#643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits

#643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits

The Tim Ferriss Show

Brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs  recruitment platform with 800M+ users, Athletic Greens  all-in-one nutritional supplement, and  Shopify  global commerce platform providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business .  Todd McFarlane  (@Todd_McFarlane) is an Emmy- and Grammy-winning director/producer and creator of one of the world’s best-selling comic books,  Spawn . He is best known to many comic book fans for his work as the artist on  The Amazing Spider-Man , for which he co-created Marvel’s top villain, Venom.Todd is the CEO of Todd McFarlane Productions, McFarlane Toys (one of the US’s top action-figure manufacturers), and McFarlane Films. He is also a co-founder of Image Comics, which debuted  Spawn  in 1992, selling 1.7 million copies of the
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Transcript

SpeakerA
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This episode is brought to you by athletic greens. I get asked all the time what I would take if I could only take one supplement. I've been asked this for years. The answer is invariably ag one by athletic greens. I view it as allinone nutritional insurance so you can cover your bases if you're traveling, if you're just busy, if you're not sure if your meals are where they should be, it covers your bases. I've recommended it since the four hour body which was God eons ago 2010 and I did not get paid to do so. With approximately 75 vitamins, minerals and whole food sourced ingredients, you'll be hard pressed to find a more nutrientdense formula on the market. It has a multivitamin, multimineral greens, complex probiotics and prebiotics for gut health and immunity formula, digestive enzymes and adaptogens. You get the idea. It is very, very comprehensive and I do my best of course to focus on nutrientdense proper meals. But sometimes you're busy, sometimes you're traveling, sometimes you just want to make sure that you are getting what you need. Ag one makes it easy to get a lot of nutrition when Whole Foods aren't readily available. It's also NSF certified for sport, making it safe for competitive athletes as what's on the label is in the powder. It's the ultimate all in one nutritional supplement bundle in one easy scoop. Right now, athletic Greens is giving my audience a special offer on top of their all in one formula, which is a free vitamin D supplement and five free travel packs with your first subscription purchase. Many of us are deficient in vitamin D. I found that true for myself, which is usually produced in our bodies from sun exposure. So adding a vitamin D supplement to your daily routine is a great option for additional immune support. Support your immunity, gut health and energy by visiting athleticgreens.com slash Tim, you'll receive up to a year's supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your subscription. Again, that's Athleticgreens.com slash Tim. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Shopify is one of my favorite companies out there, one of my favorite platforms ever, and let's get into it. Shopify is a platform, as I mentioned, designed for anyone to sell anything, anywhere, giving entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business. So what does that mean? That means in no time flat you can have a great looking online store that brings your ideas, products and so on to life. And you can have the tools to manage your day to day business and drive sales this is all possible without any coding or design experience whatsoever. Shopify instantly lets you accept all major payment methods. Shopify has thousands of integrations and third party apps, from on demand printing to accounting to advanced chat bots. Anything you can imagine, they probably have a way to plug and play and make it happen. Shopify is what I wish I had had when I was venturing into ecommerce way back in the early 2000s. What they've done is pretty remarkable. I first met the founder Toby in 2008 when I became an advisor and it's been spectacular. I've loved watching Shopify go from roughly ten to 15 employees at the time to 7000 plus today, serving customers in 175 countries with total sales on the platform exceeding $400 billion. They power millions of entrepreneurs from their first sale all the way to full scale. And you would recognize a lot of large companies that also use them who started small. So get started by building and customizing your online store. Again with no coding or design experience required. Access powerful tools to help you find customers, drive sales, and manage your day to day. Gain knowledge and confidence with extensive resources to help you succeed. And I've actually been involved with some of that way back in the day, which was awesome. The build a business, competition and other things. Plus, with 24/7 support, you're never alone. And let's face it, being an entrepreneur can be lonely. But you have support, you have resources. You don't need to feel alone, in this case, more than a store. Shopify grows with you and they never stop innovating, providing more and more tools to make your business better and your life easier. Go to shopify.com slash Tim. That's Shopify.com slash Tim, all lowercase for a free trial. And get full access to Shopify's entire suite of features. Start selling on Shopify today. Go to Shopify.com Tim right now and check it out. They have a lot to offer. Shopify.com Tim optimal.

SpeakerB
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Minimal.

SpeakerA
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At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.

SpeakerB
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Can I ask you a personal question? Now, would this be an appropriate time?

SpeakerA
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What if I did the opposite? I'm a cybernetic organism. Living tissue over metal endoskeleton. Hello boys and girls, ladies and germs, this is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss show. My guest today is Tod McFarlane. Tod is an Emmy and Grammy winning director, producer, and creator of one of the world's bestselling comic books Spawn. He is best known to many comic book fans for his work as the artist on the Amazing Spider man, for which he co created Marvel's top villain, Venom. Todd is the CEO of Todd McFarland Productions, McFarland Toys, one of the US's top action figure manufacturers, and McFarland films. He is also a co founder of Image Comics, which debuted Spawn in 1992, selling 1.7 million copies of the first issue. In 1997, Spawn was made into an Emmy Award winning animated series on HBO and a live action feature film that grossed more than $100 million. In 2019, Tod made history with Spawn number three one, earning the Guinness World Record for the longest running creator owned superhero comic book series. You can find him online, Instagram at Todd McFarland, Twitter Todd McFarland, and Facebook. Like Todd McFarland Tod, it is nice to see you again.

SpeakerB
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Yeah, thanks for having me back, Tim. Appreciate it.

SpeakerA
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And I wanted to close the Marvel chapter, and I'll just explain for folks who are hearing this episode first. We recorded a first episode which laid a lot of the groundwork. Your background established, your personality, which I'm sure will come through in this episode as well. And early days in comics, many of the key decisions, negotiations, your magical capacity with your camelbladder to inflict negotiating superiority on your adversaries and many other things. And I thought we would put a pin in the Marvel chapter by talking about Stan Lee, and perhaps you could just explain who Stan Lee is and how you first developed a relationship with him.

SpeakerB
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10m 0s

Probably most people been paying attention to movies already know who Stan is, but Stan is sort of the grandfather of being one of the co creators of all the superhero characters that we all know by name. So if we go back when Marvel first began in the early 60s, he was a writer, and he helped create characters like the Fantastic Four, Spiderman, Iron man, the Hulk, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, and the X Men, and on and on and on and on. And so to put it in perspective, really, when he passed away a few years back, and I think a lot of people sort of said the same thing. You put him in the same category as somebody like Walt Disney in terms of the global impact that his characters had, not necessarily him as a person, but that his characters had. Stan was a comic book guy for a lot of years and then eventually moved out to California in the odd as it is, really sort of became a big time celebrity when the movies came around, and he started making cameos in the Marvel movies, and he started that when he was 85. So most people don't begin a new career when they're 85. Stan did and he did it. So my quick meeting with him, first time I meet him, I'm about 1617 years old, canadian kid in Florida, going to a baseball camp. And I happened to stay overnight before we're going to catch a plane, go back home, and a Holiday inn. And there was a sign that said, down the hall, there was a comic book convention. I go down the hall, and Stan Lee, again, he's not the famous celebrity at this point. We're talking now about the mid seventy s. And Stan Lee was there. And to me, he was like the pope, because anybody who's ever read any Marvel comic books at the top of every Marvel comic books at that time said, stan Lee presents. He was in every book. Stan Lee presents every comic book I got. So I'm like, wow, there's Stan Lee, the guy who presents every Marvel comic book. I walked up to him, I wanted to break into comics, and I asked him, hey, Mr. Lee, is it okay if I ask you a couple questions? And without hesitation, he pulled a chair right next to him, and he said, sit down, son. Ask me what you want. And he let me sit next to him for about 5 hours, peppering with questions. Now, again, he didn't have a big, giant lineup because, like I said, he hadn't hit his celebrity status. That would come decades later. But just that, he just said, here, sit next to me. You got questions. And so when I went home to Canada, that was one of the moments where I went, yeah, I'm going to really drive and do this. My next encounter with him. Now fast forward. I actually do break into comics. I climbed the rank and file that you and I talked about in our first interview. I even get to do Spider man, which is sort of the corporate icon of Marvel comics. That puts me on the map. And I set sales records with those books.

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