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Pg. 17; Todd McFarlane pencils, inks and signed; 11" x 17"
There are few success stories in comics history as overnight and explosive as that of Todd McFarlane, who, after a brief stint pinch-hitting on various Marvel and DC titles, gained an immediate and feverish cult following, his dramatic, hyperactive style appealing hugely to comics' younger readers who were tiring of the photo-realistic style that had come to dominate the medium. While his operatic sense of style might not seem suited to the Spider-man universe, then still in thrall to the sturdy Romita-fied house style left over from the 1970s, McFarlane's brash lines and daredevil dynamism fit in perfectly with the Big 80s/Gogo 90s ethos, leading to Marvel taking the unprecedented move of launching a whole new Spider-title just to promote the young artist. His work in this inaugural issue is the stuff of legend, a dark, aggressive calling card unabashedly designed to announce a new generation of artists was here to take over the four-color medium, and collectors continue to fight tooth-and-nail to own pages from this historic issue. This gripping action page shows the amazing sense of storytelling and composition that raised McFarlane head-and-shoulders above his contemporaries and imitators, a truly jaw-dropping piece of work that transports one back to the heady early days of this comic revolution.
Due to his initial run on Amazing Spider-Man, Todd McFarlane became the hottest and most influential comic book artist of his generation. Marvel then decided to give him his own brand-spankin' new Spider-Man title to write, draw, and ink. Cashing in on the collector craze for variant covers, Spider-Man 1 went on to become the highest-selling comic book at the time with over 2,000,000 copies sold in June of 1990!



This fabulous half-splash of page 17 from issue 1 of Spider-Man features McFarlane's trademark manga inspired "speed lines" over blue pencils, which show the sinister Lizard tearing apart his victim in gory detail. McFarlane was incredibly prolific during his stay at Marvel, but because his pages are snatched up quickly the masses, finding such a great action page with this type of gruesome detail on the open market is very difficult.

Artist Information

Todd McFarlane is a Canadian comic book artist, writer, and entrepreneur who is one of the founding members of Image comics where he created Spawn. In addition to being credited for co-creating Eddie Brock (Venom), Todd also founded Mcfarlane toys and an Entertainment company of the same name. Todd's other notable works include Marvel's The Amazing Spider-Man and Batman: Year Two.