YouSaid · the spoken record

Todd McFarlane

lines on the record: 189
first: 2022-12-16
most recent: 2022-12-16
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Just pulled it back. I didn't feel like being the guy that was the one that sent Eddie to the hospital and had to cancel his, because they were on tour at that point. So he just came in for a couple of days. So I didn't want to be the bad guy. But anyways, Eddie wasn't quite smart enough to go dress appropriately and don't smoke when you're exerting yourself physically.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And he's smoking. And if you've ever seen that scene of John Candy and the movie Splash where he's trying to play handball and he's drinking and whatever and he's having a heart attack while he's playing, we start going and at about minute eight, I could see he's starting to slow down in the throws are not quite with the authority and it gets slower and then he starts breathing heavier and then pretty soon I go eddie Let's just take a break. And he's like, yeah, okay, if you want to, if you want to. And then he sits down and he. And I mean, I thought I'm going to kill this man. We keep playing. He literally is going to pass out what heat exhaustion. Gonna have to rush him to the hospital. And it was like, but he wasn't going to give in. This is a dumb thing about boys and artistosterine. Neither one of us was going to give. But I'm a cockroach. I could have gone all day until I killed him.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I went, yeah, yeah, I played back then, Eddie. And he goes, You want to play catch during lunch break? And I went. Sure, I can play cats with any vettor. That's cool because Eddie's a big baseball nut, right? And so he had done his homework and he knew it and he knew I was left-handed. Like I said, if I'd never asked him about it, would he have ever opened it? But then it goes even further. We finally go outside. And unfortunately, it's seasonably hot. It's like about 105, 106 that day in California. But I'm from Phoenix. It doesn't matter. I can deal. But Eddie has got black boots, black pants, black shirt, black sunglasses.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then the next day he came. Dressed just like grunge at eco. And he had his briefcase again, and he put it right down next to us. Never touched it the whole day again. He left. And then on the third day he came, same thing. But at some point, I just went, hey, Eddie, I don't mean to pry, but why don't you keep bringing that briefcase with you every day? It doesn't seem like you do anything with it. And then he goes, oh my gosh, Todd, I'm glad you finally asked. Now, I often wonder if I hadn't asked what would have happened would he have just gone home that day. But he goes, oh my gosh, Todd, I'm glad you finally asked. It was a briefcase, like, you know, just like you're a spy or something. And then he clicked it open and you're waiting for the CIA folder, except for there wasn't no CIA folders. It was two baseball gloves and a ball. And one of the gloves was left-handed. And he turns to me and he goes, I heard you're a pretty good baseball player, Todd.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He sat with us in the three days that we were there editing. And he's really smart. I mean, really, he had a lot of good stuff. Hey, what if you did this? What if you cut this down and you did this and whatever? And he's talking the language, right? So it was really good. The side story of that three days was, He came with a briefcase the first day. And he's, you know, Eddie, I'll dress in black, but he had a briefcase, what I thought was like sort of formal. He put the briefcase down next to us and then we worked all day and we did the editing. And then he laughed.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I went, you edited this video. You have the big editing machine was called an avid. You have an avid at home? Yeah, I have an avid. So, wow, Eddie, you're confusing me a bit. So rock and rollers, when they're done offstage, go home, relax by doing avid editing. This is what, like, it doesn't make any sense to me, right? But he's like, yeah, I just sort of like it. And it's just sort of therapeutic. And I'm like, cool. So we end up doing the video and doing the animation for it. It ends up getting nominated for a Grammy, which again, so it was my first foray into music. I went, what? You go into music and you get nominated for a Grammy? That was easy. I should have done this earlier. We lost the Madonna that year. But Eddie, we're going to edit. And Eddie says, hey, is there any way I can come to California and edit with you? Eddie, it's your video. You can do whatever you want. Sure heck.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wish I had that tape. I don't know what I did with this tape. And so I get on the phone, and it was really good. I got to tell you, Tim, it was really good. And I get on the phone and go, hey, Eddie, I got it. I understand what you want to do, okay? Whatever. We'll come up with that. Who edited this thing? This is super cool. And he says, well, that was me.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so he goes, You want to help us with it? And I'm like, yeah, sure, cool. What's the gig? And then he sort of gave the song, it was called Do the Evolution. And I go, so what's it about? He goes, oh, it's about all time, space, and dimension, but you got to do it in three and a half minutes. I go, okay, I think we can come up with some creative things on it. And then Eddie went away and he goes, here, I'll send you something here in a couple days just to sort of give you the vibe. And so a couple days later, I receive in the mail from Eddie this tape and I play it and he is taking a couple of episodes of spawn and edited them to go with his music of the song that we were talking about, dude, the evolution.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And Eddie then says, hey, Todd, Eddie, hey, Eddie, how are you doing? But here's what we want to do, Todd. The record label is bugging us to do a music video. We hate music videos and we don't want to be in it, which is sort of a cool thing that it's like pardon. You don't want to be in your own music video. No. And we've been putting them off and putting them off, but they keep bugging us. So now we're at the point where I figured it out, Todd. I've been watching this spawn animation on TV. We can do it animate it. Let's just do it animate it and then we don't have to be in it. And I was like, okay, cool.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They each create an opportunity. So, again, let's talk about music videos. You mentioned that. How do you get to music videos, right? I don't even read music. I can't read a look of music and I've got a Grammy. How's that possible? Some dumbass kid who doesn't know anything about music's got a Grammy. It bothers my wife. She's a very good pianist, right? And it bugs her. I've got one. Don't say it out loud if you come to dinner. So here's how you get there. You just find the back door. They're always going to block the front door. Status quo is going to always get put in front of you. You find the back door. Here's the back door. Out of the blue, we're doing the HVO animation. It's doing pretty well. And again, we're winning a couple Emmys. And then out of the blue, I don't know why. Go ask him. Out of the blue, I get a phone call from Eddie Vetter. Eddie Vetter's lead singer of Pearl Jam.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A trading card, they're getting the rookie cards of all these characters that nobody had ever made before. And I think it mattered. I think it mattered that I was doing something different than what the big boys did.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Were blown away by that because they'd been dealing with the big boys and they were going to Holsex. So you're going to do five new characters and make five new sets of molds. Uh-huh. And that's okay with you. Yeah, that's how I've been doing it for years. Wow. And here's why that mattered, Tim, because it allowed me now for the very first time to make characters that nobody had made prior to that. People have been making Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman toys for decades. Of course they had. But some of the other iterations of those characters and or B characters or C characters that look super cool. I don't care if you even know their name. In plastic, they look super cool on the shelf. I was able to make them. And then I think there was a big enough audience and geeked them that came by and went, oh my goodness, nobody's ever made that character or that character or that character or that character. And they were able to get literally the rookie cards using sort of...”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's our lineups, and we were talking to him. I go, I want to make this character, and they were talking about this. And then they go, Well, we can't really make that character. And I go, why? I go, well, you know, it doesn't really share the same look as any other character. And I went, no, no, I know that. We're good. We'll cut some new mold. And when they found out that I was willing to make new molds specifically for one character.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The same pieces. Lego does the same thing. I mean, I don't care how ambitious, whatever it is you're buying, there are still certain blocks. I mean, the colors may be different, but there are still certain blocks that are universal in every one of their builds. And then they put the unique pieces that will make it into the shape they need. But there's still a portion of the reuse of blocks that have been used for decades because that's their formula. Cool, works for them. Toys are sort of the same. That they go, oh, you know, we'll do a generic body and we won't make anything unique about it. And then that way we can paint it with a bat symbol on it or an S or a flash. And it all sort of works. And we don't have to cut any more mold. We don't have to cut any more steel. Why? Because that's money. And we don't have to do all those things. So early on when I was given that people weren't a brother.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A fair price and do a little bit of marketing and build a better mousetrap, you can survive. How do I know? I've done it for 25, 27 years prior. But I always had a butt to it. But if you ever give me a triple A brand on top of that mythology, shit, get out of the way. What do you talk about? Because now I'm going to give them price and quality and a name that everybody knows. I've been saying that for years, and guess what? They finally give me one of the big brands. And guess what? We outsold all of them. Boom. Right. Now, here's one of the things also that mattered. Big companies, and this is their job. I'm not saying it's good, bad. I'm just saying this is their job, is to maximize value for the shareholders every 90 days. How do you do that? You just make as much money as you can. How do you make as much money as you can? You figure out how to cut corners. And so one of the ways you cut corners in our trade of toys is that you reuse.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Those definitions are internal definitions for every corporation. They define them differently. But essentially, a master toy license means that you basically not only get to After decades of trying finally, we got the license for the DC multiverse. Let me tell you really what the big piece of that was. I had the word Batman and Superman on my toys. Like, what are you talking about? Those are global brands. So I've always told people, look at, and you and I have discussed it here. If you do a quality product.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, well, let me just tell you brand matters. So I'd been making toys for 25 years, and I said every day of my life, I can sell Star Wars. Just give me the contract. What are you talking about? It's Star Wars, right? What are you talking about, Star Wars? You know how come I don't tell a lot of Spider-Man? Because I don't have the contract. And eventually I'd walk around Toy Fair and it seemed like everybody had a piece of Marvel. Everybody had a piece of Star Wars and DC Comics. And except for me, I don't know why I was the only guy, right? But somehow we ended up. Doing a deal, Warner Brothers walking away from Mattel. They had given Mattel both the master toy license and the collective sliver.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Company and compete against me because they're super awesome. And so that's it. You just have to find talent and coach them along the way. I'm just a coach. I feel like I'm a coach now.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All of it. That's a collective team. And I actually sort of enjoy being with the collective team because if I can find my Michael Jordans and my Scotty Pippins and I'm in a meeting and they show me their skill artistically or with ideas or how to promote or how to sell or market whatever in any field and any sort of skill set. And I feel like I'm the dumbest guy in the room. Those are great days for me, Tim. because I sit there and go, oh my gosh, I wouldn't have even thought of that. I can't even do it to that skill set. Thank God they work for me. And I just sit there and go, hmm. And if I really want to make it look like that I'm sort of more important that I am, I'll say something like, interesting. I'll take it under advisement and get back to everybody tomorrow, right? Where inside I'm going, holy shit, this is awesome. I just hope they don't quit and start their own.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“By the way, if you have any questions to that in-depth analysis I just gave you, I'll be over here in my three-piece suit with my clipboard and you just come over and ask me a question. And Phil Jackson was smart enough to find the proper talent and put it in the proper place so that the end of that run, not only did Michael Jordan have six championship rings, so did Phil. And you know how many buckets Phil made during that time? Zero. He was just smart enough to know to put Michael and the crew out there in the right iterations. And so there are times where you have to just go, Todd, you can't build this all yourself. There are some things that make sense for me being the lead and or even isolating myself artistically. There are plenty of other things we do, making toys, making comic book, making movies, making video games.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Or put it in the hands of others and give them full trust to do what they need to do before I pick up that new opportunity so that I'm constantly at five and don't extend myself. And so it was a lesson hard learned over the years. And what that also meant was Todd, you can't do all the artwork yourself. So you're going to have to become a good scout and you're going to have to find talent. And at some point on a good day, I feel that I am Phil Jackson when he was coaching the Chicago Bulls. I think maybe not his conversation went something like this. Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippin, and I don't even know what the name is of the rest of you dudes. Could you guys just go over there? Your job is, could you put that ball in that bucket? Oh.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“let the balls drop at times that I was acutely aware that I was doing a disservice to certain areas. And I learned that I was a five ball juggler. And here's what that means for me. It means that I'm always constantly juggling five balls. But if another opportunity comes along and I get excited about it and it makes sense both from an artistic and from a business CEO level, I must put one of the five balls I am currently juggling down.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it's the eternal question we all struggle with. How do we balance our life? We all ask that, both on a personal and the work. We're always going through failures, Tim, found that I was a five-ball juggler. And here's what that means, that I don't care who you are. I don't care if you're the best juggler in Vegas and you're with Circus Soleil. And you can juggle 25 balls. Even that person, if you go one ball more than they're capable of, guess what happens? All the balls fall. Every ball you're juggling hits the floor. And it's a mess. And so I unfortunately”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“10,000, or you can make a hundred million a year and lose money because your overhead is over 100 million. You just have to right size your company and you can make money. Don't worry about being rich. Just go, I make $30,000 as long as we spend $25. We're making $5,000 a month. It's a living. It's a living. Cool, and you're having fun doing it.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's owned by Warner Brothers, ATT Warner Brothers Discovery, whatever it is this week that's there. Those are billion dollar empires. And my comic book division is for people. How do four people take on billion dollar empires and beat them at times at their own game? I don't know. I don't know. It's a curiosity. Why aren't they selling more? I don't know. Go ask them. I'm just doing my gig. But it's doable. And I'm hoping that the story of a guy like me should be, hopefully to some people, somewhat inspirational because every time I read a story where Dave.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And our sliver of that outsold not only the master toy license of that, but it outsold everything Marvel and everything Star Wars. It was the number one selling line in America and Canada. My company, literally that is a handful of people sold more toys in action figure lines than Hasbro, Mattel, playmates, spin master, all these public companies, right? And the question is either I'm and my people are geniuses or they're not getting full value for whatever infrastructure they did. I think the answer lies somewhere in between, right? How is it that I can take on Fortune 500 companies? Last year I had the number one selling comic book doesn't more selling comic book. Marvel's own by Disney. DC Comic.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We can get past the nose because I can be very stubborn of going, well, before you say no, let me just download you with the reality of what you're walking away from. At the beginning, it was all BS. Let me just tell you, as the years have gone by, there's hardcore data now. Tim, let me just, again, go back a little bit. Last year, I don't even pay attention to that, but last year, there's the equivalent of the Nielsen ratings in toys. And they literally count when something gets scanned at the big superstores. It goes into a database. So we're not talking about you're the most popular. You've got the coolest toy todd. Those are different awards. This is data based on sales. Last year, our line of DC multiverse toys. I don't even have the master license of DC Multiverse. I have a fraction of it. I have the collective little sliver of it.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I've got two choices. I either let people with experience do the business side of it and have full trust in them and knowledge and what they're doing so I know that I can trust them or I just figure it out myself. My personality didn't allow me to put it in the hands of others if I'm going to fail. I want to fail on my own merits. And so I just learned business. Did it take away from the art? Of course it did. Every time I'm in one of these dumb meetings for an hour, I am acutely aware that I am not creating and everything in my world business-wise is a byproduct of me doing some kind of creating. It's a fallout of me creating. And when I'm not creating, I don't think I'm bringing the most value to my company. I need to be an artist as much as possible. But I also need to be able to sing and tell the story of what we do for the company so that”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I do my thing and we'll just figure it out. I do not stand by water coolers and complain about bosses. I quit jobs and start my own companies. As a creative person, if I'm going to complain about how the business works, then I will then go and become my own businessman. I consider myself Tim to be bilingual. I have learned the language of business. I am first and foremost a fluent speaker in art. That is my native tongue, but I have learned business to the point where I can now go into a meeting with executives or bankers or government people or whatever and sound like a CEO who happens to be a pretty good artist. I can convince them that I'm that guy, that they go, oh, okay, he just, the art is sort of like he just does it on the side.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tim, this is easy. There's only one human being I have dominion over Period. My wife, I love her. I've been with her for over 40 years. Like, I don't even control her. And she's the closest person that I have in the world. So, I mean, it can be exhausting at times trying to drag people to the water, but you can't make the horse drink at times. So at some point, I just go, guys, you do your thing.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so they put that on my budget and then they have to get so many eyeballs per dollar and somehow they had put all that money that accrued onto mine and it fell under their threshold and whatever matrix they used and they never go public with anybody but it was like that was it. I was like we were doing the exact same job winning Emmys doing exactly what we were doing but now all of a sudden they had to let us go because somehow the math didn't work for them.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And this is, again, just the way of the world, right? Name's Todd. Only rhymes with God. I don't get to control any of this. And it was. That they had five shows. Remember I said they started an animation show? And every time a show got canceled, one of the animations got cancelled, they just put all the costs on the existing shows. And eventually all of them failed except for me. And I remember them calling me in saying, Todd, we got to stop the animation. I go, why? And I go, it's getting too expensive. And I went, expensive. You haven't given me one red cent more than you did the first year. I'm working on the exact same budget. It's like, yeah, well, yeah. And then I found out I was covering all the other overhead that had basically failed.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And here's the frustration. By the end of the three years. on that show. And I remember being up on the stage holding and getting my Emmy. And behind me was fifteen of these people. Most of them I was constantly having to basically drag them into some of these decisions. And they were all holding an Emmy in their hands too with a big smile. And I was like going, oh my God, here you are so happy you got an Emmy in your hand and you were resistant to almost everything as to the reason why we're up on this stage today, right? It bugged me that I was putting that award in their hands because they were not willing participants for the ride. But the reason we ended up getting canceled wasn't because people weren't watching it. It was because”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Time or money, you're saying no. Why are we figuring out how to self edit ourselves, self-center ourselves when nobody else is? This is a crime. Why are we putting guardrails on ourselves? We should be smashing up against the walls until the executives upstairs go, whoa, guys, whoa, whoa, whoa, pull it back, right? That's what we should be doing. But when you've had a dog that has been in a small backyard for so long it gets comfortable that the moment you throw the doors open to the wild farmlands and you go run rover go, it was amazing how many creative people sat down instead of running because that's all they knew. They knew one way to do animation and they knew one way to draw it and then knew one way to storytell and then they knew one way and one way and one way and one way.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The luxury of the deadline. So that said, and I understand. So I would constantly be asking these questions. Can we do this? No, why? Because of this. Okay, but every now and then, being the dumb guy in the room, I didn't know where the guardrails were. So I'd ask a question and then you get the moment, Tim, which is you ask a question and you've got 50 people in a room and I go, if we do this, will it cost us any more time or money? I mean, a little bit of effort maybe, but about the same. And then you get to me the golden moments pregnant pause. Silence. So there was nobody in the room with 600 years experience saying, no, we can't do that. No, we can't do that. And I went so, you're saying that it won't take more time? No. And it won't cost more money. No. So why don't we do it? Well, that's not how we do it here. No, no, I understand that's not how we do it. I'm not asking that question. I'm saying it will take more.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Moments where I realize I'm in front of people at times who have been institutionalized. And here's the frustrating thing that I've run into over and over and over in my life. The bark being way better than the bite. And so artists would go, yeah, all these creative people, all these people had worked on animation. Man, if we could only do it our way, man, these people, these executives, they don't know anything. Yeah, I've heard that over and over and over. And we finally get to a point where literally we can almost do anything. And guess what a lot of them did? They just went back to status quo. And so being the dumbest guy in the room, I used to ask these questions. Any question, there's a legitimate answer why you can't do it. It's usually time or money. Oh, you can do it, but it's going to cost more money. Can't do that. I have a budget. No, it doesn't cost any more money, but it's going to take twice as long. Ah, we don't have.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, sure, then I was like. Cool, then let's do it. Oh, one more thing. I know nothing about animation, never spent a second on it, but I got to be in charge. So you guys go and have that talk and do what you got to do. And they came back and said, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can be a charge, but we're going to put some good people on your flanks, which they did. And we went in there. And so I was. Working on HBO animation at this time, Tim, HBO had started an animation division. I think there were five, maybe six shows going on, of which Spawn was one very quickly. The other five failed. And I was sort of the lone wolf by the end of it. But when we first came out, I was in the room now with this group of people they had amassed to make an animated show who collectively probably had 600 years of experience, which is cool. But there's also...”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's cool. I appreciate your enthusiasm. Let me ask you just one question. I just have one question for you. Can I say fuck in my show? It wasn't meant to be a joke. It was just, and they paused. And then they said, yeah, probably. Why not, right? And that was all I needed to hear. Not that I wanted to use that word, Tim. Not that I wanted to do and show naked women or anything. I just thought that if they were willing to basically say yes to that, I had a wide lane of creativity. And the reason I needed a wide lane because my character lives in a dark, serious world. And I'm going to have corrupt policemen and I'm going to have mafia people. And I'm going to have criminals. I'm going to have drug addicts. And these people don't talk politely, right? When they get mad, you have to be able to go into like watching an R-rated movie. You have to be able to have a certain dialect for your characters that matches who they are. And so I just need it to, if the moment came, I needed it to be able to do that and have the creative freedom to do it. So when they said,”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Talk about TV first. So, again, go back to the release of the Spawn comic book after we leave Marvel, the group of us leave Marvel. My character, Spawn, comes out, bam, shoots to the top of the charts. And for months and months, even maybe a couple years, it was a number one selling book. So it was at the top of the chart. So like I said, phone calls were constantly coming. I get the phone call and on the other line is HBO. Legit at that point. I mean, what do you talk about? They're still legit, right? But they were one of the big sort of companies out there. And I go, oh, cool. And they said, hey, we want to do some animation. And I knew like animation is like Saturday morning cartoons, right? And a couple of my partners at Image Comics had sold, and we're going to get Saturday morning cartoons, which they did. But I didn't spawn again. The guy from the Pit Howell, it just wasn't what I wanted. And so I remember, and I don't say this as a joke. I say this, and I'll tell you why I asked this one question. I go, no, hey, God.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, at some point, forget the art and forget anything else. Just get down to the core of it. Do you want any of this money I'm about to make? The answer is yes or no. And if you don't, fine. Oh, by the way, I thought you were in the commerce business because you're a public company, but you guys go ahead and do what you want to do. It is amazing how many times I've had to try and shove money down people's throats. But anyways, that's corporate America. They do their thing. I do mine.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It is going to basically be a story for every human being on this planet. They can now go against you. Colors, if you want to make that argument, be my guest. Or what I'm saying, I've got to check for a half a million dollars here. I'd like to shove down your throat to give me your fucking logos. I don't know. Sue me and potentially lose 100% or take a half a million dollars. This seems like my six-year-old could figure out what this thing is. Eventually they took the half a million bucks, right? So what are you talking about? Like, of course, they did. Of course they did, right? Stop it. And sadly, I had to sort of play the same conversation with everybody when I had the NFL. And I'm like, I'm doing your players. The question is, do you want any of the cash?”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Cannot do these toys. And I'm like, oh, yeah, you sue my ass. You sue my ass because here's how it works. Here's how it works and you guys aren't even smart enough to know how this works. Number one, you're sitting here right now across this table telling me you own everything. Good. Sue me. And if you win, you don't get a fucking ounce of upgrade. You say you got 100% at the end the best you can hope for is 100%. Go ahead and do it. But if you pay attention and you do a little bit of research on me, you're pulling the wrong tiger's tail, right? Because I'll do this. Because here's the thing. If we go to court and you find out that you don't have 100% and I'm betting you don't, that not only do I get a piece of that 100%.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And at that point, I had sort of had a conversation with them and they were threatening to sue me because they said that my generic uniforms were looking like theirs, right? I think I even done some McGuire generic McGuires too. And I'd even, at that point, then went to the NFL union and I go, hey, I've got the baseball and I've now got the hockey. Like, again, it all tumbles. And so I was then able to go into rooms. I remember these odd conversations you have, Tim, that are just, I just want to hit my head against walls, but whatever. I'm in a room with an NHL and there's like six lawyers there. There's always lawyers. And they're threatening to sue me because I'm doing like a sort of a generic uniform on one of the players that I had there. And they're going, we're going to sue you.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Guys, look at these toys, aren't they cool? They look just like Pavel Bure and Muriel Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky. Look at him. These are super awesome, right? Here's the thing. Notice that I don't get to use your uniform.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then you have to clue the two together, and you have a double royalty that you have to pay. It's not the best model, but if you want to do it, that's how it works. So I went to the NHL players union, which was like nobody ever gives us any money because they just sell jerseys and stuff with logos. Everything's logo, logo, logos on the hat. And I said, I'm going to make toys of your players. But unfortunately, I can't put their uniforms on them because I don't have an NHL. I'm going to have to do generic uniforms. And they went, yeah, sure, we'll take money. So I had in my back pocket one small seat. I had the union of the NHL so that later once I spent the money on the Maguire ball and I was hoping I would get a meeting, then I could go in there and say one of the first meetings I took was with the NHL per se. And I just pulled out my toys and I go.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And just so you know, if you ever make any sports toys of any current players, you must have two license. You have to license the union so you can get the players and their likeness. And then you have to get a contract from the league so that you can get basically their uniforms and their logos.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, so there's two things that I thought were going, again, keeping the momentum going in my favor. One, I had the data of all the toys that I was doing with Spawn. And Spawn at that point, it hit a point where consecutive series that were coming out, I think we got all the way up to 36, was the second longest running streak of series of toys other than, I think Transformers was even longer than Star Wars. Star Wars had gone quiet and gone dark for a while, right? So again, there was a little bit of that, but I planted one small seed before I made the crazy play. And the small seed was I was able to get to the players union of the NHL. Because of the four major sports, most people will say, especially in terms of revenue, that the NHL is the fourth one, right? The stepchild, if you will. And so I didn't go to the league because I know I couldn't get there. I went to the union.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Todd McFry, why do I know that name? And it was somebody I'd never met before. And I went, oh, you're the guy that doesn't like money, right? And look, let me tell you, and I've told everybody, look at guys, I'm not a saint. I'm not a saint. I can be bought. We all have our price. The price, though, that I needed that day was that they would give me enough money that I would then give up control of the company, but have so much money I could then buy it back at a discount, fire all of them, and I'd still have a profit and I'd have my company back, but nobody's ever given me that deal. So I've just never sold the company and they've stopped saying, Todd, I'm just a madman. So anyways, over to Hollywood now.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, no, no, okay. But if you give me twice the money, do I have control? No. Whoa, that's a problem. Todd, last time we'll give you 3x of money. Guys, let me now define what money is to me. Here's the word I'm Canadian, so maybe you guys in America do a little bit differently, right? So my dad taught me a word. It's called useless. And here's what useless is. It's when you have something and you don't use it. So do you know that I have money in the bank right now, which basically means I'm not using it. So it's kind of useless to me because I'm not using it because it's just sitting in a bank doing nothing, right? Do you know the reaction to people from Wall Street when you call their one product useless? Do you know how horrifying it is that they're just going, what did you just call money? Right. And eventually they stopped coming and then I remember I was at a party years later and I introduced myself and then they went.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Go public and let me tell you when my toy companies were flying did Wall Street come and knock on my door of course they did Tim Of course they did but it was I horrified them to the point that I become a bit of a talking moment because I've run into them years later they would come and here's what I found with Wall Street Todd we're going to give you X amount of dollars and we're going to buy your company Okay, that's cool, but I'm still in control. Well, no, no, no, no, no, that amount of money you're not in control. What? I got to give up control of my company. For what? Your money? Uh-huh. I already got money. I don't need any of your money. So they're like, okay. And then here's where Wall Street is literally a one trick pony. Okay, Todd. We won't give you X amount of money. We see that you're a little stubborn. We'll give you 2x.”
2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT