Todd McFarlane Charity Stream Offering Up Rare Items & Experiences To Benefit Children International
McFarlane will be auctioning off original art pages for the first time in decades.
Image Comics co-founder and Spawn creator Todd McFarlane is hosting a live charity stream on Whatnot tonight. Among the items and experiences on offer are sketches, clothing, and things like portfolio reviews and meet-and-greet Zoom meetings with McFarlane. While McFarlane's announcement post mentioned a Spawn jacket in specific, the Whatnot page for the charity stream only lists four items so far: a thirty-minute Zoom with McFarlane, a 30-minute Zoom portfolio review (two of those available), a quick sketch (two of those avialable), and "McFarlane will ink your Spawn cover, which is for sure a pretty cool thing for an aspiring artist.
McFarlane has been a big player on Whatnot so far, with an auction that literally sold off pieces of the Image Comics Comic Con booth over the summer. Proceeds from the charity stream will go to Children International.
"From the very beginning, it was like, 'Can we do community outreach and could we do stuff where we just raise money for charities and whatever else?' And they were like, 'Yeah, you can do all of that,'" McFarlane explained of his relationship with Whatnot. "So now, I'm at step three. Step one is, can you sell stuff and make money? Yeah. That's basically what it was built for. Two, when you do community outreach. We tried that. It worked pretty well. And now it's, can we do something -- which, the answer has to be yes, because essentially, if you can sell something in step one, then it's like, why can't you just give all the money away? Right? -- So that's what this is. And then we'll just see whether people are interested in what I've got to give away, and/or whether people know that, because all the money's going to be given away, 100% of it, if they'll go a little higher than they would have."
You can see McFarlane's video below.
Among the things McFarlane has teased? He plans on selling off some of his original art -- the first time he has sent any to auction in 30 years, according to comments he made on social media. But...not Spawn artwork, at least not yet. The stuff he's selling off is apparently some of his Marvel and DC work.
"I don't really go to a lot of shows, so I don't get to really interact face-to-face with people in a direct way," McFarlane said. "Sometimes Zoom now is the best you can do, but if it means that I've got to give away my time and we can convert that into funds that will help people in the charity, then cool, I'll give away my time. That's easy stuff."
"I do have a stack of old artwork too," he added. "I've got some Spider-Man, some Hulk, and Infinity Incorporated, basically all the pre-image pages. They've been picked over pretty good, so it's not like I'm going to have one that's got a big giant Hulk on it or anything like that. But it will be me saying, 'Hey, this is the first time I'm willingly put a page of artwork -- not, by far, my best -- but it's the first time in over 30 years."
And don't be surprised to see more of this -- not just from McFarlane, but from a number of others who have seen how successful McFarlane, Rob Liefeld, and others have been on Whatnot.
"Just do your thing, and if it works and people are having a good time, then I'm sure that people will replicate it," McFarlane explained. "Who knows? Next year, there may be more than one person that's designing a booth with the same intent to resell it. Because the data's in that you can do that. It's a thing. Right? But yeah, everybody just do your do. It's okay."
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