Todd McFarlane has never been afraid to roll the dice and try something new. He’s also a strident believer in helping comics creators maintain ownership of their creations, which is why he’s stepping into the booming NFT arena and partnering with music superstar DJ Steve Aoki to launch a digital art marketplace called Oddkey.com. The NFT platform, which is powered by Metaplex, will allow artists from comics, science fiction and music to sell and auction their digital creations on the Solana blockchain.
“It’s an important component for me,” says McFarlane, noting his desire to provide a sort-of safe space for creators in the brave new world of digital art. The desire for control and to ensure he reaped the biggest rewards from his own creativity has helped define his career. It’s what led him to ditch Marvel, help spearhead Image Comics and launch his signature creation, Spawn. Less than a year away from the company’s 30th anniversary, McFarlane says the parallels between this NFT venture and the creator-owned comics imprint are impossible to miss.
Aoki, a self-described techno-optimist who frequently infuses his music with tech sensibilities, embraced NFTs early on. When the idea to create a marketplace for digital art, he reached out to McFarlane.
“We've been friends for a long time and we’ve talked about collaborating,” Aoki says. “I always wanted to create something bigger that represents creators. And I thought, who gets this better than someone who has built a business and an empire that's supported other creators and done it for decades? And that’s Todd.”
McFarlane and Aoki say their NFT marketplace will mirror the arrangement that established Image Comics as a creator-owned powerhouse. “It’s generally the Image model where we offer creators the same deal to go off on their own, do what they want and keep what they make. They maintain complete control of their work and keep most of the money,” according to McFarlane.
Adds Aoki: “We've been meticulously putting it together, making sure it's a place where it makes sense for other people, just like it makes sense for us as artists and creators.”
NFTs have gained prominence in rapid time as artists realize the potential for major financial windfalls. It’s not just comics, either. The CEO of EA believes the gaming industry will embrace NFTs in the very near future.
Both men won’t just be running the marketplace. They will also be contributing their own digital creations. Aoki plans to create exclusive NFTs featuring his music, and he teases that he and his partner are going to collaborate on “some interesting new ideas” for OddKey.
If you’re wondering about the origin story behind the name of the marketplace, it was a compromise because the two creative geniuses couldn’t figure out a way to work both their names in to a title they agreed on. “So we chopped off the first letter in Todd and removed “Ao” from Steve’s name, and that’s how we wound up with OddKey, “ explains McFarlane. “So we're still getting sort of our names in there without it becoming too obvious.”
The digital art market also provides a rare opportunity for fans to actually own some original McFarlane art. The artist hasn’t sold any of his original artwork since he left Marvel in the early '90s, making his classic Spider-Man art some of the most valuable pages in the original art marketplace. Good luck finding any McFarlane-drawn Spawn art, either. He’s held on to virtually all of his Spawn pages, but he says he will be creating new digital art that fans can purchase.
“I'm still holding onto my original artwork. I can't quite cross that line yet, but I can at least crack the door open and go, 'Hey, for the first time you can own original Spawn art. It's just going to be in digital form here on OddKey.'”
The fact that both he and Aoki are creators with established track records of operating on their terms is something McFarlane views as a strong reason for artists to consider OddKey.
“If you're interested in this [NFT] space and you're looking around, you may want to check us out, cause you can go hang out with a bunch of creative guys like us, who have lived the life you’re pursuing, and basically done what you've done, and basically got all the scars of the war that you've gone through," says McFarlane. "The alternative is you can go to some venture capital companies who will try to build it up before selling, and skim off your hard work.”
In other Spawn news, McFalrane recently expanded his long-running series into a full-blown "Spawn Universe." There's also been new progress on the long-gestating Spawn movie reboot, with Broken City's Brian Tucker coming aboard to pen a new screenplay.
Meanwhile, a number of Image Comics creators have banded together to form a union called Comic Book Workers United, though the publisher has refused to voluntarily recognize the union.