Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, DC Comics, Image | Tagged: dc comics, image comics, mr bones, roy thomas, spawn, todd mcfarlane

Todd McFarlane's Mister Bones? Roy Thomas Says Not So Fast…

Yesterday, Bleeding Cool ran an article about how a number of comic book publishers were reviving Todd McFarlane characters or character designs related to Spawn, at the same time that Todd McFarlane was launching new Spawn comic books. That includes the revamp of Venom getting chains, the return of Angela to Thor, and also the return of the traditional look for Mister Bones, credited as being created by Roy Thomas, Dann Thomas, and Todd McFarlane for Infinity Inc #16. Via his manager John Cimino, Roy Thomas gets in touch, wanting to set the record straight. He tells Bleeding Cool;

I not only conceived Mr. Bones on my own (though conferring with Dann, he was my idea, where other Infinity, Inc./Helix characters were sometimes initiated by her or by both of us together)… but I drew the first picture of him, costume, skull and bones design, etc., clearly influenced by the old Black Terror character visually, plus Blazing Skull and Ghost Rider at Marvel. Besides that: the first professional drawing of Mr. Bones–the final design of the costume–was done not by Todd McFarlane but by Mike Machlan. Mike, as per instructions, followed my costume and look exactly, except that he gave Bones the high-boot look he sported, and maybe have improved on the cape/cowl a bit. That drawing was later published in INFINITY, INC. #15. So, while I've no quarrel with Todd being considered the "co-creator" of Mr. Bones (however he may have now evolved into, yech, Director Bones), Todd was only the THIRD person to draw Mr. Bones' basic look. By the standards used for, say, Wolverine, Todd would no more be the co-creator of Mr. Bones than Herb Trimpe is currently considered of Wolverine…although again, as I said, I'm willing to count all three of us as the co-creators of the visual aspect of Bones… though only I conceived the original character, named him, wrote him, with Dann's help.

Here's how Black Terror looked;

Here's that splash page from Infinity Inc #15 by Mike Machlan, uncredited until now…

Here's how he looked as drawn by Todd McFarlane in Infinity Inc #16

Regarding that cover, Todd McFarlane wrote;

CAN YOU SEE SPAWN IN THIS COVER?! When I was asked to create the look of Mr. Bones for this DC Comics Infinity Inc. cover you can already see early indicators where my career and style was going. The BIGGEST indicator is the cowl and cape. Since I was creating a bunch of characters at 16 (especially Spawn), I was riffing off stuff I normally did. The other thing to notice on this cover is the very attractive lady and since pretty ladies usually worked well on comic book covers, I added her in as a bonus. Eventually, when I went to work on Marvel Spider-Man and was drawing Mary Jane, I already had the idea of what I wanted her to look like. Anyways…that's it for today!!

Here's how he has looked of late as Director Bones of the DEO.

And here is how he looks in Infinite Frontier #5 published by DC Comics tomorrow.

This is how Spawn looked in Spawn #1

But also from one of the earlier designs as a sci-fi hero when Todd was a kid, with Todd McFarlane's commentary.

SPAWN'S EVOLUTION! Spawn didn't always start out as a character from Hell. When I first created Spawn as a kid, it was more of a sci-fi story. To me…sci-fi means space. Space is cold. Cold is BLUE. Many years later, when I pulled out my portfolio, I decided to make Spawn from the pit of HELL! Hell is HOT so I played around with the colors and ended up with the Spawn you see today. Imagine what the story would've looked like if Spawn looked to the stars or CAME from them…

And his first planned cover from 1977.

The FIRST UNPUBLISHED Spawn COVER!!!! I thought that this would be a COOL #ThrowbackThurdsay post for you good people… plus it sounded like you guys were HUNGRY for some Spawn stuff. I drew this cover in 1977 (now that's a THROWBACK!) for a 35 page comic book my dad (who was in the printing business) helped me put together. At the time…. I thought… 'If NO ONE IS GOING TO HIRE ME to do comics… then I'll put my OWN together!! So this is it! The FIRST Spawn 'comic book' cover that was never published and if you look closely, you can even see some of my old notes!

As well as some of Todd's high school Spawn sketches;

These are sketches I did back in high school, when I FIRST created Spawn. As you can see by the sketches, he's ALWAYS had that AWESOME cowl and cape. Spawn's come A LONG way since then, but it's always good to look back and see how FAR it's come…and how far I'VE come!!

As for Mr Bones cross bones chest logo, Roy Thomas says that he originally wanted to put that on the Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider character for Marvel. but he forgot. And that Roy usually puts it on the chest when he does Ghost Rider sketches…

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