Spawn // artwork by artwork by Andie Fairhurst (2012)
Spawn // New cover art for Spawn Origins Vol. 8 // digital art by Greg Capullo, a.k.a *TheGregCapullo (2010)
Spawn #1
Yeah, I know this is neither Marvel nor DC, but I promised to give some analysis to milestone events on pop culture didn’t I? well guess what? Spawn #1 ranks among them.
In 1990 a guy you may know, named Todd McFarlane was working his ass off for Marvel Comics creating some amazing stories along David Micheline in Amazing Spider-Man, he proved a hot commodity so, Marvel gave him his own book simply tittled “Spider-Man” so he could draw and write all the stories he wanted with the character, he didn’t feel the reward though, yes he had name recognition, yes he was getting paid, but it was not enough, so what did he do? He provoked a mutiny and left Marvel Comics with his biggest six creators to form the 90’s comic juggernaut: Image Comic.
The idea behind Image was simple: full creative control over characters, publication and profit, Mcfarlane was the one to have the first shot when he launched Spawn, which features the story of Al Simmons, an ex-mercenary who made a deal with the devil to see his wife one more time, as usually occurs in these kinds of tales he got screwed and it’s transformed into a Hell spawn who will spend the next 100 issues or so making up his mind wherever to go along the script of the devil or betray him and take his place.
Spawn #1 represents many things, one of them is the huge hit that the big publishers took when his stars creators left to pursuit their own agendas and were successful at it, Marvel was specially affected, but DC got hit in the processes too since the deflecting creators would not accept to work for them, Todd Mcfarlane became a millionaire because of Spawn and formed a media empire, the studio system implemented by Marvel and DC had to be changed to Image Comics standards; today creators are better treated by the big publishers and the royalties roll in for everyone, even the presentation of the comics evolved because of them as glossy paper became a standard for the comics since the 90’s.
These days Image Comics is just a shadow of what it used to be (but that’s a tale for another post) Spawn #1 was printed in the millions so it’s sure fire bet that you can find one in the best conditions for a bargain, a 9.6 CGC Near Mint copy of the book will fetch you almost 30$, so you only have to sell your plasma once!.
