Todd McFarlane announces plans for a universe of heroes built around Spawn

The creator will expand the ‘Spawn Universe’ with four new titles.

Hey, do you like Spawn? Because Todd McFarlane is working on a whole universe worth of Spawn comics.

The creator of the long-running series — it hit issue #300 back in 2019 — announced today plans to build out his own superhero universe, centered on his creator-owned character. He plans to launch four titles this year — three of them will be ongoing titles — with several other artists and writers.

“The simple question is this: DC Comics started a shared universe in the late 1930s. Marvel Comics began theirs in the early 1960s… so, can lightning strike a third time beginning in 2021? I personally do not have the answer to that question right now, but the only way to get an answer to that question is to make the attempt in the first place,” said McFarlane. He made the announcement to comic retailers at the annual ComicsPRO Conference.

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Mail Call | Fantagraphics 40% off sale, Batman, Pearl Jam and more

Rounding up news from IDW, DC, Image and more.

Mail Call is a roundup of the announcements we received from publishers in our mailboxes recently. Hit the links for more information.

Fantagraphics is holding a 40% off clearance sale on their website right now, which ends this Saturday. There’s a lot of good stuff to choose from, including volumes of the Mome anthology, Dungeon Quest, some Michael Kupperman books, Roger Langridge’s Fred the Clown and more.

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McFarlane’s ‘Spawn’ celebrates 300 issues in August

Greg Capullo, Scott Snyder, J. Scott Campbell and more help celebrate the milestone.

Todd McFarlane’s Spawn will reach its 300th issue in August, and the creator has gone all out for the big occasion.

“I created Spawn back when I was a teenager hoping to someday break into the comic book industry,” McFarlane said in a press release.  “Now, over 40 years later, not only was I able to have a career drawing and writing comics, but Spawn has been by my side for most of that journey. Even more exciting, Spawn is becoming the longest running creator-owned comic in the world!”

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Image reveals many, many new titles at Image Expo

New projects announced from Matthew Rosenberg and Tyler Boss, Rob Guillory, J.H. Williams and Haden Blackman, Sam Humphries and Jen Bartel, Annie Wu and more.

As they’ve done in previous years, Image Comics dropped a metric ton of announcements at their Image Expo event, held today in Portland, Oregon.

The line-up of announcements this year includes five new titles from Todd McFarlane’s camp, new titles from Chew creators John Layman and Rob Guillory, two comics from Christoper Sebela, the fact that they’ll publish the Netflix/Millarworld titles starting with The Magic Order and much more. No doubt there are interviews aplenty dropping around the internet on all these new projects, so I’ll start with the text of the press release, then add art and commentary as I find it.

So let’s get to it …

Blackbird by Sam Humphries & Jen Bartel
Sam Humphries and Jen Bartel team up to co-create Blackbird, a modern fantasy story best described as Harry Potter meets Riverdale. It follows a young woman named Nina who discovers a neon-lit world of magic masters in Los Angeles. Now they’ve kidnapped her sister, and Nina is the only one who can save her.

“Blackbird is a labor of love, a coming of age story and beautiful people doing insane things with magic,” said Humphries.

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Comics Lowdown: Sophie Labelle’s webcomic hacked

Plus news and updates on Don Martin, Todd McFarlane, Tom Spurgeon and more.

Webcomics creator Sophie Labelle reported on Facebook yesterday that her webcomic about a transgender girl, Assigned Male, had been hacked and the page was down:

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