The Big Picture With a reduced Hollywood presence at San Diego Comic-Con 2023, the attention of fans in attendance turns instead towards activations, comic books, and of course, collectibles, and there are few people who understand that better than Todd McFarlane. A comics legend in his own right, McFarlane is also the owner of McFarlane Toys, a company that specializes in high-end, high-quality collectibles from the worlds of sports and fandom.
Now, even here this year, with the lack of Hollywood, there still needs to be information coming out. There still needs to be fun. We need to engage with fandom regardless of what's happening at any given time in the world. [...] Look, they're all going to come, and they're still going to put tons and tons of news out there, and yes, it would be fun to have more Hollywood news, but you know what? That's not a reality.
MCFARLANE: That I'd be lamenting that I didn't go back in and get scorched a little bit for? Wow, not too many. I used to have all my high-graded books in the house – my Action #1 and stuff, but my wife said, “You better get that out of the house. I don't want that in the house just in case somebody knows it's in the house.” So, I don't have to save all my high-graded books. But probably a couple of things off the top is I've got a 1971 Kellogg's baseball set.
If I had to put somebody from today's world on there, this may seem a little bit biased, but I'd put Greg Capullo. I mean, for modern. And again, I'm arbitrarily picking one because of the quality of his work, and the body of work, and the deadline. Jim Lee is amazing. And people will say nice things about me, and I've got other people. But to do it for that long of a time, which is why I put John Buscema.
MCFARLANE: It's actually a bigger answer than that. The theory in my head isn't that there's one I'd like to do, it's that I think if I could write every contract in toys, the last paragraph on every contract, no matter who gets it—Hasbro, Mattel, Playmates, everybody else—the last paragraph says, “And with this property, McFarlane Toys gets to do one figure.
McFarlane Toys has made a lot of toys. What do you consider your top three? Like, are there three that you’re just like, “Oh my god, I love these. These are just great?” By the way, it totally makes sense from their perspective, though. Because this is how you typically do it. That was the world I lived in, in my head, with Superman, Batman, Spiderman, or whatever else. If they were always there, I just gave them credit that they were valuable. So time matters. I can't seem to get this across to creators enough. I just had a conversation with somebody yesterday. That matters. If you can then take that and put story and content in there that people like...
The silly, funny story, real quickly, on that one was, every day he came into the editing bay, he was bringing a briefcase. Didn't seem like what rock and rollers did. And then he'd leave, and I'd go, “You got another meeting now?” “No, I'm going home.” The next day he'd come with a briefcase, put it down, and I'd go, “Hey, you going to another meeting?” "No, going home.” And he never opened up the briefcase.