SYFY WIRE spawns new documentary on Todd McFarlane and his rich legacy

We're drawing up a documentary on a comic-book icon.

SYFY WIRE revealed Thursday that it will debut its first hourlong documentary on the SYFY network, spotlighting one of the most prolific and influential comic-book creators in the history of the medium: Todd McFarlane. The film's first trailer made its worldwide bow at New York Comic Con today, after a chat with the legend himself on SYFY WIRE's Live Stage.

Check it out:

Featuring unprecedented access to McFarlane himself, along with interviews with Joe Quesada (Marvel's Chief Creative Officer), Robert Kirkman (creator of The Walking Dead and co-founder of Skybound), and Larry Fitzgerald (All-Pro wide receiver for the Arizona Cardinals), among others, the documentary explores McFarlane's life, career, and legacy. As a young lover of comics growing up in Canada, he was determined to break into the industry, but faced an overwhelming wave of rejection. Refusing to take no for an answer, McFarlane beat the odds and went on to create Venom and Spawn, and co-found Image Comics and a thriving toy business.

When he spoke with SYFY WIRE back in May, McFarlane was ramping up for the release of Spawn #300 and #301. Since then, the iconic supernatural series has become the longest-running creator-owned comic in history — and earned McFarlane a Guinness World Record. 

"To me, that's way more significant than how cool Spawn is and how good of an artist or writer Todd McFarlane is. It's that 25 years later, the person who started this is still driving that car," McFarlane told us. "You don't have to like me [or] my character, but what you should like is that there's now proof that you — as a creative person — can now create something, own it, and 25 years later, still own it. That's the story to me over everything else ... I'm gonna be an example and Image Comics is gonna be a glowing example."

The documentary will air on July 25, 2020, at 11 p.m. ET on SYFY.

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