Todd McFarlane will be wrapping up his current run on Spawn with issue #250, due out in January and then it will be time to shake up the book a bit.
McFarlane told USA Today that February will see of Spawn Resurrected #1 by the team of Brian Wood and Jonboy Meyers. It will also see the return of the Al Simmons version of Spawn. That new team will then take over Spawn with #251 in March.
Brian Woods, no stranger to controversy in recent months, has been spreading himself around multiple publishers since leaving Vertigo a few years back, where he was probably best known for DMZ. Lately, he’s been doing Star Wars for Dark Horse and Moon Knight for Marvel.
Jonboy Meyers is a newer face, probably best known for working on Marvel Adventures/Marvel Age Spider-Man and Arana.
Wait a minute… you mean to tell me an artist who’s drawn Spider-Man is going to draw Spawn? Why does that sound familiar?
Spawn #246 was estimated at 13,343 copies in August, down from around 15,000 a year ago, but trending up as it nears the anniversary issue. McFarlane is attempting to have is cake and eat it too, by having a one-shot/#1 to announce the new team and change of direction, followed by a return to the normal number system. He must not be a fan of “.1” issues. It will be interesting to see how many readers Wood can pull over to Spawn with him. It’s been awhile since Spawn was the #1 book in the DM, but it still carries a higher readership than most indie comics.
McFarlane is also teasing finally bringing the Spawn library to digital in the near future, something he’s been avoiding longer than most.
Why include the line “no stranger to controversy in recent months” without offering context? Nothing in this article is particularly controversial, so what point are you trying to make?
Yeah, I pretty much boycott anything Brian Wood touches ever since his misconduct with the ladies went viral on the web. I’ve dabbled and read on occasional a new Conan or Marvel book when the Public Library has it on the shelves, but I won’t go to my retailer or Amazon for anything he writes anymore. The only thing that would lead me to want to try to read Spawn again would be if Todd drew it, but it would be for nostalgia purposes. And I’d wait for a trade.
Can we ever have a Brian Wood article without commenters saying ‘I boycott everything he does!”. It gets tiresome, it really does. This article is about him going on a title, not about personal issues.
I thought McFarlane quit being directly involved with the Spawn comic years and years ago. Not even sure why he’s still publishing it if those sales numbers are accurate…that’s not even enough copies to break even on costs.
I’m pleased that Todd is going with a one shot to get things going instead of plowing ahead to issue 151. That said, if the one-shot doesn’t receive the proper marketing, more than a few lazier retailers will probably order it as JUST a one shot, which would be dismal. Todd’s imprint has never been that great with making the right noise in shops, so we’ll see how that goes.
Unclean, unclean!
JLB – you’d boycott everything Brian Wood touches, yet you still read his work when it turns up at the library? Shouldn’t your boycott go alll the way, beyond bitching it about it here?
@Jacob – that doesn’t really make sense. The boycott is presumably to deprive Brian Wood of financial gain. Reading at a library offers little (perhaps a library orders more Brian Wood books if they notice a particularly large amount of his titles being checked out) to no financial gain.
To be sure, “not without controversy” and/or “misconduct with the ladies” is apparently short hand for 8-10 year old past events that involved Wood soliciting sex with just about every publisher copy intern or indie artist wearing a skirt at the time he was at least married, and possibly while his wife was pregnant.
One would think that if one found the committing of adultery on a pregnant wife distasteful, they’d do away with the person completely. But the viral coverage of what took place generally seemed to conflate the (adulterous) flirtation/solicitation with sexual harrassment as Wood’s wife as a victim was overshadowed by Wood’s targets of unwanted affections(?)[booty calls] as victims, something which itself was not without controversary. Certainly, with California’s new yes can only occur after yes law, one understands why there’s controversy of the controversy. There are places where unwanted affection actually is now harassment (“I said no at last year’s SDCC, now leave me alone!”)
So what’s the statute of limitations on unwanted flirtation as sexual harassment? In court of public opinion at a time when twitterverse is focused on unwanted flirtation as sexual harassment, there is none. If you’re Brian Wood, based on current success it doesn’t matter. If your Brian Wood’s wife, apparently it’s behind them.
We’ll probably be subjected to the obtuse “what controversy,” aggrandizing “I’m never, never, ever, never buying but will happily read and love his work” and long-winded commentary about it all for many years to come.
–Silly but True
Actually sounds god, but I just want Capullo to come back after seeing that awesome cover.
I’m gonna continue to read Spawn, but this talk about “Brian Wood” is making me uncomfortable >_>
Comments are closed.