Summary
- Todd McFarlane emphasizes the importance of making his collectibles and comics affordable, prioritizing the satisfaction of his fans over profit.
- McFarlane values his relationship with his fan base and believes in giving back by providing free autographs and making his products reasonably priced.
- McFarlane's approach is to offer a wide range of products, acknowledging that consumers have different preferences and budgets, allowing them to choose what they want without pressure.
Todd McFarlane has touched numerous corners of geek culture, specifically with his huge impact on both comics and collectibles. He and six other comic creators teamed up to create Image Comics, where his iconic superhero Spawn debuted in 1992. McFarlane has also become a powerhouse in the world of toys and collectibles, and now he's giving back to the community by auctioning off his SDCC booth through Whatnot.
McFarlane Toys offers collectibles across brands, including DC, Avatar: The Last Airbender, the NFL, and more, at reasonable prices. McFarlane Toys has become one of the premiere companies for collectibles. McFarlane has reiterated multiple times the importance of making his work, both in collectibles and comics, affordable for consumers. This structure helps build loyalty with his audience and is, in part, what has allowed the company to grow into what it is today.
Screen Rant recently spoke with Todd McFarlane about his toy lines and the Whatnot auction. He pulled back the curtain on how his company plans which toys to make and the big picture they look at when it comes to selling these toys. McFarlane discussed why he keeps his toys and comics affordable, as well as why his autographs are free. He also shared insight into the Whatnot auction he is hosting on August 23.
Todd McFarlane Talks Auction With Whatnot & More
Screen Rant: Todd McFarlane. It is so good to see you. It's almost been a month since the last time I talked to you. How have you been, sir?
Todd McFarlane: I've gotten a month older, like you, and just pacing my way through life. When I was younger, I was way more enthusiastic. I thought everything was a battle and everything was a sprint. Then as time goes by, you pick your places of where you're going to expend your energy because tomorrow is another day and you've got to be ready. I've honed the skill of being ready for war at any given time because I'm not at war all the time, but I'm ready for, right?
So that basically means that there's a problem with your company, a situation comes up, something happens where you're dealing with a corporation and there's a problem. Basically, life. Life gets in the way and you don't want to be going full throttle all the time because tomorrow might be a heavier lift, so I try to maintain until I go, "Now, here's where I put my energy."
Absolutely. Well, Todd McFarlane, you are a general, sir. If this is a war, you are a general commanding an army. Your stuff is amazing. I got to ask you, man, I haven't seen you since Comic-Con. You made a lot of big announcements in San Diego. One of those was the Batmen, the box set, the six-figure box set.
Todd McFarlane: Batmen. That's pretty funny.
I've been trying to buy that box set for the longest time. It's been sold out. When am I going to get a chance to get my hands on that box set again?
Todd McFarlane: Wow. We don't generally put out product, and if it's successful then go, "Oh my god. We should go make more," because I think part of collecting and building loyalty back and forth with your fan base is ... I think there's a couple reasons why people buy anything. One, they just like it, personally.
Oh, yeah.
Todd McFarlane: And two, they hope that it has maybe some value to it, and so our job is to, first and foremost, put out a quality product that we hope they like, and then if we do something that happens to have more demand than supply, that is sort of business 101, how prices go up.
Our job isn't to counter that by saying, "Oh my god. Let's go make more of it." Our job is to go, "Well, we got our commerce. Somebody else is going to make more." I've never begrudged anybody, Joseph, for taking something and buying something for $10 of anybody's, but even mine, and selling it for 100. Cool. We live in a free market. We live in a world in North America of commerce, so I do it. I make commerce and I make money. Why would I begrudge anybody else from making it? I've had this conversation with athletes, pro athletes, right?
I go to shows, and when I'm at shows, I give my autograph away. They're charging money, and their attitude is ... You've heard this one before. Like, "Well, if I charge 25 bucks, they sell it for 50," and I'm going, "Well, exactly." Here's the problem. Number one, "I've got a longer line than you, and you're way more popular than I am. The only reason is because you're charging $200 and I'm free."
Because sometimes the athletes, when I'm at shows that are intermixing, even TV celebrities, they're like, "Man, why does that guy got such a big lineup?" It's like, because I'm free. What are you talking about? Go to the grocery store and they're giving out free samples. You don't even have to like it, but you'll take a bite of it.
The thing is that I go, lookit, if you charge 20, they're going to put it out on the open market for 40. If you charge 40, they're going to charge 100. If you charge 100, they're going to charge 200. There's no number that you're going to stop this. You're going to get less people, but you're not going to stop it, and so I don't know, Mr. Athlete, who's getting paid 20 million a year. I don't [get] why you're so worried about somebody making 100 bucks.
I would argue that if you let them make 100 bucks, you gave them an autograph, if you did two days a year where you said, "I'm a big athlete. I'm just going to sign for free," and even if every single one of those people, which they won't, but if every one of those people then decided to flip your autograph, they'll love you even more.
Sure.
Todd McFarlane: Because you were able to get it for free, they sold on eBay for 150 bucks. They're going to give you the credit for putting 150 bucks in their pocket so they'll like you more, and they made 150 bucks while you were making 22 million. Okay. I don't know. It's interesting talking to various people about how they interact with their community, and what's important to them, and what's not.
All of us have a career, Joseph, because of our fan base, period. That's period. To have any blockage, or disdain, or aggravation because of those people who put food on our table, to me is just, I don't understand it. I just don't have that mentality. I understand every single day that anybody that comes up to me and says something nice or wants an autograph, I understand that they, somewhere along in their life, have given me some of their hard-earned money.
Sure.
Todd McFarlane: That should not be taken for granted. I think that the loyalty goes both ways, so I do comic books. I'm the only one in the industry at 2.99. Could I go to 3.99 like everybody else or 4.99 like a bunch of other books? Sure I could. Who's that benefit? I don't know who it benefits. It benefits me. I'm doing okay. Don't worry about it. I'm good. My kids are out of the house, and they've gone to college, so I don't have to save for them. I don't know.
It means that I can save ... It seems small and insignificant. If I can save a buck for every one of my readers, okay. Why not? Why not? If I don't need it, why don't I let them keep the buck? Because then they can go buy a chocolate bar with it or something. Why shouldn't they get the benefit of it? Anyway, that's just me.
You got me collecting all the DC characters, mind you. Because like that Riddler that you just put out, the classic Riddler is gorgeous. That's like the Riddler from my childhood, so now you got me going back, Knightfall Batman. Are you kidding me? That looks beautiful, so all these figures that I'm starting to collect now for such a great price point look like such great pieces of art, just like straight up art in my office. It's amazing what you do.
Todd McFarlane: Lookit, here's the things about fans like yourself and/or consumers. You guys get to decide what is good for you, period. Period. We can market and we can do announcements and whatever else, but at the end of the day, the consumer still basically gets to pick what they want. For some people, they would rather have something that's $60, one item, $60 and maybe is a cut above in of the quality. Okay, I get it.
Other people say, "That's not really my thing. I'd rather have three figures at 20 bucks a pop." Same $60. I'm not saying one's any better than the other, and we do a wide range, especially when you factor in the statues. They can get up to 2, 3, $400. We do everything and we've done everything, especially in the toy industry from $5 to 500, and so my expectation is never that anybody is a completist and they're going to buy all of it.
My business attitude is I am just a buffet of creative products, and I put all the buffet out during the course of a year. Then you and anyone else comes along and you have your tray, and it's your money. You're the one paying for it. You get to pick whatever it is that you want and put it on your tray at checkout, and it's okay that you leave stuff behind. That's never my expectation, and there's no right or wrong of what people want because it's their life.
I have to remind people at times that it's like, guys, gals, there's only one human being whose actions you control, you're own. I don't know. If it was me, I'd go and do as much stuff that I enjoy as possible, and I'd spend my days doing stuff as much as possible that I enjoy. If there's some corner that you don't enjoy, if possible, just walk away from it. Just walk away from it.
I've been in this business now for almost 40 years. I got gray now. My response, and I rarely give it, but when I do give a response to any critic is the same for 40 years. IF they're in person, I gently tap them on the shoulder and in a kind voice, I say, "You should probably spend your time and money then on things that you enjoy. I'm not offended you don't like my stuff. You should go and spend your time and money on things you enjoy," period, period.
You can solve this angst that you have. "Ah, Todd, I don't like your comic books. Oh, Todd, you're an ego. Oh, Todd, your toys are stupid. Oh, Todd, why don't you do ... Oh, Todd ..." There's a way to do it. Go spend your time and money on things that you like.
I couldn't agree with you more.
Todd McFarlane: Sold, sold. I can't force you to do that. I don't know why anybody, in all honestly ... I've said it before. I don't know why anybody wants to spend any 20 minute writing a dissertation about something they don't like.
This is why I love your toy line, Todd. The way you described the buffet thing, that's exactly it. There are so many cool things that you guys are doing that are hitting all of my nostalgic chords in such a perfect way.
Todd McFarlane: Again, that's always been there. Lookit, I'm in my early 60s now and I still see stuff that transports me back to being nine. My thing is way different than yours because I was born in the '60s, so it wouldn't be the same, but everybody has that childhood fond memory stuff, whether it's TV shows that you look at now that you go, "Man, that's kind of cheesy, but I loved it." The video games you thought were the best ever. Now you look at them, you go, "Man, that's cheesy."
The toys you collected that you go, "Wow, those are kind of ugly," but we romanticize all these things from our childhood in our head. Then even when we see it and we now know, intellectually, it wasn't as good as what we thought, we still want to buy it again just to go ... Because I think it puts a smile on our face more than anything else, right?
Because it was like, "Man, I was nine years old, and all we did was hang out with our friends and do Evel Knievel jumps and I played with my brothers." Done. We didn't quite understand death and taxes at that point.
That's okay. Again, it doesn't matter how you find a little bit of joy in your life. I think this is the piece that people who are not geeky don't understand that part. It's way more than just that item that they've got. It exudes a lot more than that. If you're not doing it, you don't understand. There's sort of a silent understanding between us geeks, right? We get it.
Oh, yeah.
Todd McFarlane: The rest of the world will just have to find their own sort of smiles. We're finding our smiles. You go find your smiles.
When we were in San Diego, we talked about some of the stuff I wanted to see, and you gave a great answer, saying that there's stuff that you want to see. There's stuff that Warner Brothers wants to see. There's stuff that fans want to see. You guys are all working together in order to get all that product out. What does it take to make the fans' list take priority? What opportunities can you give us to make sure that we ... to let you know that we absolutely want that product?
Todd McFarlane: I think all through those areas, whether it's a fan, whether it's McFarlane Toys itself, or whether it's the DC Folks or Warner Brothers, Consumer Products that owns DC, there should be the one question that I think should supersede ... There's caveats to what I'm about to say, but the one question is, can we sell this everywhere?
Right.
Todd McFarlane: Right? Now, again, if you're doing something that's exclusive and/or you're going to do something that's in one or two internet corners or whatever, you can get a lot more specific and a lot more geeky. But if you're putting stuff out that's going to be out at, quote, unquote, the masses, then you have to acknowledge, "Can I sell this in San Diego, North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and in Boston, Massachusetts?" It has to be everywhere because we're store wide, and it's there, and will work.
Because if it's just something that 12 people want, and I get it, because they're a certain age. I mean, your wants. If you were to give me your top two priorities, they might not match another hundred people if I basically surveyed them, so what I have to do is look at all the lists and say, "Does this touch all three of those areas that make sense?" Some of it is just current events, right?
Like, again, you got a Blue Beetle movie, so you put out a Blue Beetle toy. People go, "I want Blue Beetle." They're not necessarily talking about a movie that came out eight years ago. That comes in some of the lulls of when you've got product coming out but there's no big events driving it, whether it's comics, TV, movies, video games, or whatever else.
I don't really give undue weight to any of them. We just look at it and go, "Oh my god. Why didn't we think of that?" That is a good one and we can put it out there, and I think there'd be enough people. That's really the key here business-wise. You just need enough. You don't need the whole world. You need enough people to consume your product so that it becomes worthwhile and you have enough success that you can continue to keep doing that.
This is the piece, Joseph, sometimes that people don't understand, and again, especially people who like to bellyache. I said before, I don't even really read comments, good or bad, because the product's done. There's nothing I can do. The consumer, at times, that comes in there doesn't understand that what we're doing is sort of global and international. Especially when we're doing sports. Of course, the guy in Buffalo wants me to make football players from the Buffalo Bills, but I don't know I can sell that to the Seattle people, or vice-versa, so you're going, "Oh, okay. Who does everybody have on their fantasy football team?"
They would know Patrick Mahomes. Maybe I can sell Patrick Mahomes. Can't say I know a bunch of Kansas City Chiefs fans, but everybody knows who Patrick Mahomes is, so maybe I got a chance, outside chance. The figures themselves fall into those types of categories, and we just ... It's an inexact science, and we've been doing it with some success and some failures along the way.
Well, that's how you learn, Todd. You've been doing such a great job at it. When I saw those Batman and Robin reveals that you had, I forgot how good George Clooney looked in that bat suit. Then I saw it in the six-pack too that you have with those Batmen. It looks great, man. Do you have any plans to further expand some of those early Batman films, like Michelle Pfeiffer Catwoman, or Danny DeVito Penguin?
Todd McFarlane: There's still characters we can mine but sometimes, you take a swing and that six-pack, that Batman, that was a big swing. It's not like you have 25 others. It's not like sports where you've got 25 other people on the team, so that may be our top of the mountain for ...
As the years go by, that may be one of the items, one of the products that people look to and go, "Ah, man. I wish I was around then because that was super cool." Again, maybe as time goes by, we might figure out how to do alternatives to it so we can get a few more out there, but not in the near future because I don't think it's fair-minded.
One thing that I absolutely love that you guys do is the way that you guys design and create monsters and aliens. I think that some of your designs, especially with the Spawn line monster, even the DC stuff, the monsters and aliens just look so beautiful. Are there any plans to ever do any kind of original monsters and aliens from the McFarlane line?
Todd McFarlane: Yeah, we're talking about it right now. Again, especially as next year's going to be our 30th anniversary for our toy company. We broke in, and you seem like a young person; you were a kid then when we came out, but we did a lot. We did a lot of cool monster stuff. If it's the one thing that's a bit of a bummer was that there were so many of these kinds of stores that would take that. "Todd, just come up with crazy stuff. Put it in plastic form. We'll buy it."
Things like Twisted Oz, and Twisted Christmas, and Tortured Souls, and some of our McFarlane monster lines, and the Movie Maniacs sort of came up in that, although those are branded items. Those stores were KB Toys, and Babbage's, and Virgin Records, and Tower Records, and these kinds of stores that, unfortunately, not only did not take the product, the majority of those, they don't even exist.
Yeah, brick and mortar, those brick-and-mortar places.
Todd McFarlane: They're gone. Yeah, they're gone. The internet has picked up some of it, but the internet is so spliced up that everybody isn't looking ... It's sort of like talk about your favorite TV show now. Everybody's got a different streaming show they're watching and when you tell people what you're watching, the other person usually goes, "Oh, I never heard of that."
At least with the brick and mortar, when everybody went to malls and people used to go to malls, that everybody saw those same four or five stores over, and over, and over, and they like to not compete with, at that time, Kmart, Toys "R" Us, Walmart because then they would just get into a pricing war.
They didn't want to have the same item, so the thing that would light their eyes up is when I came in, I'd go, "Hey, I got these cool monsters, but they're a little bit too intense for Walmart and Toys "R" Us." They'd go, "We'll take it," because they knew they could then mark it up a few extra dollars and not have to compete with the big giants down the street, but those opportunities, that easy layup that we used to be able to do all the time doesn't quite exist at the same level, which is kind of a bummer. If there's any sort of, "Oh, darn it" over the 30 years, it's that those cool shops went away.
Absolutely. Not only the monsters or aliens are high-quality, as well as your action figures, but some of the accessories. Like I bought a munitions pack just to go with my Dark Knight Two-Face, and a handful of other characters I have, and those things are great too. Are there any plans of doing accessories or even dioramas like the Justice League table or the Bat Cave diorama, or even the Batman armory from The Flash movie, because your detail and quality is so amazing that I feel like it would be such a gorgeous thing to put on your shelf, just like that Batwing.
Todd McFarlane: I don't mean to cut you off, but we've talked about some of those, but again, there's still the big conversation of like, "How many do we think we can sell?" Right? If you're doing like a weapons pack, that can fit ... Because most of the hands have sort of the same generic sizing. That can fit 10 different lines we do, right?
If you want to use it for that series of toys, fine, but you can also use it for this, and this, and this, and this, so there's multiple uses for it. Where if you did a, like you said, Justice League table, that fits for one sort of corner of segment over here. Can you do enough business with that one niche item that makes it worth your time, or are you better off doing just some cool, to your point, backdrop that you could put behind any of your figures? Some cool machinery, or something like that. Some armory, or whatever behind there.
Those are the things that we're constantly having internal creative conversations. Again, lookit, Joseph, you get it wrong sometimes and you go, "Man," and somebody else comes up with something, and you go, "Shoot, we missed that." I'm going to tell you the two things that are the most frustrating from a business point of view.
One is when you have something, and you thought it was going to work, and it didn't. Right? Because everybody just had their heart into it. Like, "Oh, man. We thought this was going to do way better than that," and it's a bummer. Then you do a bit of analysis, and they're all educated guesses as to why it worked or didn't work.
Then surprisingly, the other frustrating part is the opposite end of that where you actually put something out. You thought you were going to do okay with it, and it blows up, and you kill it, and everywhere you put it out, it sells out. You try to talk about why and you don't know. That's the frustration because you want to know what made lightening in a bottle strike so you can replicate it from a business point of view. I can have the smartest people in my company, we're all sitting there, and we can take educated guesses, but really, the answer is, "I don't know. Shoot."
Hopefully, it'll happen again next year with another one of our brands. Dismal failure and sometimes, extreme success are both head-scratchers to us behind closed doors.
That's incredible. Now, I want to talk about you ing forces with WhatNot, because they're the leading livestream platform in the U.S. For the first time ever, you're collaborating with them for an opportunity to bid on a piece of history, stuff from your booth from San Diego Comic-Con. Can you talk about some of the pieces that are going to be up for auction?
Todd McFarlane: Yeah. Well, if you're talking about WhatNot in general.
Sure.
Todd McFarlane: Again, and I'm not here to give any glowing reports one way or the other about WhatNot because I've never done it. Come back to me in four, six months and I'll have a lot more data and I'll be able to tell you. This is a complete unknown pool. I've never done it, but I'm very curious as a creative person and I'm curious as a businessperson how anything works because my goal, at the end of the day, is to just engage, and interact, and get product out to as many people as possible, and so where are those outlets?
A couple years ago, I'd been paying attention to Kickstarter. Then the pandemic came and I go, "Hey, let's try it. What's the worst that can happen? Let's just try it and see what happens." WhatNot, again, I hear a lot of good things about it. People say there's a nice community about it, whatever. There's lots of pluses when I've done my investigation about it.
For me, this is a big experiment. I don't have any four-year plans. I don't know what we're going to even sell the next time. What I'm going to is I go, "Why don't we try it? Why don't we go to this party called WhatNot? Let's see if there's any success that's there." The success will come in more ways than just money, right?
Right, right.
Todd McFarlane: There is a big audience, and they were paying attention and for me, one of the big pieces of WhatNot [that] was intriguing to me, it wasn't that you could make money, whatever, is that there's a community and I can interact with the community. For me, that's my personal goal because the more people you can interact with, the more people you can have a good time with and that can get a piece of you, I think there's value there. Again, you said a month ago, we were in San Diego, but there was, at tops, 100,000 people in that building, and the world is over eight billion people.
Right.
Todd McFarlane: So there was a fraction of 1% of the human beings on the planet that were there. The rest weren't. I had this conversation about our social media channel. They go, "Man, I don't know if we should be doing so much San Diego announcements because that's only going to be the people that are going to be in that city, in that building during those three days. We're not talking to anybody else on the planet."
Right.
Todd McFarlane: Right? When I do a post and I say, "Hey, here's a drawing," or, "Here's our cover," or, "Here's something," we're talking to everybody that s us, and I'm trying to find ways to interact with everybody as much as possible. WhatNot, we're going to find out whether it makes sense to continue to do this on a regular basis. That's everybody's hope that we can find that happy outlet and just add it to all the other things that we end up doing. We're going to be doing our first live auction.
Somebody was asking like, "Oh, what are you going to offer, and what do you got?" I don't know. I know what we're doing on the first auction. We took the booth, and we designed it specifically so we cut it up because it just bugged that we just make these banners. Not just me, but dozens of other people that have booths at San Diego, and New York, and conventions, and then you throw out the banners.
Yes.
Todd McFarlane: It just seems like such a waste when-
I was just talking about this.
Todd McFarlane: When people would go, "Oh my god. Why are you throwing that out?" I was like, "Well, let's not throw it out then." Again, for me, WhatNot is a way to do a little bit of commerce but also raise money for charities, do giveaways, but more importantly, interact with a community on days in which we're not offering any ... "I don't want a penny from you. I just want to talk to you today. That's all I want to do is let's just socialize." Right?
Right, right.
Todd McFarlane: Part of it is, Joseph, and I don't know, it may sound a little braggy here, but I've got a good life and I don't need to chase the money like I did when I was younger. I don't need to chase my career. I can pay the bills. I'm good, so I don't need to use WhatNot the way that a lot of other people, that I'm assuming the vast majority of people do. Right?
Because okay, again, God bless everybody, coming from an atheist. My question to them is, "Well, what else, other than I can put something up to make a buck, what else can we do?" It's the other stuff that's way more important to me, and we're going to find out.
I love that.
Todd McFarlane: We're going to do the auction. I'm sure, because I have so much stuff hanging around my offices, and in my warehouse and stuff, that I'm sure that I'll be doing an auction on one item and then going, "Hey, I got my hat here. I'm going to sign it. I've got two comic books." I'm just going to scoop stuff up and just go, "And you're going to get this too." Like, "Here you go, freebie stuff."
I got this from you in San Diego. This is going up and getting framed. Thank you so much, Todd.
Todd McFarlane: We have a lot of things that are part of the process of making toys, and comics, and some of the other mediums that we do that I don't think people ever get a chance to see. I always like the oddball stuff anyway. Yes, we'll do the obvious. We're going to do the obvious stuff.
Yes, will you be able to get signed comic books and trade paperbacks and toys? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the easy stuff. That's low-hanging fruit, but what about odd stuff? Here's a prototype and it's, because of the process, all they do is want me check the ts, which is why this prototype of this character, unpainted, is made with five different colors.
Oh, wow.
Todd McFarlane: Right? Either it's the most hideous thing you've ever seen, or it's kind of cool and it's sort of a one of a kind. At worst, a two of a kind. They send us one or two for me to approve, and if I approve it, then they start manufacturing the toy. There's just stuff I got until ... I don't know. Part of it's just a party. "Hey, guys. Hey, how about this? How about this? How about this?"
Instead of getting drunk and doing the shots, the shots are just going to be whatever I can scoop up and go, "Hey, who wants it? You know what? Matter of fact, let's just give this away," whatever. I don't know. It's going to be all of the above, and I don't know how it's going to play out. That's the fun right now. That's the interest for me is I'm stepping into a bit of the unknown, and I'll be a lot smarter and be able to be more specific about our plans six months from now on what it all means because I'll have data. I'll have data.
Look, and the livestream happens on August 23rd, next week at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time, 4:00 p.m. Pacific. It's aired exclusively on your channels with the WhatNot app available on iOS and Android. Before we go, can I play a little game with you called hot ... What is it? Like hot, cold or like a mild for some of my favorite things for the McFarlane toys that could possibly get made, possibly. Let's play a little game. Are you down for it?
Todd McFarlane: All right. If not, I'll go silent.
Okay. Watchmen figures. Hot, cold, or mild?
Todd McFarlane: I'd put that in mild.
Okay. Peacemaker figures from his series.
Todd McFarlane: I'd put that in mild too, which basically means that in our big, extensive lineup, we've thought about them, but the question is, when can you schedule any of this?
Got it. Zatanna.
Todd McFarlane: I'd probably put her closer to hot.
Yes.
Todd McFarlane: We've talked about her. I think she has a nice visual look.
Hawkgirl.
Todd McFarlane: Yeah. Anything with wings, I'm a big fan of, so yeah.
Me too.
Todd McFarlane: We've got Hawkman in different iterations of him, so yes, Hawkgirl has to come along.
The Doom Patrol.
Todd McFarlane: Oh, Doom Patrol. They're cool too.
They are so cool.
Todd McFarlane: We'll put them at the top end of the middle, medium, whatever you call it.
I'm telling you, if you get me a Todd McFarlane-made Robotman, I am all in.
Todd McFarlane: Right. No, that's exactly what I was thinking.
Yeah, absolutely.
Todd McFarlane: I'm a robot guy too.
Titans TV series.
Todd McFarlane: Yeah, I'd put them ... There's probably not going to be anything cold because everything, I think, has a potential value. If you asked me the 500 worst villain, then probably that's cold, but all these are either things we've talked about before or good suggestions, so I'd put them in the medium, which basically means they get up on the board.
Well, those are the ones that will go for this round, until next time, I'll ask you some more. I do have another, one last question for you because I was really excited. This is from my buddy, Josh Goldman, who is really into your Star Trek figures. I know there's only a couple that came out, but you had some pretty big plans for a pretty expansive line. Any updates on Star Trek at all?
Todd McFarlane: Star Trek is like any other toy line that you put it out, and then you sit back, and then if it works and there's a demand for it, then the retailers and/or the internet has corners that we can continue to go and make it. That's true with anything. It doesn't matter what the brand is. Not exclusive to Star Trek.
If people want it, you keep making more of it. If it seems to be soft or not moving a ton, then you just go, "Ah, darn it," and you move on. We're always hoping that everything we do works so that we can do more, because you never get all the characters, especially for anything that has an ensemble in it and you want to basically get a little bit deeper on it, so yeah, here we go. We did Ted Lasso, so would we like to get Coach Beard? Sure, but it's going to be dependent on how Ted sells.
Absolutely. Well, I have one last one for that hot, cold game that a lot of people wanted me to ask you was MK 1.
Todd McFarlane: Wow. It would be cool. It would be a cool retro, so I will run it up the post. Because you have to, once you ... All of these, you have to go get licensed for, right?
Sure.
Todd McFarlane: Some of the ones you're talking about, which is DC Multiverse, I already have that, so I can just go into the vault. I don't have to go get a contract. MK 1, I would have to go and get a new contract for it, but it's a good suggestion.
Todd, I always love talking to you. I hope we can do this again sometime after the WhatNot auction. I'd love to talk to you whenever you have time, man. Again, I'll be looking-
Todd McFarlane: After the auction, like I said, will be interesting to do the autopsy of like, how did it work? What were the pros and what were the cons? Again, and then what you do is it just becomes a learning experience and then you move it to, "Hey, the next time we do something then with WhatNot, let's do more of this and less of that." Then you start to fine-tune anything. This is the same with any job, business, whatever else. Everybody does the exact same thing. Right?
Todd McFarlane's auction will be live-streamed exclusively on the Whatnot app on August 23 at 7pm ET/4pm PT.
Source: Screen Rant Plus
