Spawn is a fictional character appearing in a monthly comic book of the same name published by American company Image Comics, as well as in a number of films, television series, and video game adaptations set in the Image Universe. Created by Todd McFarlane, the character first appeared in Spawn (May 1992).
The series has spun off several other comics, including Angela, Curse of the Spawn, Sam & Twitch, and the Japanese manga Shadows of Spawn. Spawn was adapted into a 1997 feature film and portrayed by Michael Jai White, an HBO animated series lasting from 1997 until 1999, a series of action figures whose high level of detail made McFarlane Toys known in the toy industry, and a reboot film starring Jamie Foxx and Jeremy Renner. The character also appears in annual compilations, miniseries specials written by guest authors and artists, and numerous crossover storylines in other comic books, including Savage Dragon and Invincible.Todd McFarlane began drawing as a hobby at an early age, and created the character Spawn when he was 16, spending “countless hours” perfecting the appearance of each component of the character’s visual design.
Spawn enjoyed considerable popularity upon its initial release in the 1990s. Comic book collecting was enjoying a marked upswing at the time, fueled by the speculator boom looking for the next hot book that would jump in value after its release. McFarlane had enjoyed superstar status among comic fans with his work on Spider-Man, which had featured McFarlane’s name prominently as both writer and artist. McFarlane’s subsequent break with Marvel and the formation of Image Comics was seen by many as a sea-change event, changing the very way in which comics were produced. Wizard, in May 2008, rated “The Launch of Image Comics” as 1 in the list of events that rocked the Comic Industry from 1991 to 2008.
