A risk-taker with an unerring instinct for success, Todd McFarlane has made a multi-million dollar empire using those skills and along the way he and his companies have received nearly a hundred national and international awards, including two Emmys, a Grammy, and MTV Music Awards for his producer/director roles. McFarlane became a true comic book superstar for his record setting work on Marvel Comics’ Spider-Man franchise, where he co-created the anti-hero Venom. The Sony Pictures’ Venom film starring Tom Hardy set an all-time record for largest film opening in October and was #1 at the box office its first two weeks of release. This year, McFarlane has announced an ensemble of award-winning talent for his upcoming Spawn movie: Casting Academy Award and Golden Globe winner Jamie Foxx (Ray, Django Unchained) to play Spawn and Academy Award nominee Jeremy Renner (Hurt Locker, The Town, Wind River) to play police detective "Twitch" Williams. This new Spawn film will be a gritty, R-rated re-imagining of the character and marks McFarlane’s feature film directorial debut. Academy Award nominee Jason Blum and his BlumhouseProductions, the force behind recent hits Get Out, Split and Halloween, are attached to produce. McFarlane also co-founded in 1992—and serves as current President of—Image Comics. Image has been the third largest comic publisher in North America the past 26 years (behind Marvel and DC Comics). In 1994, McFarlane founded the international award-winning McFarlane Toys—now one of North America’s top action figure manufacturers, boasting over 150 licenses (including the recently announced Fortnite license) during that time. Artistically, McFarlane’s impact visually on the look of Spider-Man (while working at Marvel in the 1990s) can still be seen today. And a single page of McFarlane’s original art from an issue of Amazing Spider-Man sold for a record-smashing $657,250. Then his first issue for Image Comics, called Spawn, sold an unprecedented 1.7 million copies for an independent comic. Since its debut, Spawn has continued to be a fan favorite title around the world. Spawn is published in 12 languages and sold in 37 countries. The comic became an Emmy Award-Winning animated series on HBO and a New Line Cinema feature film. McFarlane founded the international award-winning McFarlane Toys—now one of North America’s top action figure manufacturers. A whirlwind of expansion in McFarlane’s companies followed: more comics, action figures, and award-winning entertainment projects which boast over 150 licenses. McFarlane Toys is known for making the best toys of the world’s pop-culture obsessions including the newly launched Fortnite and roleplay line.First and foremost a comic creator, Kirkman has seen groundbreaking success in the adaptation of his comic book titles into major franchises in all forms of content. In 2010, his Eisner award winning series, The Walking Dead, was developed into an AMC television series. It has become a worldwide phenomenon as the highest-rated basic cable drama of all time. The property has also been extended into a blockbuster game franchise, licensing business and ongoing publishing success. Additional Kirkman comics include Oblivion Song, Die!Die!Die!, Invincible, Outcast, Super Dinosaur, Battle Pope, Astounding Wolf-Man, and Thief of Thieves. Kirkman also serves as consulting producer of The Talking Dead, the popular talk show hosted by Chris Hardwick that deep dives into each week’s episode of both The Walking Dead and its companion series Fear the Walking Dead. Kirkman is co-creator, writer and producer of The Walking Dead’s companion series, Fear the Walking Dead. He is also executive producer of the AMC series Robert Kirkman’s Secret History of Comics, and the Korean pre-apocalyptic drama, Five Year. Kirkman’s popular demonic-exorcism comic, Outcast, was adapted and produced for Cinemax. His second longest running coming book series Invincible is currently being adapted for a live action movie for Universal and an animated series for Amazon. Kirkman will serve as Executive Producer on both adaptations. Robert is also the Chairman of Skybound Entertainment. Robert, an advocate for creator rights, co-founded Skybound alongside his longtime business and producing partner David Alpert in an effort to ensure creators are able to maintain their intellectual property rights and creative control.One of the seven co-founders of Image comics, Whilce Portacio is an American Comic book writer and artist. His work includes The Punisher, X-Factor, Uncanny X-Men, Iron Man, Wetworks and Spawn.Erik Larsen is the Chief Financial Officer at Image Comics. He was an artist for Spider Man, then joined six other talents in the '90s to form Image comics. His character Savage Dragon is one of the longest running creator-owned characters in comic books to date.Szymon Kudranski is the creator of Blood Commandment and is also known for his work on Spawn and Punisher.For over 32 years Danny Miki has built a solid reputation as an inker in the comic book industry. He began as an assistant on Uncanny X-men and X-Men. He then moved onto Image comics where he joined Extreme Studios and worked on Image comics flagship Youngblood and numerous of other titles. From there Miki would join forces with Todd McFarlane helping with the inking chores on Spawn, which lead to Curse of the Spawn and The Creech with Greg Capullo. His Marvel career began with various covers over Joe Quesada and inking Ghost Rider full time. From there he’s inked almost every main character in the Marvel universe. While at Marvel, his most prominent titles were with David Finch on Moon Knight, Avengers and New Avengers. With multiple award nominees he had the great opportunity to work with Neil Gaiman and John Romita Jr. on Jack Kirby’s the Eternals in which he received the Harvey Awards Best Inker for that title run. Years later, once again working with Greg Capullo and Scott Snyder on DC’s Batman New 52, he recieved his second Harvey award for that book’s inks. At DC he has found himself inking Ivan Reis on such titles as Batman, Superman, Titans and Detective Comics. He is currently inking Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis’s Hyde Street with Ghost Machine.Jonathan Glapion began his comics career in 1998 at Todd McFarlane Productions inking Sam and Twitch, and various other titles including Spawn. Jonathan has inked Marvel’s Elektra: The Hand, Gravity and Ultimate X-Men, as well as a wide variety of DC titles like, Batman Spawn, The New 52 Batman, Dark Nights: Metal and Death Metal, Wonder Woman, and Last Knight on Earth. He also inked the Netflix Series Reborn and Comixology’s We Have Demons. He has since shifted his focus to creating his own projects and has illustrated covers for Spawn, King Spawn, Gunslinger Spawn, and Radiant Black. Most recently, Jonathan illustrated the comic Patient Number 9 with Todd McFarlane for Ozzy Osbourne’s Grammy Award Winning Patient Number 9 album and Jonathan’s art was animated for the official music visualizers for each song on the album. Jonathan is now fully illustrating his own book with Todd McFarlane Productions, No Home Here, co-created with fellow inker turned writer, Daniel Henriques.Jay Fotos, is a multi-award-winning comics veteran who is currently working professionally in the comics industry for over two decades on hundreds of projects. To name a few, from Spawn, GODZILLA, Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 30 Days of Night, V-Wars (Netflix TV series now streaming) Wynonna Earp (Netflix series now streaming) #1 New York Times Best Seller series Locke & Key (Netflix series now streaming) Co-creating the ongoing Image Comics zombie Vietnam series ’68, Frank Frazetta’s Death Dealer (#1 Image Comics selling series) and also spearheading the Frazetta Comics line through Image Comics. Dungeons & Dragons, Batman: The Animated Series, TMNT Adventures, and TMNT Munchkin with IDW Publishing and IDW Games. Creature concept designs with Robert Kurtzman MUFX for the hit Netflix series, The Haunting of Hill House and feature Black Friday starring Bruce Campbell. Also working in other realms of creative media, ranging from animation, video/board games, album art, TV, motion pictures, and toy design. Fotos also teaches courses at Phoenix College in their Comic Arts Degree Program. Now also available are the much-anticipated creator-owned Rising Rebels and Gorgon horror series exclusively at www.jayfotos.comFCO Plascencia is a comic book colorist known for his work on DC's Batman.
