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New York Toy Fair 2025: A Conversation with Todd McFarlane
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The DC License was definitely the big story of the 2025 New York Toy Fair, so we had to carve out some time to sit with friend of the pod and industry icon Todd McFarlane to hear all about what the future holds for McFarlane Toys. Listen to find out what the license status means, what's coming next, and what could possibly be on the horizon in this exclusive interview.
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Transcript
Introduction to Adventures in Collecting
00:00:03
Speaker
Are you ready, kids? Get your parents' permission, check your mailbox, and grab your shopping cart. It's time for the Adventures in Collecting podcast. I'm Eric.
00:00:15
Speaker
And I'm Dave. Welcome to Adventures in Collecting, where we talk toy news, culture, and hauls. Along with our journeys as collectors.
00:00:27
Speaker
Hey everybody and welcome back to Adventures in
Meeting Todd McFarlane at New York Toy Fair
00:00:30
Speaker
Collecting. i am here with the Todd father himself, Todd McFarlane. We are here at New York Toy Fair. It's good to be back. ah This is a special, special room for us here. This is the first time we were met was back in 2020.
Origins and Evolution of McFarlane Toys
00:00:44
Speaker
Yeah, no, no. toy I mean, again, Toy Fair comes every year. Although they had a weird sort of 18-month gap that was there. But this is this event is where my toy company began all the way back at that first Toy Fair 1994. Yeah. Right? where and But you weren't at the Javits Center. You were downtown. Everybody had their buildings. we were in a small...
00:01:12
Speaker
you know building on one floor and one room and one corner, right? So where Hasbro and Mattel had their own buildings across the street. And the the history of Toy Fair had been that you come out with your toy, all the retailers come by,
00:01:33
Speaker
They look at your toy, you take them into the back room like here. yeah You give them the paperwork and then they write down their numbers and then at the end of the 10 day show you add up all your numbers and you knew literally at the end of the Toy Fair where you're gonna have a good year or not for your corporation. wow But by time I got there in 1994,
00:01:54
Speaker
The buying had sort of gotten out of whack a little bit, so it wasn't quite synced up to February anymore. Yeah. And so it became more of a media event and it started shifting more and more to a media event. and And now I think a lot of socializing and still media because everything out there, the the big buyers have already bought it. We had to go and sell it to them a long time ago. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:02:18
Speaker
But it's it's great, you know ah like you said, from a media standpoint, to get to have the opportunity to to sit and talk
Negotiations with Warner Brothers and Mattel
00:02:24
Speaker
with you. And you know I think the the kind of the first order of business to talk about leading into Toy Fair was this news about D.C.
00:02:31
Speaker
And I think a lot of people have questions, you know what that means for McFarland Toys products that they love you know from from that property. so look let me Let me just start big with the...
00:02:48
Speaker
The names Todd only rhymes with God, right? I don't get to actually sort of make all the choices on the planet, right? Wish I could because I'd stop war the very next day.
00:03:00
Speaker
so When you're in business, you just you you you you get sort of good sort of things come your way, and sometimes things don't quite go your way.
00:03:14
Speaker
um And the only way to control any of that is to be in 100% control, it which is why I own my own companies, and I have my own character, because there are corners of my life that I just go, I don't have to ask anybody to prove, I'm there, whatever else.
00:03:30
Speaker
here's Here's what I'll say because there's still a lot of details to be ironed out and we'll we'll see how it goes. is you know we're we're We're still doing it. We're going to be doing it so our contract runs out. it's not like People are acting like the contract's over this week. no It's not true. We've still got a long runway before it gets there. But...
00:03:51
Speaker
I am having conversations with Warner Brothers and even Mattel. and like like Everybody wants the same goal, right? nobody Nobody wants a disruption. Nobody wants to not deliver the plan that each one of the companies wants and to deliver to the consumer and, in this case, to the fan base.
00:04:14
Speaker
Right. That's the goal that everybody's shooting for. Everybody's acknowledging it And there's still things to be determined before anything sort of big happens. So again.
00:04:28
Speaker
It wouldn't have been my choice. It wouldn't have been my choice, but I've been in business long enough to know that you just, you hit curveballs, right? And this is just a curveball, and we're going to figure it out, right? i'm i'm ah um Myself, personally, and my company, we're just survivors, right? we we we Now, this is our 31st toy fair, and we have had ebbs and flows the whole way, and we're still here, right? we like It'll work. And...
00:04:58
Speaker
We're going to be in the D.C. business. Like, that's a guarantee. We're going to be in the D.C. business. It's going to alter, but we're gonna we're going to be in the D.C. business in some fashion. And that's sort of what we're we're debating right now. And when everybody has those details, we'll come out. So we're we're not going away.
00:05:17
Speaker
We're not going away. Good. I think i think that ah that that works. And I mean, what we saw out there, there's a lot of really cool new DC stuff that you have. you know Yep. ah Figures that people have been wanting a long time. There's a really great looking Supergirl out there.
00:05:29
Speaker
Yeah. There's Jim Gordon, finally. Yeah. You know. Yeah, yeah. You know, yeah guys in suits. Yeah. That's it. The Supergirl looked really cool with their little wired cape. Yeah. Because you can simulate that cover art. Yep. Right? yeah from From the Supergirl tomorrow. Yeah.
00:05:47
Speaker
Yeah, so just fun, fun. I mean, there's a lot of fun product we've got out there with bunch of different brands, including including the DC Multiverse. Yeah, Justice League America Superman, so that bringing that Alex Ross part life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. Again, whenever you can, for me, whenever we can sort of lean into the art of the print, right, which is sort of where I come from, right, given my time at both Marvel and DC and now with Spawn,
00:06:15
Speaker
It's fun not only to be able to do things that are based on my own artwork and my own ideas, but to be able to actually look at my peers' artwork and what they've done, or some of the vets that I looked up to when I was a kid, and see if we can't have...
00:06:33
Speaker
you know, can't do a 3D version of their artwork too, right? Which is all that is. You're taking it from 2D to 3D and then you're just trying to extrapolate it. and and the And the fun of all that is most people, and I found this with movie stars, that most people, like the movie stars go, well, I can give away my, it used to be, I give away a DVD of my accomplishments to my friends and family.
00:06:56
Speaker
Um, But you take the DVD and you just put it away. And a comic book is like that. but But toys and statues, you can put those on your shelf. Yeah. And and they they're out all the time.
00:07:08
Speaker
Right? and And so I i think that there's appreciation for... sort of quote-unquote toys, especially collectible stuff ah that has grown massively in the last 15, 20 years. And even even the... i've I've seen a ah shift with the talent, the celebrities, when we do things for TVs and movies and stuff, that... that Where before they were like, i don't understand why we've got to do this.
00:07:36
Speaker
They're now seeing that it's cool and it can be good, high-quality stuff. I think before... They had been doing bad toys for so long that I think the the talent was like, whatever, they're going to some bad version of me. What do I care? yeah And now that they see that not only our company but many others can nail it, they're like, oh, man, that's kind of cool.
00:07:58
Speaker
Well, I mean, something else that's and that's interesting, and you said, you know, across all these different art forms, I'm sure you're aware, but one of, like, the fun jokes in the community is, like, oh, the only company not making Ninja Turtles toys is McFarlane.
Introduction of New IDW Turtles Line
00:08:10
Speaker
Oh, no, and I used to be, like, Marvel, DC, and Star Wars. So I still haven't cracked the nut of Star Wars. Well, you got the turtles. Yeah, we got we got we got the turtles. So tell us what we can kind of expect with these five-inch IDW turtles.
00:08:25
Speaker
Um... Well, the source material is different than what I think most people have been used to buying in the last few decades, right? um You know, most of it's usually branded on sort of animation and or the sort of what I would.
00:08:44
Speaker
call, and I don't mean this as a detriment, but sort of the cute version of it, the the the easily palatable stuff. And that's not all of it, but that's been the vast majority of it when it when it comes and goes.
00:08:56
Speaker
We're going to be leaning on the comic book side of it, but you know literally from the inception of the of the ah the book when it first came out in comic book form.
00:09:08
Speaker
you know, like... 40 years ago. Yeah, 85. Yeah. And they just had their 40th anniversary last year. So 84. Because I going, okay, where was I at when I saw the first issue? And I go, yeah, that was 85.
00:09:22
Speaker
so um that allows us now to go, oh, we don't have to basically do that cute thing. We're not necessarily aiming it at five-year-old kids, although I'm sure people who like the brand will buy the brand.
00:09:37
Speaker
But we can I'm hoping, fingers crossed, we can do something you know visually slightly different not dramatically because it's still the turtles right but something that's different based on the comic book art not not all the stuff that people have seen on tv and or movies uh and um hoping that will give us an edge to put something out there that will appeal to fans of it that go, oh, man, I haven't seen that version before. That's cool. Right. And and leave it at that.
00:10:10
Speaker
So when you think of the turtles, you know what are is this kind of like when you close your eyes and think of them, is this the version that kind of comes to your mind first? Yeah, i mean i mean I mean, when they came out in 85, I was just breaking into comic books at that point. My my career was just beginning. My first printed comic book came out in 85.
00:10:29
Speaker
So I was just becoming a pro. And so... That means I was an adult, and so I wasn't you know collecting sort of cute stuff at at that point.
00:10:43
Speaker
And so time's gone by, and I just got my own company and my own work that I do, I haven't sort of paid attention to the trek of the Turtles out in entertainment. Got it. Got it got it The Turtles to me was That gritty, gritty comic, black and white comic book. Yeah, the stuff that Peter was doing on it.
00:11:07
Speaker
And just going, okay. yeah So that's it. I guess it depends on where the first time you ever sort of see anything. And so, you know, my intro are those books that...
00:11:22
Speaker
seem far away visually from what people think of now, especially moms and and little kids, what they think of as turtles. That's the library we have, which to me is the exciting stuff because there's ah there's a bunch of characters in there that have never made it into some of the other disciplines.
00:11:40
Speaker
And we'll just see if we can have a little bit of fun. So I know one of the things that you like to talk about a lot and something that you know we talked about in this room back in 2020 when you were first announcing the the DC license was like this what-if concept of like what if Todd McFarlane got another chance to design a Batman now?
00:11:59
Speaker
Is there a chance that maybe we get to see like the Todd McFarlane version of the Turtles? You know what? We should ask him. right um I should ask him. But...
00:12:11
Speaker
Fingers crossed maybe the answer is yes. But before we jump to that, there's so much there to mind. Oh, yeah. In the books. And you've got 40 years in comic books. yeah And and again again, it's not all equal. and It's not all valid, whatever else. But when you have that big of a library to to choose from, you get to literally pick pick you get the pick of the litter so you go man there's there's 200 characters if we just did these 40 over here with this look right and even that that one character might have been in 10 books and then you get to go no no no oh there's the artist that did it right in my mind right that's cool that would make a ah good looking toy yeah uh and so i get to be
00:12:55
Speaker
sort of a bit of an art director on that, of picking and choosing. Like, uh, uh, uh, right? Just like if you're going to a Thor, you know, probably been, you know, hundreds and hundreds of different people put their version of it on paper.
00:13:11
Speaker
You're going to go do a toy of it, which one we going to pick, right? And then not only if you find your artist that you like, then which image are you going to pick? Is it a cover, is it a panel? Yeah, to use as your core sort of North Star as you're figuring out how to sculpt it and do whatever else.
00:13:29
Speaker
So the other big announcement along with the Turtles was the the new Mortal Kombat figures, the new classics with a
Reviving Classic Mortal Kombat Figures
00:13:36
Speaker
K. Yeah, yeah. Classics with a K. Yeah, yeah. Mortal Kombat classics. Yeah. ah tell Tell me a little bit about that. What inspired you to go back to the 90s Mortal Kombat?
00:13:47
Speaker
Sometimes there's a stuff – there's super easy stuff out there, right? There's low-hanging fruit out there. And sometimes when you do it, people go, oh, my gosh. Like – We've done Mortal Kombat before and Mortal Kombat is a brand name, it's a strong brand name.
00:14:03
Speaker
Okay, whenever you get your hooks into a brand name, Why wouldn't you want to go to the beginning? a matter of fact, when we got more comment, love it like again, you're asking, could we do any earlier stuff? like Why not? yeah why wouldn't you Why would you want to start at chapter five in a book? so I know that there's like a big event happening in chapter five, but can we do stuff in chapters one through four? yeah so That people are reacting to the characters that were at the beginning of this brand that became a big phenomenon?
00:14:37
Speaker
Of course, right? though like i like There's times when I maybe go, okay, maybe we did something right, we deserve some credit, and then they're just like, duh, everybody would have done this, right? We should have done it sooner, Todd. Like, what took you so long?
00:14:53
Speaker
so yeah Well, it's good to see these back. I mean, there's there it's been a while since there's been accessible Mortal Kombat figures, and Storm Collectibles did ah did a great line for a while, but the price was very high on them. They were very hard to come by. yeah um So it's cool. Unfortunately, I couldn't take any pictures of them yet. No, no, no. And the packaging's kind of fun, too, right? We're just having a little bit of fun.
00:15:13
Speaker
But you know seeing seeing that classic Raiden and Melina and of course Sub-Zero and Scorpion, everybody loves the Merlin Ninjas. yeah Yeah, those two guys are gonna are going to kill. like everybody You get one, you got to have the other. yes Otherwise, you don't add the first you don't have your first scrolling game in front of you.
00:15:35
Speaker
And now, a word from our sponsors.
00:15:43
Speaker
This segment is brought to you by our friends at Chubsy Wubsy Toys. A traditional mom and pop toy store in Little Falls, New Jersey, Chubsy Wubsy Toys brings you the best new toys from the brands you love without the hassle of pounding the pavement searching for them at larger retail stores.
00:15:59
Speaker
Visit them in person at their brand new home at 101 Newark Pompton Turnpike Suite 1 in Little Falls, New Jersey, or online at chubzywubzy.com.
00:16:11
Speaker
That's
00:16:18
Speaker
And tell them Adventures in Collecting sent you.
00:16:24
Speaker
And now, back to the show. And I mean, the the other thing that I wanted to ask about too was just ah what's what's next for the Spawn figures? I know a lot of people are getting there. I'm still waiting for mine. and But getting the Medieval Spawn Kickstarters. Which one do you order? The three pack.
00:16:39
Speaker
Wow, you're still waiting on that? Yeah, it's still coming. Oh, man. It's okay. i'm a patient I'm a patient person. I'm going to look. whyt Why isn't it up? I'll look for you. Why isn't it up? I know a lot of people are excited for the new books, myself included.
00:16:54
Speaker
um But what's ah what's going on with the figure line? Are there more more spawn figures in the works? yeah Oh yeah, I mean the one thing about the Spawn line, it's been around for 30 years, right? It's ah it's a a character within the mythos of comic books now because of that time and the success of them. And because of all the books and the longevity, you know, there's close to 3,000 characters that have now moved through these books. Oh yeah. no again That includes like doctors and lawyers and judges. and like so it's not They're not all yeah not all worthy of something. Correct. But even if only a small fraction of the 3,000, then that gives a pretty deep pool. And then even within the pool, right, then there's like all these iterations of them as the costumes change and because they got symbiotes and stuff like that. So, yeah, but it's hard for me to imagine I'm going to run out of ideas.
00:17:48
Speaker
for the spawn, the spawn universe, and the mythology, and the toys, given all the visuals that are there. The question is just, can we can we pick the right ones that are going to constantly give us success, right? and then And then the other thing is like doing different price points and sizes and whatever else, right? i mean, at some point...
00:18:09
Speaker
I'm going to figure out how long I can make a wired cape. and it's still And it still works. And and so so you have the engineering of at some point, weight is going to start to go down.
00:18:23
Speaker
But i in my mind, I think the way to solve that is that you treat the cape a little bit like a tripod. And now I'm going to get geeky on you guys right here.
00:18:34
Speaker
But you treat it so that it's so much cape that you have to fold it over on itself. So right when it seems like it's getting too long, it's going to droop, you just bring another piece of the cape and hit it hit the ground. Got like support layers. So it's support. Right. So you hit a couple of support and then you go, okay, now what's the longest we can do on its own?
00:18:53
Speaker
And if you do a couple of trains and then add the last piece at the end, You might be able to get this really cool, long thing that it creates this big illusion of like, oh, man, it's this massive 40-foot cape or something. Yeah.
00:19:07
Speaker
I mean, remind me once we're done recording. i'll go show you a picture. I bought a custom cape from somewhere on eBay okay that I put on the um the Call of Duty spawn.
00:19:19
Speaker
Okay. going to show you what it looks like. Okay. It looks really cool. yeah. yeah um I want to see, too, some more of these classic characters. Like, you know, Sam and Twitch got a re-release. Like, a character like a Jason Wynn, you know in the in the you know, with this new kind of articulation and everything, revisiting some of those classics from the earlier days. No, no, no. there is I think there's easily about 200 characters in the mythology that matter.
00:19:45
Speaker
Yeah. um Right now. And so... And we haven't we haven't gotten into some of the cool ones. and and And again, every day, like I just finished writing a book last night, and and the cliffhanger is like, again, a new character, right? And you go, oh, man, that guy. And the artist gave him a really cool costume. Like, oh, man, that'd make a cool choice someday.
00:20:09
Speaker
But the you have to... also create characters that they want and they care about so that when they see it, it's not just like, oh, they appeared on one panel or whatever. else you You can do it if that character that appeared for one panel or two panel just looks so good visually yeah that you just go, i don't i don't care if that guy's popular, I don't care where he came from, that's a good-looking toy. oh yeah And so the proof putting of that is our...
00:20:41
Speaker
Our very first line of DC Multiverse toys, we did what I call the Batman in the armor and the Superman in the armor. Getting unchained, right? Right. These were two designs that had appeared. One, I think, had appeared in one page, one and a half page.
00:20:59
Speaker
And the other one had appeared in like one or two panels, not even a whole page. Yeah. But the look of it was cool and I go, let's just make these because it will just be, if you like Superman and Batman, the colors going to be there. You're going to recognize it very quickly.
00:21:17
Speaker
And you don't have to have any knowledge of that comic book. It's just going to be a good-looking
Creating Visually Appealing Toys
00:21:21
Speaker
toy. And those sold. Oh, yeah. I mean, they came and they sold. And so in the toy industry, visualizing something new but still making the brand of whatever it is you're doing. If you're a big fan of Thor and you're going to distort it, then it still has to be at first blush a little bit, oh, that's a Thor. Yeah. yeah And then you can go off and do it. And so you can imagine...
00:21:47
Speaker
To some extent, as long as you have ah red and blue and a big S, you can do a lot of things with quote-unquote Superman and and that brand in Batman.
00:21:58
Speaker
just you You get dark colors, pointy ears, and you put a ah bat on on the chest. You can do a lot of cool things with that, too. Well, you crammed that Malbolgia back in the day back into that that little box.
00:22:10
Speaker
I'd love to see what you could do now. Yeah, we should do our new updated Malbolgia. You really should. Yeah, you really really should yeah there's there there are some monstrous villains that could really do for our long overdue.
00:22:24
Speaker
for redoing this spawn world. going to walk out and I'm going to go, hey, we keep redoing all these old... Let's redo Malbogia with the skill set that we have today in the crouch, in that package, the same way we did before. Not in the big boxed item.
00:22:42
Speaker
Let's shove them in that damn package and and and sell it so that it's as sort of goofy as it was when we first did it. So we have we had a friend... but He's also a toy maker. Shouts to... um he he Dollar Slice Bootlegs is based out of ah California.
00:23:01
Speaker
And he is he has the largest single Malvolja collection. He has 150...
00:23:08
Speaker
loose malbolges and wow he put them all up in like a display and he just keeps buying malbolge over and over over again oh i'm doing does he custom paint them or what does he do no his goal i think is to get to 666 of them so 666 my 666 collection yeah devil yep yep that's that's that's his plan but he keeps he keeps adding to his collection and and every time i We talk, I'm like, next time I talk to Todd, I promise I will bring you up and your amazing collection.
00:23:39
Speaker
but um But yeah, no, I would... Okay, so everybody got one and you go to eBay W. Price because this guy's going to overpay to get his collection going. I'm sorry, John, I'm sorry. um No, but Mal Bolger would be a great ah great you know yeah addition to to the modern collection. um Yeah, I mean, the last thing I wanted to ask you, I wasn't sure if you had a chance to see it yet, but um the the team over at Hasbro, they put out a new Spider-Man.
00:24:01
Speaker
based on the art of yours truly. It's their maximum, they're calling it their maximum Marvel Legends line. It's like a new subline, some additional articulation. You can really get them bent into those crazy inhuman poses. But I wasn't sure if you had a chance to see it yet. No, I haven't seen It's pretty cool. They did a good job of paying tribute. Yeah, I know a year ago they tried to do one, and Spider-Man's always interesting because...
00:24:30
Speaker
And I've seen it with a lot of articulation because he doesn't he doesn't look like Iron Man or something that we can hide a lot of the cuts, right? So you can put him in a cool poses, but if he's not in like a cool pose because there's so many cuts, yeah, yeah, I like it doesn't look cool to me, right? It's just like it looks a wonky.
00:24:48
Speaker
So he it has to be in a cool pose to pull it off because You're taking essentially a naked body that happens to be blue and red and then and then you're you're to it all yeah you're cutting it all up.
00:25:01
Speaker
And artistically that's hard to do if you just have that person standing there, that character or that toy standing there. yeah Because you you notice the articulation way, way, way too much then. yeah And I think you were saying it too out there are you know with with your statues that like you know when you take the 2D contorted Spider-Man that you drew back in the ninety s and then you try to bring it into 3D, you're like, huh.
00:25:24
Speaker
His leg goes where? Yeah. Oh, no, no. That was that. yeah No, no, no. that Like Spider-Man, my contorted and Spider-Man art. was a bit of a trouble to my sculptors because they're going, it doesn't make any sense. And it was like, i i I've said many times that part of the reason that it worked was because I didn't worry about anatomy, right? that like And that that seems like a ah bad thing, right? Because I go, what?
00:25:51
Speaker
Right? And I'm sure I got plenty of peers that like, don't understand how that guy became so famous because he can't draw with shit. But... it would In my mind, it was the only way to get and do what I i needed that look yeah to feel like. So that when the first movie comes out and they try to do some of it, because at that point, the the Spider-Man art I've done. Raimi movie. Yeah, yeah. that they they they They quickly found that they couldn't get a person anywhere close to the poses.
00:26:22
Speaker
Even if you were double or triple jointed. Oh my God. Even if you went to the contortionist. in Vegas, they which they did. They did all this. They tried it. And they go, even still, they couldn't do it, which is why they ended up going like CG yeah on it, right? Computer graphic. ah To go, okay, because we've got to be able to like kind of break the spine to go into that pose. It looked super cool for that second. Yeah. Right? But you have to kind of break anatomy yeah yep well headed into the rest of the year and headed into 2026 if there's one thing you want to get out there to you know the mcfarland toys fans your fans for the toys what what are what are we in for this year what are we in for for the rest of the year
00:27:05
Speaker
um Wow, you know what? i Yeah, wow. ah you're put I usually don't like just pick a winner and go, oh that's it, that's the biggest that's the best we're doing. i I take every license and I live within the rules that the people who give it to us.
00:27:23
Speaker
present to us and then the rules that the retailer may or may not impose on us and then you just do the best you can within it and then and and then you do it again and again and again and next thing you know you're sitting here 31 years later after you start it and you're going oh man we're still surviving victory number one big victory that is the victory and then two we're we're still doing kind of cool toys right so the The thing I'm always looking forward to is what else can we go and find and bring and show off so that we can then have year 32 and year 33. And, you know, we're we're survivors, right? Our company,
00:28:08
Speaker
We've gone up against the giants and we're still here. and we've gone up against people who sort of taken a page from the blueprint of what we do and they compete with us. So I've got like the giants on the one side and then the competitors, the peers on the other side and we're still relevant. right and and And in any business, really the hardest thing to do is go, how how do you maintain longevity?
00:28:32
Speaker
And then the next piece that makes the mountain even steeper, how do you be relevant with within that time, right? And so if you take a look at something like the music industry, we can kind of count the number of people that have had 30-year careers that are relevant, right?
00:28:53
Speaker
kind of on fingers. The Rolling Stones are still around. Ozzy Osbourne's still there. yeah Kiss is still there. And again, I'm not talking about, like we can debate their music and their skill set. That's another conversation. yeah I'm talking about that they survived did they surviv and they survived and that they're still meaningful to pretty large group of people today. right and and And when you're living in industries where everybody is trying to get an edge over you,
00:29:24
Speaker
survival is the victory of it. To just go, wow, like decades and decades later, they're still making their music and putting people in seats at their shows.
00:29:38
Speaker
That's... And maybe, Eric, because excuse me I'm getting old maybe, and I and and i and i sort of run a couple of these and walk some of these steep mountains, I know how hard all that is now. And and so when I see people that do it,
00:29:58
Speaker
i i'm i'm I applaud them. And I try not to get hooked up in whether I like what they're doing. It's just that they picked an industry they have a skill and they've been able to do it and use it for decades, right? you know Like that they didn't age out like sports.
00:30:18
Speaker
yep Right? ye So you just, and and you know, somebody like Robert De Niro or something like that, you go, hey, okay, whether he's your favorite actor or not, you just go, the guy's still getting role.
00:30:31
Speaker
and he's 50 years later and you go okay you know how many actors have died at the side of the road that couldn't even get three-year careers right there's a lot of carcasses on your journey of people who tried and failed and the thing is you have to have success to get people inspired to want to do it themselves. So I knew at the very beginning, in 1994, when we started McFarland Toy, that that I was going to go down this different path that we're going to sell cooler, hopefully cooler looking, more detailed toys to an older audience.
00:31:07
Speaker
But I also knew that we had to it had to work because otherwise it was like, wow, there's a guy who went on a fool's errand, right? yeah um And so that's why success matters. And it matters to me because then you can continue to do these examples to show people there are options, right? If you don't want to work at Marvel and DC, then there's this option called Image Comics.
00:31:35
Speaker
right If you don't want to you know work at big corporations, then you can start your own companies. You're never going to make as much as them. never going to big as them. um But you you get personal freedom to do and enjoy what you want.
00:31:50
Speaker
All right. And 30, 40 years into my career, and i can't ah you know i i can't ever see having spawn owned by somebody other than me.
00:32:09
Speaker
yeah Now, maybe I'll give it to my family and you know, those of who who don't want anything to do with it after I die and you know, whatever, but the the the the thing that's when I look at like somebody like Disney, I'm going to use a really big example or any any anybody, but let's let's just take a big example that I grew up with as a kid, Disney.
00:32:30
Speaker
And he creates this character called Mickey Mouse and then he goes and it grows and he and he builds this sort of empire and then he passes away. But all that stuff that came out of the brain is still is still there. I call it creative children because they should basically live past your lifetime.
00:32:47
Speaker
So for me, the goal would be not only to survive, but then Even a week after my death, people still go, hey, Spawn's still coming out? Hey, when are we going to see the next Spawn? They're not going to jump off the Spawn wagon because the guy who originally started it is human.
00:33:05
Speaker
right yes they're goingnna The brand is going to, hopefully, fingers crossed, will continue way, way, way past my lifetime. And my ideas will will live past me. Here's to many more years of sport. no, I got decades still. Don't worry about me. Let's do it.
00:33:20
Speaker
I keep saying I'm halfway through my career. I got another 40 years. so Well, thank you for for taking the time. I know how busy you are. I'm really glad that Tom Hardy didn't didn't i step in front of me again this time.
Conclusion and Thanks
00:33:31
Speaker
Oh, no, no. And he was a gracious man because that hey he was a cool. hes cool so If we're going to get cut off by anybody, I'm happy that it was Venom and then Tom Hardy. so Thank you again so much for your time, Todd. Always pleasure, man. Eric, appreciate it. Take care.
00:33:47
Speaker
Thank you, dear listener, for hanging out with us today. Subscribe, rate, and review us wherever you listen, and then tell your friends to do it. Thanks also to Joe Azari, the golden voice behind our intro. Our music is Game Boy Horror by the Zombie Dandies. Find more about them both in our show notes.
00:34:03
Speaker
Follow us on social media at AIC underscore podcast on Instagram and Twitter. Stop by and say hi. Show us your toy hauls and share your toy stories. Maybe we'll talk about it in a future episode.
00:34:19
Speaker
Don't try this at home. Voidware prohibited and some assembly required. Each sold separately, not a flying toy. Consult a physician if your toy run exceeds more than four hours.
00:34:27
Speaker
This has been a non-productive media presentation. Executive producer, Frank Hablaui. This program and many others like it on the Non-Productive Network is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives License. Please share it, but ask before trying to change it or sell it. For more information, visit non-productive.com.