USA: Todd McFarlane

Todd McFarlane (born March 16, 1961 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada) is an artist, writer, designer and toymaker. He is known for being the creator (along with David Michelinie) of the Spider-Man comic book character Venom, the creator of the famous and dark anti-hero Spawn for Image Comics, and for being the creator in 2009, of the comic book Haunt. He is also one of the owners of the Edmonton Oilers NHL ice hockey team. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, McFarlane became a star among comic book fans for his work on Marvel Comics' Spider-Man franchise, revamping the character resulting in three million copies of the first issue, making it the best-selling comic book in history.[citation needed] He created with comic artist David Michelinie the character Venom, one of Spider-Man's main and most famous enemies, and in 2009 was the co-creator of the comic book Haunt. The characters created by McFarlane usually have something in common, which are symbiotes that take possession of a human to be transformed into a superhero or supervillain as in the cases of Venom, Spawn and Haunt. In 1992 he helped form Image Comics and updated the hero/antagonist Spawn, whom he had created in high school. Spawn became one of the most popular heroes of the 1990s, and started a trend in which comics artists retained full ownership rights to their characters, regardless of whether they were independently published or not. Currently, McFarlane has illustrated fewer comics, to focus on his companies Todd McFarlane Productions, McFarlane Toys and Todd McFarlane Entertainment.