SPAWNY AND HITOMI
Here is my Hitomi 3 cover( WRAP AROUND ohhh ) featuring Raven Spawn for the Spawn takeover month at image, great to revisit Raven after many MANY years. For the many who have no idea I visually created Raven Spawn while doing Hellspawn with Brian Bendis and then Steve Niles.
Short story, me and TP was sitting in our studio ( well crummy office ) in the central coast of California with 800 bucks to our name and not much else... except for me the the gnawing feeling that I was sucking, the phone was not ringing with any comic work, I was plain outta style I guess, even worse just shit...
THEN
The phone rings, a phone that never rings, I wasn't going to pick up, as no one has this number etc etc
So I pick up I think on the final ring, grumble a "yea" and then a voice energetically asks if this is the world famous Ashley Wood ( who doesnt want to hear that, even if not true ), I was kinda dumbfounded ( i do that ) and murmered "err yea, YEA" and then the voice identified himself, "hey Bud it's Todd Mcfarlane"
I was dumbfounded, see its happens to me a lot, and now its moved on from kinda to full mega power dumbfounded!
Long story short Todd asked if I wanted to do the first Spawn annual with Paul Jenkins, after around .3 seconds I cooly ansewered "yea, cool", truthfully with a light to middling tremble of swelling joy that Im sure Todd could hear. This is the fairy tale moment in my career, the one that took 9 years of slogging away without much attention or regard in comics or anywhere! It really was the defining moment for me, it changed my world and outlook from that moment!
Funny aside, when Todd told me the page rate ( HIGH for me ) he casualy metioned I could buy a cool motorbike with it, I thought wow, Todd Mcfarlane thinks im cool enough to buy and ride a motorbike! I was smitten!!
Anyway, I did the annual,it sold shit for a Spawn book, fans hated it and I thought well thats it for me and Spawny, but nope, Todd believed and kept giving me work and eventually I moved to Arizona to work with him and my world changed, because without him I could not have stayed in the USA, I could not have made a family there ( health insurance people ) I would not have learned many things about art and business that Todd imparted to me, it was glorious time and we all lived happily ever after..
Well no, its always a heroes journey right and me being me decided in 2001 that I should move on, do my own thing, leave arizona I was now a big boy, time to leave home!
I left, I did stuff here and there and still do ( you can look that up this is a Toddy praise session ) but at the back of my mind and heart I felt I had fucked up leaving, Todd is known and rightly so as the Toddfather, I saw him as my artfather and I had a gnawing ( again with the fucking gnawing ) feeling that it was a mistake to leave lingered for quite some time.
But yea, it was the right move for me in the end, Todd installed the thinking and attitude that lead to my correct path, he pushed confidence and being true to yourself, a path I have followed ever since and a path I put down to Toddy and those years under his wing. I mean making comics, art, seeing toys made and business being done, you cant walk away from that without being a changed person.
And so today, I get to take part in the Spawn cover month at image ( doing a cover for the great HITOMI series ), the home of Spawn, my home for comics again with Syz! I still have the yearning to a graphic novel covering the final days of Hellspawn, maybe oneday!
Aside one - many people at TMP made my time wonderful during my years with them and my love and gratitude is with tham all!
Aside two - man I was always jealous of how great Greg Capullo could draw, gah, the small touches and inferences that blew my mind. I got to to do a Creech tpb cover back in the day and im still proud of that!
Aside three - I should have bought that motorbike, just to look cool a second!
Aside four - Tim Townsend superstar comic artist and great supporter told me just 6 months earlier that I would work with Todd, I laughed, that seemed so unlikely but I guess Tim knows shit!
Aside five - thanks Todd!
