Guide to Todd McFarlane's Spawn (Early Access for ALL PATRONS) (Patreon)

After a challenging half year of my life (more on that, later), I'm very happy to return to you to share my first guide for a creator-owned comic as a celebration of breaking the 100-Patrons mark!

Todd McFarlane's Spawn - The Definitive Reading Order and Collecting Guide 

[NOTE: The original email for this post had an incorrect link - this link is now functional!]

(As a leading choice in April's Patrons' Straw Poll, this guide is available to all Patrons!)

Log in to CK to access this guide. Leave a comment if you do not have access to your CK login and I'm happy to help.

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Hello, awesome Patrons!

I originally planned to bring you this guide back in April but life, as they say, had other plans. 

Those other plans included a last-minute road trip, unexpected career shenanigans, getting super sick, my computer and cellphone dying, and moving house! Oh, and producing 20+ hours of House of X and Powers of X video coverage along the way with The HiX-Men Report.

I appreciate you sticking by me through the radio silence of those offline life events, because lemme tell ya - it was a somewhat terrible six months of being me (aside from the road trip, that was cool). 

I am especially thankful to folks who actually joined the campaign in that time! Y'all rock. You kept things running behind the scenes financially for CK while I barely had the time, energy, or computing resources to see if the page was still live.

Enough about me - what about this guide?

This is a direct outcome of the indie series poll I posted back in April. While I have a handful of characters left to cover at Marvel and a slew to hit at DC, there's a ton of unexplored territory for indie comics characters - and these characters aren't covered as well elsewhere on the web (and certainly not in the comprehensive Krisis style).

With Spawn now crowned as the ruling Guiness World Record holder as the longest-running creator-owned superhero of all-time (and with him coming in at 3rd place out of 10 options in the April poll), he seemed like the natural place to begin.

As with many of my guides, researching Spawn's publishing history held many surprises for me.

I had no idea that his first 100 issues were so comprehensively covered in every imaginable format - slipcase, oversize hardcover, deluxe paperbacks, and regular-size trades. He has one of the best and most-logical reprint coverage across multiple formats of any superhero, ever, once you get past how similarly-named all of the reprint lines are.

(I wonder if there is a Guinness World Record for that.)

The next surprise was how coherently told the Story of Spawn has been. I was under the impression that Spawn's narrative has splintered into many other titles, but that's not really the case.

Though there have been a handful of supporting ongoing series expanding Spawn's universe, you can absolutely read Spawn #1 through Spawn #300 while only breaking for one non-sequential issue - 2015's Spawn: Resurrection.

Finally, I had no idea of the creative consistency behind Spawn. Todd McFarlane an Greg Capullo pencil over 90% of Spawn's first decade, and there are only 35 issues of Spawn which aren't at least co-plotted by McFarlane. 

Even after the McFarlane/Capullo art era, Spawn has had many periods of consistent art, from several years by Angel Medina to Szymon Kudranski's star-making turn before his jump to Big Two comics like Punisher and Action Comics.

This guide doesn't quite cover the entire world of Spawn - there are some supporting titles without Spawn's name on them, plus a certain elusive supporting character to address. Look for more on that in the future.

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What's up next for comic guides?

I don't want to over-promise and under-deliver to you - but, I also want to et my expansion plans back in gear.

November has always been a big month at CK - it was the month I first launched this campaign in 2016 and when I debuted my video series in 2017. I'm hoping to bring something similarly big to you next month, but if this year has taught me anything it's that my best laid plans will always go awry.

If things don't go horribly wrong, you will at minimum see a new Marvel, DC, and indie guide coming your way.

One note on Spawn as the first of hopefully many indie guides to come: these will be different than Marvel and DC Guides in that they will not have an extremely-lengthy period of exclusivity for Patrons. I want to help support indie creators by having these out in the world to promote their work, so they will debut to the public closer to their release to you.

As always, I value your feedback - both on this new guide and in general. Don't hesitate to comment to let me know your thoughts - including what's on your most-wanted guides list!

Current Exclusives For Crushing Cadets ($1/month): 16 Guides!

DC Guides: Batman - Index of Ongoing Titles, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight

Marvel Guides: Alpha Flight, Blade, Dazzler, Domino, Dracula, Elsa Bloodstone, Legion, Marvel Era: Marvel Legacy, Sabretooth, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Weapon X, X-Man - Nate Grey 

Indie & Licensed Comics: Spawn 

Current Exclusives For Pledgeonauts ($1.99+/month): 44 Guides!

DC Guides: Animal Man, Aquaman, Books of Magic, Catwoman, Batman - Index of Ongoing Titles, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Flash, Harley Quinn, Houses & Horrors, Justice League, Lucifer, Mister Miracle, Nightwing, Outsiders, Sandman Universe, Suicide Squad, Swamp Thing 

Marvel Guides: Alpha Flight, Ant-Man & Giant-Man, Champions, Darkhawk, Blade, Dazzler, Domino, Dracula, Elsa Bloodstone, Falcon, Gwenpool, Legion, Marvel Era: Marvel Legacy, Moon Boy / Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur, Ms. Marvel: Kamala Khan, Power Pack, Sabretooth, Scarlet Witch, Sentry, Silk, Spider-Gwen, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Venom, Vision, Weapon X, X-Man - Nate Grey 

Indie & Licensed Comics: Spawn