Image Comics has provided ComicBook.com with an exclusive first look at the six covers for Spawn #350, a landmark number made all the more impressive by virtue of the fact that Todd McFarlane's long-running Image series is the longest-running continuously-published independent comic in U.S. history. That record was broken at #301, after McFarlane passed Dave Sim's Cerebus, but with another 50 issues in the can -- along with a host of spinoff titles that launched around the same time as Spawn #300 -- McFarlane has reached out to Guinness to update his world record.
The issue will finally reveal who will sit on the vacant Throne of Hell, with the press release teasing, Will it be Spawn? An enemy? Or someone else hiding in the shadows. And more importantly… are any of them worthy enough to claim the power of the throne. The oversized anniversary issue will explore those long-gestating questions, with the aftermath flowing out into future episodes of Spawn, Gunslinger Spawn, The Scorched, and King Spawn.
"I was talking to Eric Stephenson, publisher of Image Comics, and I was saying to him, 'Man, even if you forgot the first 300 issues, which was a world record, I've still done 50 issues.,'" McFarlane told ComicBook.com's Jim Viscardi. "And then we started asking the question, 'How many books [has Image Comics] done that have gotten past 50 issues?'"
He added that the number is even smaller if you take the Image foudners and current partner Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead, Invincible) out of the mix.
"it's shockingly not many, because I mean, again, considering we've been around for over 30 years....If you take the people from the top of the food chain at Image, it was Saga and Deadly Class...East of West."
McFarlane later noted that books like Chew and Morning Glories had hit 50, but that for a publisher that has been around as long as Image, it's shocking how few books are long-running. He suggested he would like to see more, but admitted that books like Spawn and Savage Dragon have not just the Image founders behind them, but also a long history of superhero books being long-running, episodic, and open-ended.
McFarlane will also provide a cover for Spawn #350 -- and it will also get a black and white variant. That's a rarity -- fans often joke about how little McFarlane pencils these days, and say they'd like to see more. McFarlane says he's really happy with how the cover came out.
"I think probably almost every artist can relate to what I'm about to say. Sometimes you take a blank piece of paper or blank screen and you start drawing, and sometimes it turns out way better than you thought, and you're like, 'Oh man, where'd that come from?' And other times you draw and you struggle the entire way, and you get done and you're kind of underwhelmed with your final product, but you've got a deadline," McFarlane said. " And so, in a weird way, and maybe because I played too many sports, there is a little bit of sports analogy here in that sometimes you hit a home run and I'm sure it feels good, even the professional baseball players, and then the next time they come up, they hit a single or they strike out or they ground out. And I'm sure they're going like, "Why?" I'm doing all the same things. The mechanics are the same, my body, everything's the same. Why sometimes do you get better results? Golfers, tennis players, everybody, right? Why you get a hole in one, and other times you can't get it out of a sand trap? I don't know. It's the frustrating thing about trying to replicate things in your body, because you're telling your mind to match something in your body....I can be a little bit of a hit miss, but I thought the last one turned out nice."
As an artist, McFarlane can't just relate to intermittent quality changes, but also to the desire to keep moving and evolving all the time.
"I'm always hesitant to change artists 'cause I like consistency, but I'm also acutely aware of not having my artists grow bored, if you will," McFarlane explained. "And so I'm always constantly asking them about their excitement level on a book. And I do it every year. I do the annual checkup, if you will. And I've got some really good people, both Brett and Carlo Barberi are very good, loyal, hardworking monthly guys. They're sort of becoming a pack of unicorns. And if I said to both of them, 'Hey, you're just staying on the books and you're going to do another 40 issues of it,' they would both, with a smile, do it. That is just how professional these guys are. But I thought, Hey, you know what? They've both given me over two years of their lives on these books and they've done it. They just might want to scratch another itch, right?"
That's what led to the title swap for the two artists, which gives Booth a chance to work on the main title, and Barberi the more stylized, Western-inspired look.
The issue, written by current creator Rory McConville will be introducing a new artist to the ranks of the Spawn visual lore. Starting with this issue, former Gunslinger artist, Brett Booth, will be taking over the regular art duties from Carlo Barberi, who will be drawing 10 pages in Spawn #350. Barberi will join McFarlane on Gunslinger Spawn's art -- essentially trading gigs with Booth.
Typically, superhero comics outside of DC and Marvel don't make a ton of headlines, but McFarlane has managed to release the best-selling comics of the last two years, with King Spawn #1 in 2021 and Batman/Spawn in 2022. Like fellow Image co-founder Rob Liefeld, McFarlane started at Image following a history-making run at Marvel, in which he introduced Venom and sold 2.5 million copies of Spider-Man #1.
Here's some solicitation information, followed by the covers:
This $4.99, 48-page, double sized issue, premium paper comic and cover, will feature many of the industry's top cover artists including SPAWN creator, Todd McFarlane himself. The total rundown of covers includes:
Cover A: Puppeteer Lee
Cover B: Todd McFarlane
Cover C: Ryan Stegman
Cover D: Brett Booth
Cover E: Jonathan Glapion
Cover F: Todd McFarlane B&W