Savior is coming out in April?
The way it was going to work is that [Spawn] #250 was supposed to come out the end of January, then Spawn Resurrection #1 comes out in February, then the creative team for Spawn Resurrection jumps onto the regular book in March for #251 forward, because I’m not renumbering my book. Then in April is Savior. The first eight issues are already done and in the can.
It’s the world as we know it today except at the end of the first issue there’s a big plane crash in a small town and right by the plane crash some guy comes walking out the field with a passenger and he seems to be unharmed. Now the question is who is this guy? Why isn’t he hurt? Why is he naked? Was he on the plane? Wasn’t he on the plane? If he wasn’t, where did he come from? And as they’re trying to do that, he’s only one of 300 people because 300 people were on that plane. Somebody starts to see that he’s manifesting just a little bit of power, and the powers happen to coincide with what we know they said Jesus Christ had, those powers.
The sound bite is ‘what if the most dangerous guy on the planet was the guy trying to do the most good?’ If you watch CNN, Fox and MSNBC, you can get cynical about the world. I’m bringing the cynicism forward that if J.C. himself came down tomorrow, could he survive with the media we have, and the people going ‘he’s supposed to have longer hair,’ and ‘I thought he was 6 feet tall?’
We’re cynical and instead of just embracing what’s in front of us and saying it’s possible, I think he would become a) the enemy of people because he happened to appear in America, so our enemies are going ‘hold on a sec, are they making super soldiers? They can make 10,000 of this guy?’ And b) the other side who should be endorsing him are going to be going ‘this dude isn’t good for business,’ and the business is organized religion because he’s not doing it by the playbook. ‘He’s kinda there, he’s just not all the way there. And if he convinces people that he’s right and we’re wrong, our business model goes to hell in a handbasket.’
What does it mean for everybody and why does everybody even pick sides? Because everybody has their own moments of what they need in life,l and where they need hope and where they need their cynicism. And this guy during the whole time is going, ‘Dudes, I don’t want any of this. I don’t even know how I got here.’
I’m trying to do a reflection on humanity. He just happens to be the start of the conversation.
Are you writing and drawing Savior?
I’m doing the writing and Clayton Crain [is doing the art]. It’s fully painted. He’s doing some spectacular stuff. It’s going to look real.
I saw it as a TV show. I think I can make this go from this guy who’s in the corner that nobody is paying attention to, that slowly he becomes a little more aware, then eventually he’ll do something, and we live in a mass media world. All it takes is him to do one thing that somebody snaps a photo of and puts it up on YouTube and now all of a sudden all the criticism starts. Is he savior or fraud? And you just go from that.
What happens is the President gets sick, and all of a sudden this guy can only heal five a year and he picked his five, and now he needs to heal the President. Who’s getting thrown off the boat? To me it’s just all about our id. Okay, he can save [people] but he can only save so many, so who’s getting picked? Why your kid and not my kid? My kid’s dying of leukemia as much as your kid is.
I want to bounce off the human id, and this guy is just that. So there’s no costumes. The powers are nominal. It’s a little bit like what [Robert] Kirkman did in Walking Dead. Who does get the water? One gallon of milk and I’ve got a family and you’ve got a family. Who gets it? These are interesting things.
Do you see this as an ongoing series?
Yeah. In Hollywood I say, ‘Dude, I can give you seven years’ worth.’ Because it’s a slow burn to me. It starts in a small town and eventually it gets to the point where he gets discovered on a bigger scale. He becomes big city, and then he becomes national, and then he becomes global. And then everybody’s tugging at him the whole way, whether he wants to be a part of it or not, all the millions and billions of people that need a piece of him. He’s like ‘I’m not a hero.’
And Spawn #250, how did that happen?
I tell people let’s just do easy math: 20 years is 240 [issues] so I’m an overnight sensation after decades. It’s one of the reasons I’m not renumbering the book. First off, it takes over 20 years of your life to get to #250. Why would I s**t that away so I can be a #1 with 10 other books? You know how many books are at #250 right now? Zero, because Marvel and DC have renumbered their books. They have now allowed Spawn to become the biggest numbered book in our industry. And I go, ‘Wow.’ I will keep that as a badge of honor instead of throwing it away and becoming one of 10 #1s next month.
Only 10, more like 100.
Whatever. I just go ‘no-no-no-no-no, gentlemen. You guys chase my tail. I’m not going the other way.’
Any other reflections on 20 years of Spawn?
The big push still, the unfinished business, is #301. I might even make a bigger deal for #301 than #300 because then I’ll be one issue past Cerebus. So Dave [Sim]’s got the record for independent comics; once I get to #301, I own the record.
So four years?
Yeah. We’ll get there. Some people might go, ‘How come 300 is a regular sized issue and 301 is a triple-sized anniversary issue?’ We’ll have fun. That’s the next goal. We’ve got #250, now let’s go to #301.
Anything happening with media with Spawn?
One of the reasons I gave up the writing on it (Paul Jenkins is the new writer on the Spawn book), is that I’ve been threatening to finish that movie script.
My wife, in February, rented me a 10 x 10 foot office with no phone, no Internet and no windows. And she goes, ‘You’re going into that.’ It’s half-way between my house and my office. She goes, ‘You can’t work in the house because you get distracted; you can’t work at the office because you get distracted, so I’m putting you in a hole and you’re going to get that damned movie done. Every time you start it you get distracted.’ She basically built a dungeon for me and she paid for it (she knows I’m a tight ass), and now I’ll use it. So for the last week I’ve been in that room plucking away on it.
At some point, in a couple of months hopefully, I got it done, I’ll write [on] Facebook ‘the reason the Spawn movie is done is because of my wife, not me. It’s because she just took me by the ear and just went ‘sit down and get it done. I’m sick and tired of you talking about it.’’
And that will just be that. And the animation we have all teed up. We have 80 minutes of that ready to go.
Are you writing the movie for live action or animation?
Live action. The animation, because it was already started, has already been written and recorded and a bunch of work has already been done on it. So that one’s just waiting.
Is it sold?
No, I want to wait and get the movie out and turn to some of the people who’ve been bugging me and go ‘and now’s the time to do it.’
So you’re going to try to get the live action movie out before the animation.
Yeah. And then the animation can come in. We can have some fun with animation and then go back into live action movies and then try and see if I can get a 365-day Spawn program going.
For upcoming 2015 McFarlane Toys releases, see "McFarlane Toys' 'Walking Dead''Toy Fair Pics."
