which I do at Targets and Walmart, sometimes we have six out of the top 10 sellers. Yeah. On any given week, I. I have six. My little tiny company has six outta 10. The rest of the world has four.

[00:51:34] Jordan Harbinger: Crazy.

[00:51:35] Todd McFarlane: So I go up against giants all the time. I am not trying to put them outta business.

I'm not trying to kill them. I'm not trying to do that. What I'm trying to do is find where they have blind spots and where they have sort of weaknesses, and then I go through the cracks. And so every big corporation, I said it earlier, I try to take advantage of their status quo. And so I know how they think.

I know what their moves are. I'd be a fool to try to go down that same path. So what I do is I just veer off where they're not going and say, oh, I can just scoot in between the giants there because they're not paying attention to it. So what that means, like in the toy business is billion dollar corporations, for the most part, are selling to a.

Moms and dads mostly moms and six 7-year-old kids. That's the vast majority of their business. That's it. So how do you counter that? How do you survive that? To me, when I was making the toys, well, I probably shouldn't make stuff that appeals to mom and six-year-olds, because they're doing a brilliant job of it.

I'm not saying their product is not good. I think they're doing a good job of it and they're making billions at it, and they're gonna protect it. So go where they're not. Yeah. And so when I, I came in on the toys, I just went, where aren't they? And I'll tell you where they're not, they're not selling anything to anybody over 14.

I'll take that lane. They have no interest in that lane because they don't think there's enough money. In that. So I'll take that piece over there and it's enough of a business that I can thrive in. But to them billion dollar companies are like, eh, it's not worth it.

[00:53:16] Jordan Harbinger: I remember when your action figures came out.

Well, I don't know if this is when they first came out, but probably they were a little bit more expensive. My mom was a little bit like, why'd you buy the expensive Spider-Man? 'cause she doesn't know Spawn from Spider-Man. Right. But we're talking like three bucks. But I remember Spider-Man was just kind of like this, like flat looking, you know, piece of plastic that was painted and spawn had like veins on him or something like that.

Or, or like there was just detail in there that wasn't on the other figures a little bit bigger. And I was like, this is just so much better. Right? It's, it was so much better and it was just, who cares about $3? Like you're buying something that's premium. And I would imagine corporate types told you that that was a huge mistake and like, oh, we can't make this, or you shouldn't be pricing it this way.

[00:54:01] Todd McFarlane: All of it. All of it. When I broke in all of it, I was actually, at the beginning I was $1 more.

[00:54:06] Jordan Harbinger: Okay.

[00:54:06] Todd McFarlane: At that point, action figures were 5 99. When I came out I was 6 99. And to your point, the people in the industry sort of patted me on the shoulder and were like, Todd, come on man. You can't sell something 6 99, and here's the answer.

Of course you can. Of course you can. This is the status quo, Jordan. This is the thing that just drives me crazy. You are saying that sentence with no forethought, no forethought, yes you can, and here's why. You can either sell a car for 25,000, we'll call it a Ford Taurus, or you can sell a Cadillac for 50.

They're both cars. If we're just gonna go, can't sell a car for 50. There's a car over there for 30. It's to the consumer. One has $50,000 of value. When you buy a Cadillac, I have to assume that's why you bought it. Or a Mercedes-Benz, whatever you're buying and you thought it was a better car or you had the extra money or whatever and you bought course you can sell something that's priced more what they were thinking of, Jordan, and this is their mistake.

You can't sell a 5 99 toy. Mm-Hmm. For 6 99. I agree. I agree. What I was doing is I was making a 7 99 $7 99 cents toy and selling it for 6 99. I was actually giving them more value and under pricing it. 'cause I knew I was gonna be going against their big giant brands. I didn't have any big giant brands. I was a new company and people reacted to it.

Why? Because they understood quality. Look at the average consumer understands quality and when they've been had. Yeah. And so they understood the quality and they go, I don't know what the Spawn thing is. It's bigger, which is more plastic. Again, I've told people before, never underestimate plastic. It's like chocolate.

If you can get a 12 ounce chocolate bar for a buck or a 14 ounce chocolate bar for a buck, take the 14 ounces. Yeah, right. It's a buck take. The more so people were going, what? And eventually the, the company's caught up to my pricing anyways because they're, they always have to maximize their margins and their profits.

I don't, I'm not a public company. I don't have to, I just have to get to basically break even and I'm happy. So especially when they got to pricing the same as me, they were going, Todd gives us more plastic, more detail, more paint, more accessories. At the exact same price. So even though it's not called Batman, Spider-Man, whatever, it's kind of a value.

And that's how I've survived in that marketplace for 30 years. And then a couple years ago, 'cause I've been saying it for 27 years prior, you give me Star Wars Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, I can sell those. The only reason I can't sell those, you won't give it to me. Why? Because your deals are so big I can't afford them, but it's not that I can't sell them.

So we ended up getting a small portion a couple years ago of DC's Vault and in the year 2022, I believe, that small piece, which was like 10% of the a hundred percent of DC Multiverse toy, I outsold the other 90% plus that line outsold. Anything Marvel. Anything transformer and anything Star Wars, that little sliver.

Wow. Right. So I have full faith in the consumer to know that they'll pick what they like and they'll pick value. And if you give value, it works. And then if you put quality and value and you put the name Batman on top of it, that's not even a home run that becomes a grand slam at that point. Right.

That's That was a given. And so they were gonna buy it. Yeah. Right. They're going, oh man, nobody's ever done Batman this cool. Nobody's ever done a Superman. This cool. Nobody's ever done a Wonder Room flash this. Cool. Oh man, this is good. Thanks Todd. Right. We'll come and we'll support you. Okay. Because nobody had done it before.

And the reason they hadn't done it before and then I started doing a bunch of characters nobody had done. So it was the equivalent in sports vernacular collecting. Yeah. Their rookie cards. People were like, man, nobody's ever made that character. And so. Again, I just make a better mousetrap. I just make a better mousetrap.

That's the only way I can compete with the giant. I can't do it any other way. I have to make it better and price it less, which is where I'm at now. Yeah, I think I'm at a Be Better product and my, my price is cheaper than there. It's the only way I can survive amongst the giants every single day.

[00:58:38] Jordan Harbinger: Well, Todd might have a bottomless bladder, but I stay well hydrated.

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[01:01:38] Jordan Harbinger: If you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support all of the sponsors that support the show. All the deals, discount codes, and ways to support us are searchable and clickable over at Jordan harbinger.com/deals.

And if you can't remember the name of a sponsor, you can't find a code, you're not sure if we have a code for something, just go ahead and email meJordan@jordanharbinger.com. I am more than happy to surface that code for you. It is that important that you support those who support the show. Now for the rest of my conversation with Todd McFarland, I've got a friend of a friend that I was talking to a long time ago.

One of the things he said that you're known for is, and you're gonna probably have to fill in some blanks here, but I guess there's like a trade show and it's called something like Toy Fair. Maybe that's a little, yeah, right? Yeah. Toy Fair New York every year. And he said, you go there and you see this awesome stuff, like really, really cool toys from all the companies, but then when it gets to, by the time it's in Walmart, it's like a crappy, like fragile, tiny piece of plastic that's like barely Yep.

Painted. And like this, the gun that they had isn't in there. And like the swords, it's just like disappointing. It's like you never wanna see a prototype toy because when you see the final it sucks. Yeah. But there's a few exceptions and you're one of them. It's like the thing at the end looks like the thing in the beginning.

And that's probably been good for your reputation because it basically says if Todd McFarland shows you something, it's basically what you're gonna get. Which like apparently is not what is normal,

[01:03:00] Todd McFarlane: right? So more people are doing it the way that I'm doing it now, because I, you know, I've been at it now, we're celebrating our 30th year in the toy business.

So, you know, I've laid the blueprint and others have come along and picked it up, right? Mm-Hmm. Which is good because it's, I think it's good for industry and for collectors across the board, which was the goal, right? I mean, I started, the toy company, had no ambitions to start a toy company, but I started on one premise.

Why can't these things look better? Right? I'm an artist. Why can't they look better? And so I left Marvel, remembered the straw that broke the camel's back. We started Image Comic Book. When we started Image Comic Books again, the third largest company behind Marvel in dc. I had to create my own character, my own comic book.

I pulled out this character called Spawn. Spawn was somebody I created when I was a kid, when I was 16. That was the one that was in my portfolio amongst others. I never gave him away. I pulled them out, spawn comes out, spawn ends up setting a record. For the most sales ever by a creator that is non-corporate, that record is still there.

So again, to go back, I own the record both in the corporate side and the non-corporate side, right? But I'm on both sides of the fence. I accomplished both those mountaintops. But when Swan went to the top, then people who are licensing product look at charts. They look at them very simple, what's at the top?

And so they were going, man Spawn, which it was, was the number one selling book. Not only did it sell records independently, it was the number one selling book in our industry. And so they were going, man Spawn is outselling Superman and Batman and Ironman and Spider-Man, he must be something. And so they were coming out of the woodwork saying, Hey, we gotta, we gotta do license.

But they all came with their same mindset. And so I talked to all the toy companies and I quickly knew, and I talked to the big ones, Hasbro, Mattel, playmates. There was like three or four. They're all public companies. They all gave me the pitch and they were all well done pitches and some brought prototypes and whatever, but I could hear it that I go, oh, they are just gonna go into the formula.

Mm-Hmm. And spawn again, just for people who don't know, is a character who's from the pit of hell. Right? I don't know that he should be next to Disney and Teletubby product. Right? And so when I was having conversations with these companies, I was saying, here's what I think needs to happen. I think we need to make non-traditional toys and we need to sell them in non-traditional places.

Now let's go back to what I said earlier, that's messing with Yeah. Years and years and years of status quo. Yeah. This like little boy, this is not what we do. We know what we do. We're a billion dollar company and they're right. They make a lot of money and they're very successful. Uh, so should they have to sort of recon, conform themselves for me?

Of course they don't. So I only had two choices. Again, going back to those choices either. Give it to them and live with their system or figure out another way. And, and I just went, no. Just like we started a new company with comic books. I went, no. And so I finally said no to the last of them and I picked up a phone to somebody, a buddy of mine that was sort of this entrepreneur always had its finger in a pie.

And I asked the simple question, how hard is it you think it is to make toys? And very quickly, we, we hired a couple people and we were at our first toy fair and going, let's go and try it. Now here's the bizarre story, and I've told this before, so some people haven't heard it. Here's how it went down. And I don't recommend this path 'cause I don't think this lightning is gonna strike that often.

I was at Toy Fair and the way that it works at Toy Fair, ladies and gentlemen, is it Hasbro had their own building 12 stories high. Wow. From top to bottom. 'cause why? 'cause they do a thousand products, so you have to do it. Batal had their own building top to bottom. I was across the street in a building, six stories.

I was on one floor. One room on that floor and that room was divided into 40 sub booths. I had a five by five booth. It was like being at a swap meet somewhere on one of the last days, the door opens up the buyer for Toys R Us. And I've said before, at that point, toys Us was the number one toy buyer, not Walmart.

I'm going back, I'm dating myself.

[01:07:12] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. RIP Toys R Us.

[01:07:13] Todd McFarlane: Right. So, but Toys Rus was the king and the Toys Ross buyer walks in and everybody, it was weird. It was a weird thing. Like I said before, everybody jumped up, like they were like at the army barracks and the sergeant came in, right? And they were like, oh my God, the pope's here.

And I went, what? And it's like the buyer from Toys Ross Todd. And so he walks and if he walks by your five foot five booth, 'cause we all had five by five booth. There's 40 of us. Then if he walked by you, he wasn't buying your product. And then they kept walking and walking and I could see the disappointment behind the people that he'd walked by.

And then I was around the corner. So I went back to my booth, I guess I go, I guess I better stand here. Uh, he came around the corner and then he stopped at my booth. And then the, the words and I, I said before, I need to hunt this guy down. 'cause he, he might've made my career. It wasn't the buyer of Toys R Us.

He had an assistant about 22, 23. So he was in my demographic of the comic books and stuff. And he said the magic words boss, this is the guy I was telling you about. And he must have just said, Hey, this is the guy who said all those records with Spider-Man. And now he's got this character called Spawn.

It's the number one selling thing. It's at the top of the chart, blah, blah, blah. He must have done some kind of sales pitch. I don't know. I never had that conversation with that young man. And the Toys Us buyer said, Hmm. So can you get me this product at this price? And my answer was, of course, I had no idea, Jordan.

Oh no. But when opportunity knocks always say Yes and then figure it out after they leave, whether you can or you can't always say yes to opportunity. Yeah. And then he said, can you deliver it on this day? And the answer was, sure, of course. I had no idea. And he said, if you can do that, I'm gonna put you into Toys R Us.

Storewide. Usually when they sample something, they don't put it in storewide. Right. So regional. Regional, just test. And he goes, I'll go, I'll go storewide. And I went, we'll do it. We did do it. Because again, that was way too much of a gun to the side of my head to fail. Yeah. So we did do it, but in that five by five booth, I didn't even have a prototype.

I had taken drawings of spawn. Cut 'em out, put 'em on foam core, put 'em in packaging, and then said, yeah, but it's gonna look super cool, trust me. Wow. That was it. And so he bought Spawn the line store wide without a sample in his, in his hands. And where the Dominoes easily fell was I was then able to go, I wasn't able to get a phone call with Walmart or at that point, Kmart and all these other companies.

And I then get to pick up the phone and go, Hey. Just wanna introduce myself, just letting you know I've got this line. I know you said no earlier, but I just wanna let you know that Toys us, put it in store wide. And again, this is sort of the illogic a little bit that I think that companies go, well, toys Ru is putting it in store wide.

We can't let our competition get an edge on us. Sure. So it's like, bring it in and then Walmart bought it and then all of a sudden then you, I, I mean think about what happens after that. Jordan, you just go to each meeting thereafter. I go to Kmart and I go, wow. Walmart and Toys R Us are buying it. Right.

And just Ching ching. Yeah. And it just fell. The dominoes just fell. And next thing you know, I'm in all these big stores on a national level and here you go. 'cause that's a mountaintop. Like if you can get into those stores, that's a mountaintop. But there's another one higher than that. Yeah. And that's once you get into those stores, you have to sell the product.

Wow. 'cause if it doesn't move getting people think, man, how'd you get your product on the shelf? That is a steep hill. But once it's on the shelf, you must get it off the shelf. Yeah. Consumers have to come and buy it 'cause they will never ever buy your product ever again. And luckily I had enough people that sort of were Geekdom Spawn fans, toy collectors, or just could see what the eye test that I was given people more value than anybody else.

At that point, I was building a better mousetrap. And it sold and it went and we were off to the races and we haven't looked back. Like I said, we've been at it for 30 years and here we go.

[01:11:21] Jordan Harbinger: Uh, it, it's probably a different show, but there is a part here about how you made, I don't know, like 85,000 spawn figures that didn't suck and had like, Hey, I need these to be like really, really good and they need to go here on this date.

I would imagine manufacturers were like, oh man, you spit off. That's a spicy meatball, but you got it done.

[01:11:39] Todd McFarlane: Let's go real quick of how that works. Sure. Anytime you add plastic, that's money. Anytime you add paint, that's money. Yeah. Anytime you add stickers and cards and stuff, that's money. I found out early in the game, the way the Fortune 500 companies work is that they come up with their sales projections.

They come up with their. Price points and what it's gonna cost. The manufacturer, they then speculate how many they're gonna sell, and then they've got a number and then they walk down to the creative people and they throw the this thing saying, Hey, you gotta make this toy for 97 cents. Boom. And they shut the door.

Now the creative people go, man, last year we had a buck.

[01:12:16] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm.

[01:12:17] Todd McFarlane: They're cutting 3 cents out of their budget and we've still gotta do it. They didn't care about the art on any level because why? They're selling it to moms and they're selling it to 6-year-old as long as it says Batman, superman, Spider-Man, transformers, Ironman, whatever at the top.

Yeah. And it has the color palette and it kind of, sort of looks like it. That's a sale. Right. I knew I was selling to 14-year-old and up, and I knew that if I got it wrong, they would be all over me. I had to get it right. I couldn't cut corners. Yeah. So I basically was doing it right. Like the reference that was there.

I wasn't adding anything or I was in the early part 'cause I didn't have any license. I was literally just creating stuff and putting as much stuff into the toys as possible. The average toy at that point had like 57 what they call paint operations. That's how many times they hit it with paint 57.

Those first few years I was doing stuff, I was averaging 220 paint operations. Right. But it costs you money to do that. But it was okay 'cause I'm not a public company, I can do it, but it got the notice of the consumer going, man that's a Cadillac and he's selling it at Ford Motor prices. He's given us a Cadillac at Ford prices.

You can sell that Jordan. Even if the brand at the top is an unknown brand like Spawn, you can still sell it. And it's sort of been the secret sauce of, of my company. But now you take that, like I said, and now we've got Superman and Batman A Flash, and you add that to it home. Yeah. Grand Slam, like you said, we're off to the races.

So that piece is there on the manufacturing end. Yes. I had to go to China and teach people, teach factories that had been around for decades, how to make toys that looked different. I did it with Mattel one time. I, I made a hot wheel of a, of, I got a car called Spawn Mobile. It's a funny car, which is like a dragster with a fiberglass body anyway, and I got Mattel to make a car of it, a hot wheel.

Oh, cool. But it had two-tone paint jobs. So I needed a, a window on the back, so of the packaging so that you could see it from the front. Oh, I I, and back so you could see both paint jobs. They'd never done that. And they're like, we can't do it. And it's like, of course you can't, whatcha talking about, you guys are metal.

You guys do this all day long. You can put plastic on the back of packaging here, I'll design it for you. And then I said, oh, by the way, I need you to paint it with four color printing process. Which is basically how everything, like every magazine's printed. And matter of fact, every package that Mattel does is done that way.

And then they're going, we don't do Hot Wheels that way. And I'm like, you know, I know how you do your Hot Wheels, but I'm gonna pay for these hot wheels, so I, I need it that way. And they're like. You know, what if the registration's not right? 'cause you have to hit it four times, not once. They were in the business of hitting it once, right?

With one color, it's foolproof. Once you do four color printing, you have to do basically yellow, red, blue, and black. You have to hit it four times and they all have to be in the same spot. So you go, what if the registration's off again? Are you gonna pay us for it? I'll pay you for it. I don't care if it's off registration.

I just, that paint job I have is not gonna be done the way you guys do it. So again, after going back and forth and them arguing, I just go, here, here's the check. You have the money in hand. Just do it. Just do what I'm talking about. They did it just like the factories. They went, oh man. That's super cool.

And after that, guess what they started doing? Four color printing on their hot wheels, right? It's

[01:15:40] Jordan Harbinger: crazy.

[01:15:40] Todd McFarlane: It's always weird that these people have been around for decades and decades and decades and this is their core business. I'm just new to this gig. Like you come in there, you show them a slight variation.

I didn't invent anything. Four colored printing's been around forever. And you do a slight variation and all of a sudden, like you're a genius. Uh, I've said before on the sports figures that we did, I won awards and they would always say, how do you make the figures look so realistic? How do you make 'em look so realistic?

'cause they're handing me the award. And the answer is, I said, every time, and I'm gonna say it again today, I use this technology and anybody listening to my voice go to Google and you can look it up if I get too complicated. It's called a camera raw. And if you take a camera raw and you push the button, you get a picture.

[01:16:31] Jordan Harbinger: And

[01:16:31] Todd McFarlane: if you take the picture and you manipulate your clay, which is how we sculpt, and you don't stop manipulating the clay till it looks like the pitcher, then that's how it looks like the players. The question, ladies and gentlemen, and this is the piece of my life that is the biggest head scratching.

It's not, how did I get it so accurate? It's how did they not? The camera has been there for a hundred years. Ladies and gentlemen. They could have used the camera too. They chose not to. I come along a hundred years later and I use a camera as my reference, the photos of a camera to get the players of sports to look like the photo.

And I am the genius. No, why didn't they do it? That's the bigger question. That's the bigger mystery to me. And the answer is, I found out, and I found out this is true in a lot of decisions with corporate, because to do it right meant they would've had to spend a little bit more money and a little bit more time.

And that's not their business. Their business is maximizing profits.

[01:17:46] Jordan Harbinger: Making action figures out are real people. It does sound, there's other considerations, right? Because look, if you make a toy that actually looks anything, like I personally look in real life, I'm probably gonna be kind of disappointed and probably a little bit angry for making it look like that.

It's like, not your fault. Hey, this is what you look like Jordan. And I'm like, ah, I don't wanna look like I look, I wanna look like I wanna look. Right. Do any of these people that you make toys are, are, are they ever like, Hey, um, can you make my abs pop a little? Or you like, make me thinner or something like that?

Right,

[01:18:15] Todd McFarlane: sure. When you have to get approval either from the corporations, which what we do, if we have a license, of course we do. We do lots and lots and lots of license. They get final approval. Why? Because they're the client. Of course they do. But sometimes they go, oh, the talent has to give their comments.

And so if the talent basically says, and they have many time, can you make my nose smaller? Yeah. Can you give me higher cheekbones? I remember one, Sharon Osborne and I, Sharon and I like each other, so she's not gonna mind. I think if I tell this story, I was doing one of Ozzy Osborne, right?

[01:18:49] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Cool. But

[01:18:50] Todd McFarlane: Sharon was the one that was signing off.

And Sharon, I remember her notes were like, is there any way you could like make his chest a little bit more buff? And I'm like, yeah, Sharon, if that gets me approval, then yes. And then later it was like, is there any way you can give him like a six pack? Yeah, sure, sure. I'll do it anyway. You can get rid of his love handles.

And I'm like, yeah. And so this toy that I did of Ozzy was like Greek God. Yeah. I mean, it was literally, we were doing, we were doing plastic surgery,

[01:19:19] Jordan Harbinger: literally

[01:19:19] Todd McFarlane: literal plastic surgery. And she was so happy with it. And this is a piece sometimes you have to make, you should be making the romanticized version that we all have in our head.

Yeah. Not the real one. Right. So another one that was really kind of interesting was we did, uh, Dwayne Johnson. Oh, cool. As black Adam. And we got it accurate. I'm, I'm telling you, we got it accurate because. Unfortunately these suits that the actors have to wear, these superhero suits, there's a thickness to it.

And so it takes away from some of the definition. And so if you actually freeze frame and look at what the costume black Adam looks like, it does kind of take a little bit away from Dwayne's physique 'cause, and he's got a staggering physique we're all jealous of. And his only comment was, I thought that was awesome was he goes, is there any way you can make me more ripped?

Like, you know what? If that's how I get approved, we'll do it. Mm-Hmm. Again, it won't be accurate to what that costume was, but I thought he was right. I thought it took away a little bit of definition of his body because I think when you go Dwayne Johnson as a superhero, you think of him being more muscly.

For sure. And the costume wasn't that, but we were trying to make it so accurate because most costumes are in, you know, constant motion in a movie. You don't really get to analyze them. We tighten it up and add some definition. I think it was the right call. It wasn't vanity on dwain far. It was the right call because I think that's the romantic version that we all have in our head anyways.

And unless you're analyzing it, you wouldn't know that. So yes, the answer's yes. We're constantly just doing what we gotta do to get an approval.

[01:20:57] Jordan Harbinger: I know obviously you're super successful, you've got that, I didn't even get to this, but you buy these home run balls and they're like millions of dollars and you're collecting on, but as you've had kids, you got a little bit older.

I assume, and correct me if I'm wrong, just from talking to you, even though it might seem like, oh, this guy's a gunner, he's always going for it, you know, he is earning a lot of money. I don't get the impression that you think money and success is the most important thing in your life.

[01:21:21] Todd McFarlane: Yeah, it's not. Now, again, it's easy to say for people who don't have money, go.

Yeah, Todd, they all say that, right? I've walked away from, I. Money, dozens and dozens of time, right? I've got money. I've already got money. I don't need more of it, right? I mean, I've horrified Wall Street when I've had this argument. 'cause all they ever want to do is give you money, right? And then when you say no, they give you more money.

Or at least they, they upped the offer or whatever, right? And it's like, but I have to give you half my company for that. Right? So here's the thing about your money. My dad taught me, and my mom taught me a couple definitions. One is called useless. And useless is something that you have that you're not using.

So it's in a drawer someplace, you're not using it. I've got bank accounts that got money in it. I'm not using the money theoretically, that makes my money useless. I'm not using it. And you want to give me more useless stuff. You call it cash and I gotta give you 50%. I gotta give you control of my life for useless stuff.

Now, for somebody who's only been trained on one card, they only have one card. Cash. More cash or even more cash. That's all they've been trained to call what they have useless is horrifying to them. So years later, I remember I was at a, some place in New York and I was around a bunch of Wall Streeters and they were, I go, Hey, my name's Todd.

And they're going, are you Todd McFarlane? And I go, we've heard about you. Right? And so I think, I think the word got around. They stopped coming money proof man to my house. They, they're going, they're going just a guy who call money. He says, let me tell you what money does. Let me tell you what money means to me.

And fame and fortune means to me. 'cause I'll make no apologies for either one of them. And I have both. You have to be successful to be able to continue to do art. Nobody is gonna give you the next opportunity. Nobody's gonna let you do the next thing. If you say, Hey, last three things I did failed, but I've got another cool idea.

Why don't you do it? You have to walk in saying I can do this art 'cause I'm an artist. I wanna do more art till the day I die. And sometimes I do it on my own a hundred percent. And other times you need help and you need outside people and people putting in their money, but they're not gonna do it unless you're successful.

So the success has to be part of the equation to be able to get to. Yes. So that's why I need success. That's why. And I'll use myself as a prop and I'll be a billboard and I'll be a somebody to help push the brand if I have to, to get to, yes. So I get to do more art. There's the victory. And oh, by the way, if you're successful at art, then the byproduct of that is cash.

Cash to me is sort of, should be sort of the last thing in the equation. Build the toy, price the toy, the fair way, put it out there. And if it sells, you make cash. It's the byproduct. And we've been able to put out quality product. The byproduct is a little bit of success and a little bit of money. Cool.

Cool. So we're here. So that's why I need it. And again, we're trying to push the the Spawn movie coming out and fingers crossed by late summer, there should be some big news on that. Oh, that'd be great. For a couple reasons, Jordan, for the first time, after a years of years between the pandemic and the writer's strike and whatever else, I'm pretty hopeful that we're here for a couple of reasons.

One, I know Hollywood and Hollywood is copycat until right now. The word on the street is superhero. Movies are Mm, they're in a bit of a malise, a slump. Okay. A little bit of a slump, but here's what's gonna happen. I'm making my predictions, so we will maybe come back and see if I was off. There's gonna be a movie coming out called Deadpool, and it's gonna make a bunch of money and it's gonna have Wolverine in it.

And it's the first time Disney gets to do the marketing. It's gonna make a ton of money. Here's what Deadpool has. It's got an R rating on it. And then in October, you're gonna have, I think, the biggest movie this year. Most people calling it Joker Two. It's got a different title, but Joker two. Joker Two is gonna make over a billion dollars.

And once it makes a billion dollars, Hollywood's gonna go, ah. It's not superhero comic book movies that are in a bit of a slump. What we need is superhero comic book movies that are R rated. Mm-Hmm. Because arguably the two top movies of the year are gonna be R rated comic book movies. So everybody's gonna be searching, oh man, we've gotta go get dark R rated comic book stuff.

And they're gonna look at the chart and they're gonna see spawns sitting near the top. And then once you redact Marvel and DC character, 'cause you're not gonna get those, 'cause Warner Brothers and Disney are not gonna share 'em. Then the next closest one is sitting at about 122. Right. Spawns been staring them in the face for a long time.

And then they're gonna go, wow. What's the best of the comic book properties Spawn? Can it go dark? It is dark Guys from the pit of how of it? It is an R-rated movie. I've said it forever. It's an R-rated movie and they're gonna go, wow. So we can get the top property and it's comic book and it's R rated.

That's not all the movie Joker two is gonna make a billion dollars. There's only been one R-rated movie ever in cinema history that's been rated R that's ever made a billion dollars. It was Joker one. I think Joker two is gonna make a billion dollars, which means there's only gonna be two movies ever in cinema history to ever have been made a billion dollars at rated.

And guess what they have in common besides, they're both called Joker, that the writer on both of those script is a man named Scott Silver. Guess who's writing the Spawn script right now?

[01:27:05] Jordan Harbinger: Mm.

[01:27:06] Todd McFarlane: Scott Silver. Wow. I'll get with some other people.

[01:27:09] Jordan Harbinger: Sure.

[01:27:09] Todd McFarlane: So Hollywood, which is a copycat, are gonna go, we need Dark R-rated movies and they're also like to make money.

So they're gonna go, man, when the Joker makes a billion dollars, we should try and get all those people, the directors, the actors, everybody put 'em in our next movie, we're gonna be able to say from the Joker people and the Joker movie, which is gonna make a billion dollars and I think be the number one movie, they're gonna be chasing those people.

And one of them is Scott. And they're gonna go, Scott, what's your next idea? And he's gonna go, coincidentally, you guys are also looking for R rated dark movies. Bam Spawn. So we're gonna get this deal done, we're gonna figure this out, we're gonna get this deal done. Jason Blum's attached on the producing game, Jamie Fox attached on the acting.

That's cool. And we've got other top flight people that are on it. Like this deal is gonna get done. Right. So, we'll I. Push that off and I'm gonna, I'll negotiate my own deal. Hell

[01:28:05] Jordan Harbinger: yeah. Well, Todd, this has been a lot of fun. I was pleased to see our email in my inbox. I'm glad we finally made this happen.

[01:28:10] Todd McFarlane: Yeah. Appreciate you giving me the time.

[01:28:11] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, absolutely, man. Nice to meet you.

[01:28:14] Todd McFarlane: All right, be good.

[01:28:17] Jordan Harbinger: You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show with this skilled art forger who made millions selling his fakes.

[01:28:25] Clip: He gave me a book on art forgery. I began to unlock the secrets. I was a storehouse of knowledge of how to create an illusion presented to a experienced expert, manipulate his mind and bring him to the inevitable conclusion that the painting is genuine.

We flooded the market with my paintings. And I couldn't believe what I did. I couldn't believe it. Then the dominoes started falling and eventually the FBI will led to my door. They uncovered a mountain of evidence against me, but they never actually

[01:29:11] Jordan Harbinger: got you. Why did it go away? Why did you never get indicted?

And how are we having this conversation? I guess that's the greatest story of all to hear details of how Ken Perini evaded the scrutiny of everyone from the mafia to the FBI and live. To tell the tale check out episode 2 82 of the Jordan Harbinger Show. What a super intense, but very cool and smart dude.

Very sharp. There are now more than 300 editions of Spawn image Comics is just massive. Todd continues to rack up win after win. It's really something that's really impressive. He also did the avatar toys. He told me off air about meeting Spielberg and James Cameron and these guys. They just turn into 10-year-old boys.

When they're left alone, then the lawyers and the accountants and all the business people walk in and they get real serious. But before that, it's like, oh, cool. Look how cool this vein is on the thing and this part moves. Isn't that rad? It's just you can tell these guys are successful because they haven't forgotten their inner child.

They can readily access that, and I, I feel like at some level, I am No Spielberg. I am no James Cameron. I'm no Todd McFarland for that matter, but. Accessing your curiosity and the thing that you love about what it is that you do is so important. There's a part of me that just goes, whoa, this person got kidnapped by isis.

How interesting is that? I wanna hear that story. And I feel like there was a period in my life where I was just a serious professional. I was gonna be a lawyer. I just didn't care about a lot of that stuff as much. And I sort of tucked this aspect of my personality away, and that was no good. That was no good for creating things and, and as I've been a creator over the last 20 years or so.

I've really started to re-access that stuff. And I think it's kind of where the magic is really, if I had to pinpoint one or two things. Also, Todd, he's just a genius when it comes to business. He mentions that when toy companies would order, they would initially place a big order and he would talk them down, forcing them to reorder.

So if they wanted a hundred thousand, he'd be like, you know what, why don't you start with 30? And they'd be like 30. Oh man. Huh, okay. You don't think you can sell that much or make that much? And he is like, just try 30 and test it out. And he knew he would sell more than that because even they knew they would sell more than that.

So then they would reorder, which looks good, versus not selling it all, which is bad. So if they place a huge order, a massive one, and they don't sell it all, it's like, oh, we had to send some of this back. That's no good. But if they place a smaller order and they have to reorder, even if the total number of that order is still smaller, they go, we had to reorder this twice.

That looks really good. It's just a really fun, deliberate little trick that he had. I initially said, is it just that you couldn't make that many? He's like, yeah, that was part of it. But what it turned out to do is signal to that buyer that they needed to keep ordering and ordering and ordering. So they'd place orders early, they'd order bigger, and he would talk them down again, and then they would reorder.

It's just very, very sharp guy. They call him the Todd father, which is a cool nickname. I wish I had something like that. I can't be the pod father that's already taken. I'm just another weirdo with a podcast at this point. Maybe I'm the odd father. I don't know. All things. Todd McFarlane will be in the show notes@jordanharbinger.com.

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