The Jordan Harbinger Show - Todd McFarlane | Reinventing Spider-Man and Spawning an Empire

Episode Date: June 4, 2024

Listen here to discover how Todd McFarlane reinvented comic book icons, founded Image Comics, and revamped the toy business with a priority on quality! What We Discuss with Todd McFarlane: How Todd McFarlane successfully reinvented Spider-Man and created the iconic character Venom while working at Marvel Comics, despite facing resistance from his bosses who were reluctant to change the status quo. Why Todd left Marvel to co-found Image Comics, which became the third-largest comic book company in the world — and where he set records for independent comic book sales with his highly successful character Spawn. Why Todd emphasizes the importance of creating the best possible product and offering it at a competitive price point, even if it means spending more time and money than the competition. How Todd's unorthodox negotiation tactics allow him to outlast opponents in meetings and get better deals. Todd is a living example that you can succeed by embracing your creativity, focusing on quality, and challenging the status quo. With hard work and a willingness to innovate, you can make a significant impact in your chosen field. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/999 This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like this show? Please leave us a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is sponsored in part by Conspiruality Podcast. You know how I'm always talking about critical thinking and spotting manipulation? Well, there's a podcast that's all about dismantling new age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy med yogis, basically the wild overlap of spirituality and misinformation. It's called the Conspiruality Podcast. The hosts, a journalist, cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic, dive deep into how this stuff spreads, from Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation's dystopian vision of the future to how former leftists get pulled into far-right conspiracies.

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Find Conspirality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you do. get your podcasts. Coming up next on the Jordan Harbinger show. The question, ladies and gentlemen, and this is the piece of my life that is the biggest head scratching. It's not how did I get it so accurate. It's how did they not. Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around do. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long-form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers, even the

occasional special operator, real-life pirate, hacker, astronaut, or national security advisor. And if you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show, and I always appreciate it when you do that, I suggest our episode starter packs as a place to begin. These are collections of our favorite episodes on persuasion and negotiation, psychology and geopolitics, disinformation, and cyber warfare, AI. crime and cults and more that'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Another quick reminder, Google Pods is closing.

Google Podcasts. If you use that, you can't get skeptical Sunday or feedback Friday. Once it switches you over to YouTube, you've got to get something like CastBox or pocket casts or you're not going to be able to get every episode of this show. So just a little PSA there if you're using Google Podcasts. Today on the show, Todd McFarlane, creator and founder of one of the largest comic books and toy companies in the world, Image Comics. Todd got his start at Marvel, where even though he was making basically peanuts for his drawings,

he reinvented Spider-Man, a little character called Venom before he left and created Spawn, which is a massive runaway success in the world of comics. To be honest, I didn't really expect to be so interested in this stuff. I was into comics as a kid, but I figured I was kind of done with that era. However, getting to know Todd having this conversation has just been an absolute masterclass,

not only in the business of comics and toys, but I think anybody in any industry can take something away from this one. There's a lot of sort of general, really good advice about creating things, marketing them, doing deals. Todd is also an Emmy and Grammy Award winner. Really just a Renaissance guy, super impressive, and I think you're going to dig this one. So here we go with Todd McFarland.

I never thought I would do a show about comics or the business of comics, not because I don't like comics. I just kind of figured outgrown isn't quite the right word, because when I see them, I'm still like, oh, these are really cool. I just stopped collecting them. I stopped buying them. And that era kind of fell behind me, but the business of comics is no less fascinating, man.

And you're kind of a maverick in that world. And so I appreciate you coming on today to talk about that a little bit. Yeah, sure. Thanks for having me today. Appreciate it. So it's hard to know where to begin because you kind of, you worked at Marvel, which is like, okay, everybody knows Marvel. And then it's like, I'm going to change Spider-Man.

I'm guessing I'm missing a few steps here because they probably don't let you just draw Spider-Man however you want. in the beginning. No, they don't. No, they don't. So here's the typical sort of path. You strive to get into the business. If you're lucky, you catch your break.

I caught mine three weeks before I graduated college. Wow. And I had been sending off samples all the way through. So, although I have a degree, never had to use it. And so I went into comic books. And then the way they promote you, like every time you ask, it's an interesting way they do it, and they still kind of do it today,

is every time you ask for a raise, they will go, no, I'm not going to give you a raise. They don't really say that. But what they'll do is they'll find out who your favorite characters are. Like if your favorite character, Jordan, was Captain America. Let's say, okay, Punisher. Yeah.

And you came in for a raise, right? And you go, hey, man, I'm only making a hundred bucks a page. I like 110. Then they go, yeah, you know what? We'll take that on consideration. But you know what, Jordan? We're thinking about maybe putting you on a Punisher miniseries possibly.

There's a probable chance. Like, basically they use all these sort of outs. And what ends up happening is you walk out of that room and you're going, oh, man, I might possibly do maybe a punisher. And my question is, did you get your race? No. The answer is no. So I started collecting comics at light.

I wasn't like a fanatic all the way up to 16. That's when I started collecting. So I didn't really have a favorite, right? So they couldn't kind of use that on me. But the gist of what ends up happening is the way they promote you is with characters, right? So you go from doing characters that your mom and dad haven't heard to doing characters that they had. So I'd been in the industry probably two, three years. And then eventually I got to draw The Incredible Hulk.

And that was when my parents went, man, you've made it. You made it, right? It's like, I've been doing this for years and I get paid the same amount. It's just that it was a name that they had heard. So I was now legit. Yeah. And then eventually I ended up getting fast enough. I could do two books.

And I was doing Hulk. And so I said, hey, I'm going to go look for another book. And without knowing my personality, like, you never tell me not to do something because it gets my eye up. So all the editors were saying, Todd, whatever you do, you're looking for another book. You're starting to sort of get a little bit of sunshine on your career. Don't go into the Spider-Man office. And so I was like, dude, what do you think?

made a B-line to the office. Now, they were right. The office was in flux. They couldn't keep creative people. And at that point, I believe Spider-Man, and again, they had multiple books, but let's take the big book, Amazing Spider-Man. It was number 21 at their company.

For like sales ranks, you mean? Sales ranks. Got it. And they just said, hey, we're looking to put a creative team together, whatever you guys can do to boost this up, do it. So I looked at it and went, oh, cool, okay, cool, I'll take that challenge. And then a writer came on. And Spider-Man, Peter Parker was wearing a black costume at that point.

And although most employees, if they give you their granddaddy, their icon, their status quo character, you just go, man, thanks. But I was not that guy. You're like, I'm going to change some shit. Yeah, I just go, I'm not, I'd like to draw Spider-Man, I'm not going to do it. He's got a black costume. That's not Spider-Man. and Spider-Man's got the red and blue with the webbing. That's like, I don't have any interest in that.

And I go, but if we get rid of the black costume, then we'll be okay. And they were like, no, you know, we're doing it. And the editor-in-chief likes it. He had something to do with it and whatever else. And so I went, okay, how about we do this? How about if I create a new character and we take the costume off Peter Parker and we put on another character, and then we can get back to the blue and red costume? That character ends up being Venom, right?

Wow. So Venom ends up being this happy billion-dollar accident that was only created because I was too stubborn to just listen to my bosses, draw Peter Parker in the black costume. I just went, no, I'm not going to do it. So we go off there. Then I jump into Spider-Man, and here's the change. And here's a little bit of sort of looking at your career. I, amongst tens of millions of people, have to survive in industries where you have a lot of competition. Yeah.

So I was up against hundreds and hundreds of other creative people. How do you make yourself different? And the answer is you've got to not repeat, I think, at least in our industry, some of the tricks that have already been laid down because you just become a copier. Right? I've always told people, look, if you're going to, I don't recommend painting like Norman Rockwell. And here's why? Because if you become really great at it, you know what the best you can hope for?

is that they'll go, man, that guy is a great Norman Rockwell imitator. You will never get rid of Norman Rockwell out of that sentence. You will never be on your own two feet. So I was looking at Spider-Man, and I looked at it, and it essentially had been repeating the same trick from 1965 until I'd walked into that office, which was about 1988, 89, something like that. And I was staggered that they had not updated it in almost two-plus decades. Two-plus decades.

I'm like, it still looked like a 1965 comic book to me. Now, the look was brilliant. Let me go on record to say it. The look, it was done by an artist named John Rameda Sr. And he created the iconic look of Spider-Man that we all close our eyes and we think about that look in our head as our child. Right. In our childhood, that's the look.

So he was my Norman Rockwell. And I go, I'm a fool if I try to imitate that. because I've seen 25 years of people doing it. So I go, no, let's see if we can't sort of first modernize them. At the time, it was funny, Jordan. I didn't think I was doing anything out of the ordinary. I just want his name is Spider-Man. And the only difference I did, and I've said this before,

was that they did Spider-Man emphasis on man. And when I took it over, I did Spider-Man emphasis on Spider-Spider. So I made big eyes, and I made his costume where it was blue, added a lot more black, and I put way more webs on his costume. And then I created new webbing for him because the webbing to me was super bland and it wasn't functional.

And so I created this sort of new way of doing the webbing and stuff. Anyway, the gist of it was I was messing with the icon. Yeah. So it was a little Canadian kid. You know, every now and then I'd go into New York and they would call me on the carpet and they would go, Todd, you got to stop doing that.

Right? You got to stop doing that. Now, a couple things were happening. I knew sales were going up, right? Okay. And so, again, I think the average, and I think this is a safe bet for an employee that when the boss tells you to do something, you do it. I wasn't that guy.

What I would do is I would say, yes, I'm going to do it. And then I wouldn't. Because I knew it would, then I knew it would be another 90 days before they would come around and check, right? It's a risky dice roll, though, man. Like, sometimes you just get fired when you do that. Yeah, but I knew that I knew that the fans were there. And so we kept going back and forth and back and forth on this, right?

To the point that that webbing, I've told the story forward that the editor-in-chief at that point was an Italian guy. And he just got so mad at me because every time he came in there, they would just wag their finger at me. And they would go, man, and then one day he just went, you've got to stop making the big eyes and you've got to stop doing those crazy poses and all. And then that spaghetti weapon, you got to stop it. And all I heard, it was like a Charlie Brown scene where I just went, want, want, want, spaghetti webbing.

Because I didn't have a name for him at that point. And I went, wow, spaghetti webbing. So I'm getting abused by him verbally. And all I hear is spaghetti webbing. And I go, man, he just gave me a name for it. That's super cool. And so I said, yes, okay, I'll make sure that I change it. And I walked out, and I could show you the issue.

I actually made them twice as long and twice as big as they were before. The webbing. The webbing. All of it, all of it, everything I was doing. The final meeting sort of comes in. And again, the wagging their finger. at me. And it just goes like this. And here's what I don't understand about corporate America. Here's I don't understand about life in humans as a whole. There are only from my perspective,

I'm an old man from my perspective. There's only two constants in life. Two things that I can bank on. One, we're going to all die. That's a given. That's a given. Number two, change. It is inevitable because we'd all be living in caves still. It's an inevitable change. I don't understand And this is, I guess, personalities. I am disinterested in yesterday. It's gone. It's gone. I can't do anything about it.

I can learn from it, but I can learn from it and then apply it today and tomorrow. I don't care about yesterday, which is status quo. And I've told young people, I think the biggest enemy you will run into in your life are people protecting status quo. And so the last conversation I sort of had with them, I don't understand why we keep having this conversation. First off, by that point, Spider-Man was the number one selling book. Yeah, and you changed it to Fetuccini-Webbing from spaghetti webbing? Whatever.

Yeah. Whatever. I think I'm doing my job. You hired me. You're in the publication business. Your job is to sell comic books. I have the number one selling comic book currently. Number one, I make more money for you than anybody you employ, and yet I am the bad guy I

here, and yet I'm going to get reprimanded one more time. You're messing with Mickey Mouse, though, right? Like, that's their icon. But it doesn't matter that you're messing with the icon. They're in the commerce business. That is their job. They are a public company. They make money. That's their job. And I was making them money. And here's where it gets strange for Canadians. When you do a favor for somebody in Canada, people say thank you, not fuck you, right? And so I'm in the room with these people and getting reprimanded because they were more concerned about the process. Yeah. Instead of the goal and the goal was to make money and I was making the money.

I was accomplishing what they, but I wasn't doing it their way. Right. It's like asking me to come to a party at 10 o'clock at night and then I get there at 10, along with everybody else, and berating me because I didn't take the same street and highway that you took. It doesn't matter. The goal was to get here at 10 and I'm here. Why are we having this conversation?

And eventually, Jordan, they just wore me out. They wore me out and I ended up leaving. But here's the funny part of, if you want to call it, the ironic part of that story I just told you. The way that Spider-Man has been drawn ever since I left, and that was, I guess, over 30 years ago, it still has a heavy, heavy, heavy, Todd McFarlane influence.

Yeah, it's kind of the standard now. Right, right. So that guy that I was saying, why would I repeat him, I was the bad guy, but when I left, it was so successful, all you kids now have to draw like Todd. It's weird to me.

Again, I don't think that's what they should be doing because there may be another kid comes along that could add 10 new things that may make the sales go up five, six, seven, eight times. But that's just not how we're, built. That's not how corporations are built. We're built to protect our billion dollars, which you should, because they have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits to the shareholders every 90 days. That's their job. I don't begrudge it. I understand it. And honestly,

Jordan, I take advantage of it. But that's what they have to do. Okay, fine. You guys do what you want to do. But here's the problem with protecting too much. Every now and then somebody comes along and they build a better mousetrap, and they have success. And all of a sudden, ask IBM how they let Apple come along and take over some of their, like there's hundreds and hundreds of these stories where somebody in their garage came up with a better idea and was able to take on the giants because they just built a little bit better mousetrap. Big deal. When Marvel finally was wearing you out, was it obvious when it was time to leave?

like, okay, I know I'm, they're calling me, there's a meeting tomorrow, they're going to say the exact same stuff, or was there like a breaking point? Because what I would love is that story, but also maybe any almost general advice for people who are stuck in a job and they're like, should I leave or is everybody putting up with this crap? And it's like, no, here's, you know, if you got a rule of thumb or something like that, I'm all years. So I, I've told my employees, I go, I think everybody should be an entrepreneur at least once. And here's why. Because if you fail, you can go back and do what you were doing before. To me, it's like cutting your hair. If you don't like the hairstyle, let it grow back and go back to your old hairstyle, right? You can always go

back to the system, but you should try it once because you might succeed and I got to tell you, has somebody's been out there, freedom and not having to get people to give you the right to move forward. Yeah. I own my own companies. I get to wake up on a lot of the, the, the I make and do exactly what I want with nobody's approval needed. I don't need it. And it's a good life. Be your own boss. I think it's pretty easy. But again, I think it's a personality. It is. I'm in the same boat though, man. I was with another company that I also owned, but I had business partners. And it was just exhausting trying to get them to do the right. I spent 80% of my energy on some days trying to get them to realize that there was one kind of way to do something.

and then I would sometimes, you win some, you lose some, and I would win some, and then they would immediately be like, I'm so glad we thought of this. And I wanted to be like, I could twist your head off. It took me a week and a half to convince you morons to do this. And I eventually left. It was an acrimonious split. And then I re-grew this show inside of a year

what took us 11 years to build with the other business because you're swimming upstream with morons if they have an equal vote. Well, what I have to do is say they're a corporation, they have to do A, B, and C. And in this case, like I said, they have to maximize shareholder profit. So they have to do what they think is best.

We can debate what they did was the best or not. That's another conversation, but that's what they're doing. I then have to say, can I personally live in that situation? And the answer for me was, no, my personality wouldn't allow me. I have to eventually just go, I got to go.

I'm not here to say they should change their ways. I'm just going, Todd. they are in their ways. They're locked in their ways, status quo. And so you either have to accept that, Todd, or you've got to go and do something. What I am not inclined to do, Jordan, is I'm not a guy who stands by the water cooler and complain.

I either accept what's in front of me or I go and change it. I mean, this may sound silly, but it's true. I got my sort of life philosophy when I was probably seven, eight, although my personality was there from the womb. But when I was a kid, living actually down here in California,

and I used to watch way too many cartoons when I was a kid. But like six, seven times a day, there was this commercial that would come on, and this cool dude would look at me, had this sassy-looking hat, and a cool look, and he'd go, only you can prevent forest fires.

Now, when I was seven, I want, man, he's talking, smoky's talking about fires. And by the time I got to eight, I want, I don't think he's talking about fires. I think he's talking about my life and personal responsibility. And so it was like, oh, so he's saying, if you've got a problem, it's your problem, Todd. Solve it, solve it. And that was it. And then I just went, oh, okay, this is on me.

I can't blame anybody else and expect anybody else to bend their, will towards mine. So when I walked into Marvel at the very beginning, right out of college, I had done my homework on the industry. And I knew that the industry had used and abused creative people since it's dawn. And so I went in eyes wide open. Yeah, you learned it early. You learned the lesson early. So what did that mean for me? That meant that all the ideas I had in my portfolio, all the things that were spinning in my head, I kept them to myself. Because there was no system that they had, either Marvel or DC, that I thought was conducive or fair-minded enough to take them out of my portfolio and give them to the corporations. Now, if they give you a plot

and a story, and they say draw this character and create another character, then I did it, right? And again, I helped create venom for them. Do you get royalties for that, or is it like, thanks, bro? Ha, that's a whole other can of worms. But, yeah, you get a few shekels. Okay. Off their billions. Yeah. I'll look for the lawsuit in the public record.

It might be in those. Oh, man. Oh, man. I'm just kidding. Yeah, don't, like, someday I would love to be in a lawsuit of being the little guy. I've been in lawsuits from the big guy. I'd love to be the little guy. Oh, man.

But anyways, so let's go back to your earlier question. I'll tell you the story of the straw. That broke the camel's back. Yeah. At this point, I had done Amazing Spider-Man. And remember, they were like, Todd, you got to stop, stop, stop, stop. And then they saw the sales go up. And then eventually I go, hey, I want to start writing my own book.

I was only an artist. And I go, I'm going to quit Spider-Man because I wasn't going to muscle the writer off, which I could have because my career was shooting way up and I could have muscled anybody at that point. But I go, no, I'm not going to do that because I wouldn't want somebody to do that to me. So trying to be fair-minded. So I left and I said, I'm going to go find another book. And I'm going to find somebody probably on a lower-selling book that will let me, write and draw, but they're going to want my artwork because I was winning a bunch of awards at this point.

And the Marvel heads came and they said, hey, Todd, we've been thinking for a while about creating a fourth Spider-Man book. At that point, they had three. And they said, if we create a fourth one, then we'll have basically a Spider-Man book come out every week. We can publish them every week. So there'd be Spider-Man not once a month, which every book comes out once a month. But if you've got four of them, then you get one every week. And so they said, don't quit Spider-Man. We want you to stay on Spidey because the sales are doing so good.

What if we let you write a new Spider-Man number one? So, again, being fair, I said, you understand I've never written. So what you're saying right now is you're about to give a big, giant event book to a newbie writer. And they were like, yeah, fine. Because it keeps Todd the artist on,

even though Todd the writer was going to be his first time out of the gate. Wow. So they gave me that book. It set records. The record, it's the highest sales for a single creator ever in comic books, and that record still stands today.

And so I'm going, okay, cool. They gave me the book, and I got to write all my stuff, and I like monsters. So if you look at my run, I put a monster almost in every book. But we did a crossover, sort of forced this crossover on me

with X-Men or whatever. And then here's the moment. There's a character, his name's Juggernaut, like sort of indestructible. He's got all this armor on. You can't beat him, blah, blah, blah. So I came up with this idea that what he does have is isolates in the armor.

So I took one of the characters. I had them take their sword and put it in his eye. Yeah. There was literally a crack, a chink in the armor, if you will. Yeah. And so I put it in there and then had happened over the years. The phone rings and it's like, hey, you can't do this. Comics code, right?

Isn't there like a... That's it. The Comics Code. And the Comic Code came in the big Senate hearings in 1960 when they were saying that comic books were destroying children. It basically is what created Marvel Comics because they were called timely comics. They shut it down.

After the Senate hearings, they created this new company called Marvel Comics. The first book out is called Fantastic Four. And off goes Marvel, right? So the Comics Code had been up in the corner, Marvel and D.C. ever since. And they said, you can't stab somebody. We've got to get you to draw it.

Now, again, there's nothing worse than drawing and creating something, and then somebody's saying you've got to throw it out and redo it. Yeah, no kidding. And again, it's just a page here, a page there, but it's just you're constantly on a deadline, and you don't want it backtrack, right? So what are you talking about? What are you talking about? We can't stab somebody.

And I gave him a couple examples. One of the big examples was there's this very famous cover where this bad guy is stabbing a character called Elektra on a Daredevil book. And Frank Miller, who became one of our big iconic artist. He did it. And I go, of course you can stab people. They did it on the Daredevil one. And they went, yeah, but there is no rear exit wound.

What that means is that you put the sword in the front and it comes out the back. Now, if you look at that drawing, here's the absurdity of life. If you look at that drawing, the knife comes out her back. It just that it doesn't rip the clothes. So there's like a tent happening in the back. That's ridiculous. So all the intent is there. And I'm telling you, if you've got a child,

five or older, they will know what's happening. But because it didn't pierce the cloth out the back, it only made a teepee, it was okay. That's so arbitrary, man. But it was still a stab. Also, the punishers, like, shooting people hundreds of times with machine guns and using, and it's like, oh, this is fine.

Well, I'm going to tell you, it depends on how you can shoot the guns or whatever. You couldn't show, like, blood. Again, the bullets and stuff. It was some really weird stuff. I go, guys, this is absurd. So here's what's going to happen. I'm about to have my first child.

You guys have worn me out. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to hand you the page. You can do whatever the hell you want. I'll even give you some little drawings to help you fix it, whatever else. You guys then go in your editorial thing, fix it. Any way you see fit.

I'm also here to say, this is my last book. I'm done. I can't do this. I just, I need to move on. Yeah, no kidding. I had to finish that book literally within days of my daughter being born. Wow.

And I've never drawn a page for Marvel or DC since. I'm curious, what happened to the juggernaut pages where they're like, no. Do you keep that stuff or is it like, I'm just throwing it away? Oh, no, I have it. No, no, I used to sell my original artwork. I kept that page. I framed it. I think it's the only page I've ever framed.

I framed it and put it up on the wall just as a reminder of what that sort of system experience meant. I have the straw. Let me just tell you. The thing that broke the camel's back, I have the straw. I'm glad to hear that. I was just thinking, what a cool, like, piece of symbolism where you were like, you know what, to hell with this? This is the page that broke me.

And also, it's kind of illegal or whatever against the comics code. Yeah, it's never been printed. Nobody's seen the unedited version of it. Yeah, I was hoping you weren't like, oh, yeah, I left it in my office when I left Marvel and like the cleaning crew threw it away. No. But back then, okay, so you leave and you start, you walk out, but there's only like two games in town with comics back then, right? I mean, there's little games, but Marvel and there's

DC, and like, maybe, I don't know, Valiant existed still at that point, but it's not like, there was nothing like big going on. No, no, you're right. Marvel, D.C. at that point, probably were combined 96% of the business. Yeah. And historically, Jordan, that's exactly how it worked, right, for creative people. If you were at Marvel and you got mad at Marvel, you walked across street to DC. If you were working at DC and you got mad at DC, you walked across street to Marvel. And then when you got mad again, the second time,

you basically went back to the Zachson. I mean, literally, people zigzag their careers back and forth because that's where the opportunities and the steady work was. But again, when you're sort of hopped up a little bit and you just go, screw it,

then the thought of creating another possibility, we didn't think we would have the impact that now, fast forward 30 years, and we've been the third biggest company for 30 years, we didn't think we were going to make the impact that we did. We were all just leaving, because we were all just frustrated personally for our own personal reasons within the system. And we got out of the gate and we exploded. And this company that was supposed to last six months and then we were going to all come crawling back never happened. And we are, I think,

into year 33 right now. Wow. Incredible. There's such a fine line between knowing you've had enough and knowing what you're doing and leaving and starting something else and just having like a delusional ego that gets you in trouble and being like, oh, you burn bridges at both places. Good luck, pal. I mean, you add the talent and you had a lot of connections.

I'm not an advocate and a lot of cliches, and that's one of them. Todd, come on, man. Don't burn a bridge. Of course you can burn a bridge. If you never are going to walk back over it, burn it down to the ground. Of course you can. It's okay. to have enemies. It's okay to have stuff. There are a lot of nevers that are there. Here's what I promise you. I will never go back to high school. It's in my past. It's done. I enjoyed it. It was fine.

I'm never going to do it. I'm a glass-half-full guy that I just, I'm the opposite. I do have my own ego and delusions. I actually think I can do anything. That's my delusion. And so I worry about failure when I finally am confronted with it, not worrying in advance of it. I just go, let's go do it. And then eventually you have to go, man, maybe we bit off more than we thought. And now we're going to have to readjust on the fly.

But for me, that works way better than hesitating at the beginning, then doubting at the beginning what to do. So when I go up on stage Jordan sometimes, I split my personality and I walk over to one side of the stage, and I go, okay, I'm going to talk to you as a, hopefully as a friend as a father, as brothers.

I'm going to say, I think you can do what you want. I think you can do it. And here's why, because I think I'm a knothead, and I was able to just do it. On a scale 1 to 10, I think I'm a 7-ish. I think there are thousands that are way, way, way, way, way better than me. and I don't say that humbly. I say that as a fact.

As a fact, there are hundreds, if not thousands of people that can outdo what I do. But there's another piece to it. Then there's the hustle. And I am relentless on that part. I go, I'm kind of dumb, got a little bit of skill,

but I'm dogged. That combination actually can work. You know, I recommend that you guys all just try, whatever it is that you think you're going to try. You should do it because you don't know, right? You don't know until you do it, the old adage, you're never going to make any basket and basketball

that you never shoot. Wake up every day and your prayer should be, why not me? Why not me? And now I got a different message. I hope you don't do it. I hope you don't do it. I hope you put doubt in your brain.

I hope you question yourself. I hope you think you're not good enough. I hope you listen to the people who say no. And here's why. I will never have to compete with you. make my life easy. Make it so that I'm in a race with five people instead of 500. Five people, I have a chance of winning.

500? Wow. Too much talent. But go ahead and doubt. You can't. So I've had plenty of artists come up to me that I have skill, but that doubt to me is the piece. And at times it's got to be a little bit, I think, harsh.

I'm just going, here's what I'll do for you. I will not give and care. more about you than you do yourself. So if you don't want to advocate and give a shit about your career, why should I? I think you're great. I think you could amount to a lot. But if you don't want it, it is not my job to drag you across the line. So here's what I'll do. Once you get over that piece, and the majority won't because of personality, then I'll be your biggest cheerleader. I know how push as much as I can. But I'm not going to drag you. All right, folks. Well, I don't run a billion dollar comic company, and I rely on you to support the fine products and services

that support this show. We'll be right back. If you're wondering how I managed to book all these great authors, thinkers, and creators every single week, it is because of my network, the circle of people I know like and trust, and I'm teaching you how to build your network for free over at six-minute networking.com. I realize you're not booking a podcast. It doesn't matter. This is great for work, great for personal. I don't care if you're retired or new to your career. You are going to be a better connector, a better colleague, a better friend, and a better peer in a way that is non-cringy, down-to-earth. Todd McFarlane would approve of these tactics. They're not awkward, they're not cheesy. They're just practical exercises that'll make you better in six minutes a day.

And many of the guests on our show, subscribe and contribute to the course. So come on and join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. You can find the course. Again, it's all free at six-minute networking.com. Now, back to Todd McFarland. You've known a ton of creators. I know a lot of creators. The problem is a lot of people, you either learn business yourself or you let other people help you with it, but the problem is, I think the default for creatives is, oh, you know, I'm going to let my agent handle this or like, you know, I got to hire a manager because I just can't fill in the blank, like stick to my calendar, make it to meetings on time, whatever.

Podcasting is large, there's a lot I'm hearing that's in common with comics here in podcasting. You had agents. Yeah, you might need an agent for some things. But, you know, and look, my agent, she's very good at so many things. I don't need them for most of this stuff because I already know what is going on with my business and I can negotiate stuff and so I end up not needing that.

They're like, we want to be involved in this. I'm like, no, I got this. Other creators, other podcasters, like, what are you doing? But over 17 years that I've been doing the show, the answer is building a business and keeping most of my money. Yeah. What is this about you never having to pee

when you're in line signing things? I got a friend who's like, yeah, I stood there and this is years ago, I guess at a Comic Con. And he's like, yeah, Todd never went to the bathroom. Like, that's not possible. That can't be a thing. Okay, so there was a book called The Art of War.

Yeah, Sun Su. And so I do have a few chapters that I'll write someday, right? So let's talk about the bladder, because I actually think the bladder is undervalued in life. Here's the thing. I have a camel bladder. I thank my dad for it, because I went on a trip one time. He was driving me down to the San Diego Comic-Con. And one night he got up in the middle of the night.

I guess take a pee. And he woke me up and then he went back to bed. And then like, I guess three hours later, he got up again, took a pee, woke me up again. And then I think the third time, I woke up to him eating nacho chips at the edge of the bed at like 5.30 in the morning. I'm like, what are you doing? He goes, well, I got up for a pee.

I couldn't go back to sleep. Peak, Dad. And that night horrified me. I made a personal mission going, I will never ever ever be that person again. Ever be that person again. Oh, God. You mean, when you're young, you have a good bladder. But I go, I'm never going to get an old man bladder.

And I don't. Now, again, let me just quickly give you the way to get there, and then I'll tell you how to use it. The way to get there is simple, ladies and gentlemen. It is biology. If you put nothing in your top hole and nothing comes out of any of the bottom holes. It's just simple biology. I don't drink coffee, tea, drink water. I don't put anything in.

So why would I have to go and get rid of what I never put in? So it's easy not to go to the bathroom when you don't have anything. in your bladder, done. We'll talk about whether you should be doing that. That's another conversation. But I've trained myself. So when I go, like I did a signing not long ago, you know, these private signings I do once every three years or something.

And I got there at seven in the morning and I would sit there until midnight, whatever that is, 17 hours. 17 hours. And I wouldn't eat, go to the bathroom, do anything. And they didn't think that was true. I told them, like, I'm not moving. And then they had to bring in two shifts. they had to bring in the morning and then the night shift

and then they had to have enough people so that the people on each one of the shifts could actually go get food and go to the washer. Right. Right? Because those are normal functioning things that most people do. I just have trained my body to not do it. Now, let me tell you how to take advantage of it

if you got a good bladder. Is number one, when I used to go to conventions, everybody was always either going to the bathroom or going for lunch or whatever. I don't get hungry. Let me just tell you. My wife has never heard me utter the words I'm hungry. Right? I eat because I know scientifically I need fuel in my body. That's why I eat. But I've never

felt the urge of hunger. That's bizarre. You know that, right? It isn't. Right. But good on me if you're going to war. Right. So when I'm at a convention and everybody leaves for their breaks, I don't. And guess what happens, Jordan? When you're the only guy sitting there doing free autographs. People won't stand in line to the guy who's going to be gone for an hour and a half. They either leave or they go, huh, Todd's here. I don't know who he is. He's a schmuck. I think his stuff is okay.

But he's here and he's free and I'll get in line and he's going to give me something. And somewhere along the line, you can convert some of those people into being loyal fans. And so why? Because I got a better bladder than them. And I don't drink and drug,

which may seem weird. My wife said if you had any vice, Todd, you'd be in jail. Billion dollar bladder. All of my energy is just self-contained. I don't know where it comes from. It's from bottling up all that piss, man, over the last 40 years. Maybe. Maybe my oldest daughters are doctors.

You go, Dad, that's not super healthy for you. But anyway, but let me tell you where it works in business. And in business, and I've done this more than once, Jordan, to exacting success. So people, if you want to try it, it works. I live in Phoenix, Arizona. It can get incredibly hot in the summer. All of you've read about it, right? It's stupid, oppressive heat.

Yeah. Every now and then, I get into quandaries with corporations and businesses and people and lawyers and whatever else. And I try as much as possible to go, well, we're going to finalize this. We're going to finalize this contract. We're going to get this done. Meet me at my house. We're going to solve this.

And we don't leave until we solve it. So I get a couple people from the lawyer's office, usually dudes. And they come into the office and they walk in and they're in a three-piece suit. Now, as soon as I see there in a three-piece suit, I already know that I've won. We haven't even begun the match. It's 110 in Phoenix, and they're a three-piece suit. I'm winning. So they come in because, again, they're professionals, right?

And I'm just the artist, madman. I make sure that the room that I'm in, my desk faces the sun. I've done a couple of things. I've turned down the AC so that it's hotter and stuffier in the room. And then I open up the curtains, which I usually have clothes. I open it up so that that room is going to get even twice as hot. Now, just so you know, I've been living in Phoenix long enough. I'm a cockroach.

I can live under any conditions. I'm Canadian. I can live under cold or hot. Don't worry about me. I'm just a human cockroach. I'm good. But most people aren't. They actually eat, pee, and are not cockroaches.

So, again, all of this is to my advantage. And so they come in there, and I know that the room is stuffy, so I make sure there is a giant picture of water and glasses where they're sitting. Because why I know they're going to drink. Yeah. They have to. They have no choice. They got their wool suits on.

And when they walk in from getting out of the taxi or their Uber or whatever, I go, I've got one condition today. We're going to sit in this room. I'm going to draw. My back is going to be to you. Your fear should be if I stop drawing and I turn because that's a moment where you got my attention. And I'm probably not in a good mood. But there's only one rule today. We do not leave this room until this contract is done.

And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're not leaving. I don't care. We've got to go through lunch and whatever. else, we're not leaving. Fine, fine, fine. And then they start drinking. They don't even know they're drinking, but they start drinking.

And then sometimes I even make sure there's a second picture if they go through the first picture. And then by the end of the day, I know what's happening to them. Their bladder is screaming at them. And then they get to the last couple points on that contract. And they go, no, we're never going to do it. And I go, okay, fine. Well, we got to keep going then. and I just push it and push it and push it.

And I have heard the words, back to back, go something like this. Fine. Fine, Todd. We'll give it to you. Are you satisfied? Fine. Hey, where's your bathroom? I've had that happen on more than one occasion.

I literally got what I wanted. I literally beat them in that contract because of their bladder. If they, I had tried to argue that point early in the game before they had any water, they wouldn't have conceded it, or it would have gone way too long, I probably would have lost, or I would have had to do a compromise. So at some point, I don't know,

you just, you take the tools that are in front of you, and one of them is me just having a great bladder, and I've used it to my advantage on many, many, many occasions. Are you at all worried that someone listening to this is going to wear a diaper to the next meeting they have with you? because that's the, if you want to play 3D chess with Todd, you wear a diaper to that meeting. You know what?

I would actually tip my hat because I go, that's the counter. That's the counter. Good on you. Good on you. So now I'm like, wow. So then what I would have to do, and if we won't get distracted,

is I would study to see how uncomfortable it is to be sitting in a wet diaper because I will outlast you. I will outlast you. Look at, I said, I had two commercials that really sort of made my life. One was the Smoke of the Bear. The other one was,

came a little bit later was an underarmed deodorant commercial. And that one was, never let them see you sweat, which basically meant, I don't mean physically sweat, I meant never concede that they're better than you, ever. Always consider yourself to be a peer. Never give them more than they do. So if you say to me, Todd, how are you doing? I'm great.

Every day I'm great. Even when I'm not, Jordan, that's my answer, because I'm not going to concede that I'm less than great, because I'm not going to give you an edge. Why? Because I'm just a silly guy and I'm competitive. I had a younger brother you're younger and a brother year older, and we were constantly competition.

Everything's a competition. So even how good's your day going, it's going awesome. If I say to you, Jordan, how's your day? Awesome. And you say awesome. And you go, why? How's yours? My answer is easy.

Oh, mine's awesomer. I'm going to jump on top of you every time, right? So go ahead. Also, I think I'm missing the chemical. I have it, but not. I don't think a normal amount of it, of fear. I am not afraid of almost anything. My wife leaving me.

But other than that, I'm not afraid of anybody, any time, any situation. So when I'm in a meeting with people, and I've been in rooms with 20 lawyers and agents and stuff like that, my irritation comes to me a little bit of going, no, no, no, no, I understand. I understand. No, that's an interesting point. No, and I like that. And it's like, just one to do, I got a couple questions here, but just one, I'm a Canadian, so I'm a little naive about this. And at first, would you take your own deal if they don't give me a response in a half second, even a pregnant pause tells me no. Because if it was a fair deal, they would have gone, of course, Todd. What are you talking about? I don't understand why we're even here because you're being an idiot. This is a super fair. They should say that. But they, but they, never say that. It's like, so you won't take your own deal, but you expect me to swallow it. That's not fair. Our job isn't me to get a deal over you. That's not what I'm here for.

But your job shouldn't be to get it over me. What we should be doing is trying to be fair-minded adults to compromise on a deal that we can both live with instead of you being greedy. Why are you so greedy at this moment? So if we're going to make a Hollywood deal and we're going to do a back end and we're going to do something, here's how it's going to work. A, I don't want your money right now.

Although they always want to give you money up front and they're always afraid of back ends, which is always weird. I want a back-end deal and here's how it works. I don't get any money out of your pocket until you have money in your pocket. Just so we're clear, you know what that means, a back-end deal.

I get a percentage of what's in your pocket, but I only get to take what's in your pocket. So if you make a little, I make a little. If you make a decent amount, I make a decent amount. But here's the piece that you guys don't want to do. If you make a shit ton, you don't want me to make a shit ton. You want to put caps on the ride, on the rocket ship, that if it goes to a certain place, then that's the max you will pay me.

And I max out at a point where you're making... tons. And so in hindsight, if all of us had nothing but the future in front of us, and somebody walked in and said, hey, I've got this idea and guess what? In hindsight, we all know it's going to make a billion. You'd make this deal in a heartbeat, and you'd give me whatever I wanted. But because you don't know that, you won't put on paper. If it does make a billion, then you will give me what you would give me now if you knew in advance. Why? Why? Creed. So it's like not happening on my watch. So I learned early in the game, get your deal breaker out. I did one of my big long, two-month contracts, and then we got to the deal breaker, and I blew it up. And they went,

Todd, you're not going to walk away from this. We're 98% done. You're not going to walk away for 2%. Yeah, I am, because it's the deal breaker. And so I learned after that one, and they were all mad at me. I learned after that one, get the deal breaker out on the table, but in a fair way. So if I was negotiating with you, Jordan, it would go like this. Jordan, here's my two deal breaker. I'm telling you, I will not compromise on these two. Like, I'm not going to be selfish. I get two, you get two. What's your two?

Okay, good. I know you're two. Those four are untouchable. I have to concede your two. You have to concede my two. And now let's negotiate everything in between. Done, we can get there. There's no red line on anything else.

Everything now is just an adult conversation. Right? Cool. But the problem only becomes if their deal breaker in yours is the same. then you just have to walk away. Yeah, interesting. I think what everybody is still wanting to know is, when you do finally go to the bathroom,

what color is your urine at that point? I think that's what's lingering in people's minds to close this loop. No, it's not. It should be the length of it. Like the Austin Powers? You know that scene where like... Piss?

Yeah, or Tom Hanks in the league of their own? I've easily exceeded some of those by a lot. I mean, sometimes we used to go camp and I could tell. I can actually tell my body and I go, kids, you might want to talk. time this one. Yeah. Right? I actually know when there's going to be like a

two and a half, three minute one happening right about now. They used the kids used to think I was turning on the water and then they burst in to sink because they'd go, Dad's just turning on the process. And they're like, oh my God. He's still going. Yeah. He's still going. You're from Canada. I'm from Michigan

so I can relate. That's why we have the same kind of accent or a similar accent. And these are the kind of peas where if it's in winter and you're peeing outside, the stuff that came out first is frozen solid well before you're done with the rest of it. That's how you know.

That's the mark of a good pee. Like it's already frozen on the ground. You're stacking it up. Yeah, I don't know. Like I said, the using it to your advantage, it's now valuable to me, so I wouldn't waste it there because I know I can use it.

It's as good as gold. Yeah, another place because, again... Probably the same color too. Sort of continued the trek that... I've gone against giants. I continue to every day. Right? In comic books, our company goes up against Marvel.

in D.C., Marvel is owned by Disney, and D.C. is owned by Warner Brothers. Those are pretty hefty companies, big Fortune 500 companies. And then in the toy business, I've got a toy business, I go up against Hasbro and Mattels of the world, and those are Fortune 500 companies. So I literally am at war against Giants every day in my life.

What I'm not ever trying to do, Jordan, when I'm out there, is slay the giant. I'm never going to do it. I'm not big enough. I don't have enough resources to do it. That's not the goal. The goal is to survive amongst the giants and to thrive amongst the giants. And then you get to ask sort of the ironic question, why can't the giant kill me?

They've got nothing but time and effort and money and resources and they can't squash me. Here's the thing. If I've got my toys, which I do at targets and Walmart, sometimes we have six out of the top ten sellers on any given week. I have six. my little tiny company has six out of ten. The rest of the world has four. Crazy. So I go up against giants all the time.

I am not trying to put them out of business. I am not trying to kill them. I'm not trying to do that. What I'm trying to do is find where they have blind spots and where they have sort of weaknesses, and then I go through the cracks. And so every big corporation, I said it earlier, I try to take advantage of their status quo.

And so I know how they think, I know what their moves are. I'd be a fool to try to go down that same path. So what I do is I just veer off where they're not going and say, oh, I can just scoot in between the giants there because they're not paying attention to it. So what that means in the toy business is billion dollar corporations, for the most part, are selling to moms and dads, mostly moms, and six, seven-year-old kids. That's the vast majority of their business. That's it.

So how do you counter that? How do you survive that? To me, when I was making the toys, well, I probably shouldn't make stuff that appeals to mom and six-year-olds because they're doing a brilliant job of it. I'm not saying the product is not good. I think they're doing a good job of it.

And they're making billions at it, and they're going to protect it. So go where they're not? And so when I came in on the toys, I just went, where aren't they? And I'll tell you where they're not. They're not selling anything to anybody over 14. I'll take that lane.

They have no interest in that lane because they don't think there's enough money in that. So I'll take that piece over there and it's enough of a business that I can thrive in. But to them, billion dollar companies, they're like, eh, it's not worth it.

I remember when your action figures came out, well, I don't know if this is when they first came out, but probably. They were a little bit more expensive. My mom was a little bit like, why'd you buy the expensive Spider-Man? because she doesn't know Spawn from Spider-Man, right? But we're talking like three bucks.

But I remember Spider-Man was just kind of like this, like, flat-looking, you know, piece of plastic that was painted. And Spawn had, like, veins on them or something like that. Or, like, there was just detail in there that wasn't on the other figures, a little bit bigger. And I was like, this is just so much better, right? It was so much better. And it was just, who cares about $3? Like, you're buying something that's premium.

And I would imagine corporate types told you, that that was a huge mistake and like, oh, we can't make this or you shouldn't be pricing it this way? All of it, all of it when I broke in, all of it. I was actually, at the beginning, I was $1 more. Okay. At that point, action figures were $5.99 when I came out, I was $6.99. And to your point, the people in the industry sort of pat at me on the shoulder and were like, Todd, come on, man, you can't sell something, $6.99. And here's the answer. Of course you can. Of course you can.

This is the status quo, Jordan. This is the thing that just drives me, crows. You're saying that sentence with no forethought. No forethought. Yes, you can. And here's why. You can either sell a car for 25,000. We'll call it a Fort Torres. Or you can sell a Cadillac for 50. They're both cars. If we're just going to go, you can't sell a car for 50. There's a car over there for 30. It's to the consumer. One has $50,000 of value when you buy a Cadillac. I have to assume that's why you bought it. Or, Mercedes Ben, whatever you're buying. And you thought it was a better car or you had the extra money or whatever. And you bought it. Of course, you can sell something that's priced more. What they were thinking of, Jordan, and this is their mistake. You can't sell a $5.99 toy for $6.99. I agree. I agree. What I was doing is I was making a $7.99, $7.99 toy and selling it for $6.99. I was actually giving a more value and underpricing it. Because I knew I was going to be going against their big giant brands. I didn't have any big giant brands. I was a new company. And people reacted to it. Why?

Because they understood quality. Look, the average consumer understands quality and when they've been had. And so they understood the quality and they go, I don't know what the spawn thing is, but it's bigger, which is more plastic. Again, I've told people before, never underestimate plastic. It's like chocolate. If you can get a 12-ounce chocolate bar for a buck or a 14-ounce chocolate bar for a buck, take the 14 ounces. Yeah.

Right? It's a buck. Take the more. So people were going, what? And eventually the company's caught up to my pricing anyway because they always have to maximize their margins and their profits. I don't. I'm not a public company.

I don't have to. I just have to get to basically break even and I'm happy. So especially when they got to pricing the same as me, they were going, Todd gives us more plastic, more detail, more paint, more accessories at the exact same price. So even though it's not called Batman, Spider-Man, whatever, it's kind of a value. And that's how I've survived in that marketplace for 30 years. And then a couple years ago, because I'd been saying it for 27 years prior, you give me Star Wars, Spider-Man, Superman, Batman. I can sell those. The only reason I can't

sell those? You won't give it to me. Why? Because your deals are so big, I can't afford them. But it's not that I can't sell them. So we ended up getting a small portion a couple years ago of D.C.'s vault. And in the year 2022, I believe, that small piece, which was like 10% of the 100% of DC multiverse toy, I outsold the other 90%, plus that line outsold anything Marvel anything Transformer and anything Star Wars. That little sliver, right?

So I have full faith in the consumer to know that they'll pick what they like and they'll pick value. And if you give value, it works. And then if you put quality and value and you put the name Batman on top of it, that's not even a home run. That becomes a grand slam at that point.

That was a given. They were going to buy it. Yeah. They're going, oh, man, nobody's ever done Batman this cool. Nobody ever done a Superman this cool. Nobody's ever done a Wonder Woman Flash this cool. Oh, man, this is good. Thanks, Todd.

Right, we'll come and we'll support you. Okay. Because nobody had done it before. And the reason they hadn't done it before, and then I started doing a bunch of characters, nobody had done. So it was the equivalent in sports vernacular collecting their rookie cards. People were like, man, nobody's ever made that character.

And so, again, I just make a better mousetrap. I just make a better mouse trap. That's the only way I can compete with the giant. I can't do it any other way. I have to make it better and price it less, which is where I'm at now. I think I'm in a better product, and my price is cheaper than there. It's the only way I can survive amongst the giants every single day. Well, Todd might have a bottomless bladder, but I stay well hydrated.

So now's a great time for a word from our sponsors. We'll be right back. If you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support all of the sponsors that support the show. All the deals, discount codes, and ways to support us are searchable and clickable over at Jordanharbinger.com slash deals. And if you can't remember the name of a sponsor, you can't find a code. You're not sure if we have a code for something.

Just go ahead and email me. Jordan at Jordan Harbinger.com. I am more than happy to surface that code for you. It is that important that you support those who support the show. Now for the rest of my conversation with Todd McFarlane. I've got a friend of a friend that I was talking to you a long time ago. one of the things he said that you're known for is, and you're going to probably have to fill in some blanks here,

but I guess there's like a trade show, and it's called something like Toy Fair. Maybe that's a little, yeah. Yeah, toy fair in your year. And he said, you go there and you see this awesome stuff, like really, really cool toys from all the companies, but then when it gets to, by the time it's in Walmart, it's like a crappy, like, fragile, tiny piece of plastic

that's, like, barely painted, and like the gun that they had isn't in there and, like, the swords. it's just like disappointing. He's like you never want to see a prototype toy because when you see the final, it sucks. But there's a few exceptions and you're one of them. It's like the thing at the end looks like the thing in the beginning.

And that's probably been good for your reputation because it basically says if Todd McFarland shows you something, it's basically what you're going to get, which apparently is not what is normal. Right. So more people are doing it the way that I'm doing it now because I've been at it now. We're celebrating our 30th year in the toy business.

So I've laid the blueprint and others have come along and picked it up. which is good because I think it's good for industry and for collectors across the board, which was the goal, right? I mean, I started the toy company, had no ambitions to start a toy company, but I started on one premise. Why can't these things look better, right? I'm an artist. Why can't they look better?

And so I left Marvel, remember the straw that broke the camel's back. We started Image Comic Book. When we started Image Comic Books, again, that they're largest company behind Marvel and DC, I had to create my own character, my own comic book. I pulled out this character called Spawn. Spawn was somebody I created when I was a kid when I was 16. That was the one that was in my portfolio amongst others. I never gave them away.

I pulled them out. Spawn comes out. Spawn ends up setting a record for the most sales ever by creator that is non-corporate. That record is still there. So again, to go back, I own the record both in the corporate side and the non-corporate side, right? But I'm on both sides of the fence. I accomplish both those mountaintops. but when Spawn went to the top,

then people who are licensing product look at charts. They look at them very simple. What's at the top? And so they were going, man, Spawn, which it was, was the number one selling book. Not only did sell records independently, it was the number one selling book in our industry. And so they were going, man, Spawn is outselling Superman and Batman and Iron Man and Spider-Man. He must be something. And so they were coming out of the woodwork saying,

hey, we've got to do license. but they all came with their same mindset. And so I talked to all the toy companies, and I quickly knew, and I talked to the big ones, Hasbro-Metow, playmates, there was like three or four, they were all public companies.

And they all gave me the pitch, and they were all well-done pitches, and some brought prototypes and whatever. But I could hear it, that I go, oh, they are just going to go into the formula. And spawn, again, just for people who don't know, is a character who's from the pit of hell. I don't know that he should be next to Disney

and telotubby product, right? And so when I was having conversations with these companies, I was saying, here's what I think needs to happen. I think we need to make non-traditional toys and we need to sell them in non-traditional places. Now, let's go back to what I said earlier. That's messing with years and years and years of status quo.

Like little boy, this is, not what we do. We know what we do. We're a billion-dollar company. And they're right. They make a lot of money and they're very successful. So should they have to sort of reconform themselves for me? Of course they don't. So I only had two choices, again, going back to those choices. Either give it to them and live with their system or figure out another way. And I just went, no. Just like we started a new company with comic books, I went, no. And so I finally said no to the last of them. and I picked up a phone to somebody, a buddy of mine that was sort of this entrepreneur always had his finger in a pie. And I asked a simple question, how hard is it you think it is to make toys?

And very quickly, we hired a couple people and we were at our first toy fair going, let's go and try it. Now, here's the bizarre story, and I've told this before, so some people haven't heard it. Here's how it went down. And I don't recommend this path because I don't think this lightning is going to strike that often. I was at Toy Fair, and the way that it works at Toy Fair, Fair, ladies and gentlemen, is that Hasbro had their own building 12 stories high from top to bottom. Because why? Because they do a thousand products, so you have to do it. But Tal had their own building top to bottom. I was across the street in a building, six stories. I was on one floor,

in one room on that floor, and that room was divided into 40 subbooths. I had a five-by-five booth. It was like being at a swap meet. Somewhere on one of the last days, the door opens up, the buyer for Toys R Us, and I've said before, at that point, Toys R Us was the number one toy buyer, not Walmart. I'm going back, I'm dating myself. RIP, Toys R Us. Right. So, but Toys R Us was the king. And the Toys R Us buyer walks in and everybody, I was weird, it was a weird thing. Like I said before, everybody jumped up like they were like at the Army barracks and the sergeant came in, right? And they were like, oh my God, the Pope's here. And I went, what? It's like the buyer from Toistairustod.

And so he walks, and if he walks by your five foot five booth, because we all had five by five booth, there's 40 of us, then if he walked by you, he wasn't buying your product. And then they kept walking and walking, and I could see the disappointment behind the people that he'd walked by. And then I was around the corner, so I went back to my booth. I guess I better stand here. He came around the corner, and then he stopped at my booth.

And then the words, and I've said before, I need to hunt this guy down because he might have made my career. it wasn't the buyer of Toys R Us. He had an assistant about 22, 23. So he was in my demographic of the comic books and stuff. And he said the magic words, boss, this is the guy I was telling you about.

And he must have just said, hey, this is the guy who said all those records with Spider-Man, and now he's got this character called Spawn. It's the number one selling thing. It's at the top of the charts, blah, blah, blah. He must have done some kind of sales, but I don't know.

I never had that conversation with that young man. and the Toys R Us buyer said, Hmm, so can you get me this product at this price? And my answer was, of course. I had no idea, Jordan. Oh, no. But when opportunity knocks, always say yes, and then figure it out after they leave,

whether you can or you can't. Always say yes to opportunity. Yeah. And then he said, can you deliver it on this day? And the answer was, sure, of course. I had no idea. And he said, if you can do that, I'm going to put you into Toys R Us storewide.

Usually when they sample something, they don't put it in storewide. So regional. Regional, just test. And he goes, I'll go store wide. And I went, we'll do it. We did do it because, again, that was way too much of a gun set side of my head to fail. Yeah. So we did do it.

But in that five-by-five booth, I didn't even have a prototype. I had taken drawings of Spahn, cut them out, put them on foam core, put them in package, and then said, yeah, but it's going to look super cool. Trust me. Wow. That was it. And so he bought Spawn the line storewide without a sample in his hands. And where the dominoes easily fell was I was then able to go, I wasn't able to get a phone call with Walmart or at that point, Kmart and all these other companies.

And I then get to pick up the phone and go, hey, just want to introduce myself, just letting you know, I've got this. I know you said no earlier, but I just want to let you know that Toys R Us put it in storewide. And again, this is sort of the illogic a little bit that I think that companies go, well, if Toys R Us is putting it in storewide, we can't let our competition get an edge on us. So it's like, bring it in, and then Walmart bought it. And then all of a sudden, then you, I mean, think about what happens after that, Jordan. You just go to each meeting thereafter. I go to Kmart and I go, while Walmart and Toys R Us are buying it, right?

And just ching, ching, and it just, and it just, fell, the dominoes just fell, and next thing you know, I'm in all these big stores on a national level. And here you go, because that's a mountain top. Like if you can get into those stores, that's a mountain top. But there's another one higher than that. And that's, once you get into those stores, you have to sell the product. Because if it doesn't move, getting, people think, man, how did you get your product on the shelf? That is a steep hill. But once it's on the shelf, you must get it off the shelf. Consumers have to. come and buy it because they will never, ever buy your product ever again. And luckily,

I had enough people that sort of were geekdom, spawn fans, toy collectors, or just could see with the eye test that I was giving people more value than anybody else at that point. I was building a better mousetrap. And it sold and it went and we were off to the races and we haven't looked back. Like I said, we've been at it for 30 years and here we go. It's probably a different show, but there is a part here about how you, you know, you know, you made, I don't know, like 85,000 spawn figures that didn't suck in head. Like, hey, I need these to be like really, really good and they need to go here on this date. I would imagine manufacturers were like, oh, man, you spit off.

That's a spicy meatball. But you got it done. Let's go real quick of how that works. Sure. Anytime you add plastic, that's money. Anytime you add paint, that's money. Anytime you add stickers and cards and stuff, that's money. I found out early in the game the way the Fortune 500 companies

work is that they come up with their sales projections, they come up with their price points and what it's going to cost to manufacture, they then speculate how many they're going to sell, and then they've got a number, and then they walk down to the creative people, and they throw this thing saying, hey, you've got to make this toy for 97 cents, boom, and they shut the door. Now, the creative people go, man, last year we had a buck. They're cutting three cents out of the budget, and we still got to do it. they didn't care about the art on any level. Because why?

They're selling it to moms and they're selling it to six-year-old. As long as it says Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Transformers, Iron Man, whatever, at the top. And it has the color palette and it kind of sort of looks like it, that's a sale, right? I knew I was selling to 14-year-old and up.

And I knew that if I got it wrong, they would be all over me. I had to get it right. I couldn't cut corners. Yeah. So I basically was doing it right, like the reference that was there. I wasn't adding anything. Or I was in the early part because I didn't have any license.

I was literally just creating stuff and putting as much stuff into the toys as possible. The average toy at that point had like 57, what they call paint operations. That's how many times they hit it with paint, 57. Those first few years I was doing stuff, I was averaging 220 paint operations, right? But it cost you money to do that. but it was okay because I'm not a public company. I can do it. But it got the notice of the consumer going, man, that's a Cadillac.

And he's selling it at Ford Motor prices. He's given us a Cadillac at Ford prices. You can sell that, Jordan. Even if the brand at the top is an unknown brand like Spawn, you can still sell it. And it's sort of been the secret sauce of my company. But now you take that, like I said, and now we've got Superman and Batman Flash,

and you add that to it. Home, yeah, Grand Slam. Like you said. We're off to the races. So that piece is there. On the manufacturing again, yes, I had to go to China and teach people, teach factories that have been around for decades, how to make toys that looked different. I did it with Mattel one time. I made a hot wheel of a, I got a car called Spawnmobile.

It's a funny car, which is like a dragster with a fiberglass body. Anyways. And I got Mattel to make a car of it, a hot wheel. Oh, cool. But it had two-tone paint jobs. I needed a window on the back of the packaging so that you could see it from the front and the backs. You could see both paint jobs.

They'd never done that. And they're like, we can't do it. And it's like, of course, you can't. What are you talking about? You guys are Mattel? You guys do this all day long. You can put plastic on the back of packaging. Here, I'll design it for you.

And then I said, oh, by the way, I need you to paint it with four-color printing process, which is basically how everything, like every magazine's printed. In matter of fact, every package that Mattel does is done that way. And then they're going, we don't do hot wheels that way. And I'm like, I know how you do your hot wheels, but I'm going to pay for these hot wheels, so I need it that way.

And they're right. You know, what if the registration's not right? Because you have to hit it four times, not once. They were in the business of hitting it once with one color. It's foolproof. Once you do four color printing, you have to do basically yellow, red, blue, and black. You have to hit it four times,

and they all have to be in the same spot. So you go, what if the registration's off? Again, are you going to pay us for it? I'll pay you for it. I don't care if it's off registration. I just, that paint job I have is not going to be done the way you guys do it. So again, after going back and forth and them arguing, I just go here, here's the check. You have the money in hand.

Just do it. Just do what I'm talking about. They did it, just like the factories. They went, oh, man, that's super cool. And after that, guess what? They started doing four-color printing on their hot wheels, right? It's crazy. It's always weird that these people have been around for decades and decades and decades,

and this is their core business. I'm just new to this gig. Like you come in there, you show them a slight variation. I didn't invent anything. Four-color printing's been around forever. And you do a slight variation. And all of a sudden, like you're a genius. I've said before on the sports figures that we did,

I won awards. And they would always say, how do you make the figures look so realistic? How do you make them look so realistic? Is they're handing me the award? and the answer is I said every time, and I'm going to say it again today, I use this technology,

and anybody listening to my voice, go to Google, and you can look it up if I get too complicated. It's called a camera. And if you take a camera and you push the button, you get a picture. And if you take the pitcher and you manipulate your clay, which is how we sculpt,

and you don't stop manipulating the clay until it looks like the pitcher, then that's how it looks like the players. The question, ladies and gentlemen, and this is the piece of my life that is the biggest head scratching. It's not how did I get it so accurate. It's how did they not? The camera has been there for a hundred years, ladies and gentlemen, they could have used the camera too. They chose not to.

I come along 100 years later, and I use a camera as my reference, the photos, obviously, a camera to get the players of sports to look like the photo and I'm the genius. No, why didn't they do it? That's the bigger question. That's the bigger mystery to me. And the answer is, I found out, and I found out this is true in a lot of decisions with corporate. Because to do it right meant they would have had to spend a little bit more money and a little bit more time. And that's not their business. Their business is maximizing profits. Making action figures out of real people, it does sound, there's other considerations, right? Because look, if you make a toy that actually looks anything like I personally look in real life, I'm probably going to be kind of disappointed

and probably a little bit angry for making it look like that. It's like, not your fault. Hey, this is what you look like, Jordan. And I'm like, I don't want to look like I look like I want to look, right? Do any of these people that you make toys, are they ever like, hey, can you make my ass? pop a little, or you're like, make me thinner or something like that, right? Sure. When you have to get approval either from the corporations, which we do, if we have a license, of course we do. We do lots and lots and lots of license.

They get final approval. Why? Because they're the client. Of course they do. But sometimes they go, oh, the talent has to give their comments. And so if the talent basically says, and they have many time, can you make my nose smaller? Yeah. Can you give me higher cheekbones?

I remember one Sharon Osborne and I, Sharon and I like each other, so she's not going to mind, I think, if I tell this story. I was doing one of Ozzy Osbourne, right? Yeah, cool. But Sharon was the one that was signing off. And Sharon, I remember her notes were like, so any way you could like make his chest a little bit more buff?

And I'm like, yeah, Sharon, if that gets me approval, then yes. And then later it was like, is there any way you can give him like a six-pack? Yeah, Sharon, I'll do it. Anyway way you can get rid of his love hand. And I'm like, yeah. And so this toy that I did of Ozzy was like Greek God. Yeah. I mean, it was literally, we were doing, we were doing plastic surgery.

Literally. Literal plastic surgery. And she was so happy with it. And this is a piece. Sometimes you have to make, you should be making the romanticized version that we all have in our head. Yeah. Not the real one, right?

So another one that was really kind of interesting was we did Dwayne Johnson as Black Adam. And we got it accurate. I'm telling you, we got it accurate because, unfortunately, these suits that the actors have to wear, these superhero suits, there's a thickness to it. And so it takes away from some of the definition. And so if you actually freeze frame and look at what the costume black Adam looks like, it does kind of take a little bit away from Dwayne's physique. And he's got a staggering physique we're all jealous of. And his only comment was, I thought that was awesome, but he goes, is there any way you can make me more ripped? Like, you know what?

If that's how I get approved, we'll do it. Again, it won't be accurate to what that costume was, but I thought he was right. I thought it took away a little bit of definition of his body because I think when you go, Dwayne Johnson as a superhero, you think of him being more muscley. And the costume wasn't that,

but we were trying to make it so accurate because most costumes are in, you know, constant motion in a move. You don't really get to analyze them. We tighten it up and add some definition. I think it was the right call. It wasn't vanity on 20th far. It was the right call because I think that's the romantic version

that we all have in our head anyways. And unless you're analyzing it, you wouldn't know that. So yes, the answer is yes. We're constantly just doing what we've got to do to get an approval. I know, obviously, you're super successful. You've got that, I didn't even get to this, but you buy these home run balls

and they're like millions of dollars and you're collecting on. But as you've had kids, you got a little bit older, I assume, and correct me if I'm wrong, just from talking to you, even though it might seem like, oh, this guy's a gunner, he's always going for it, you know, he's earning a lot of money, I don't get the impression that you think money and success is the most important thing in your life. Yeah, it's not. Now, again, it's easy to say for people who don't have money go, yeah, Todd, they all say that, right? I've walked away from money dozens and dozens of time, right?

I've got money. I've already got money. I don't need more of it, right? I mean, I've horrified Wall Street when I've had this argument because all they ever want to do is give you money. Right. And then when you say, no, they give you more money, or at least they up the offer or whatever.

Right. And it's like, but I have to give you half my company for that, right? So here's the thing about your money. My dad taught me and my mom taught me a couple of definitions. One is called useless, and useless is something that you have that you're not using. So it's in a drawer or someplace, you're not using it. I've got bank accounts that got money in it.

I'm not using the money. Theoretically, that makes my money useless. I'm not using it. And you want to give me more useless stuff. You call it cash. And I got to give you 50%. I've got to give you control of my life for useless stuff. Now, for somebody who's only been trained on one card,

they only have one card. Cash, more cash, or even more cash. That's all they've been trained. To call what they have useless is horrifying to them. So years later, I remember I was at it, some place in New York and I was around a bunch of Wall Streeters. And they were, I go, hey, my name's Todd. And they're going, are you Todd McFarland?

And I go, we've heard about you. Right? And so I think the word got around. They stopped coming. They're the money proof of my house. They're going to this guy who call money uses. Let me tell you what money does. Let me tell you what money means to me and fame and fortune means to me.

Because I'll make no apologies for either one of them. And I have both. You have to be successful. to be able to continue to do art. Nobody is going to give you the next opportunity. Nobody's going to let you do the next thing. If you say, hey, last three things I did failed, but I've got another cool idea, why don't you do it?

You have to walk in saying, I can do this art because I'm an artist and I want to do more art to the day I die. And sometimes I do it on my own 100%, and other times you need help and you need outside people and people putting in their money. but they're not going to do it unless you're successful.

So the success has to be part of the equation to be able to get to yes. So that's why I need success. That's why, and I'll use myself as a prop and I'll be a billboard and I'll be somebody to help push the brand if I have to, to get to yes. So I get to do more art. There's the victory. And oh, by the way, if you're successful at art, then the bi-brosephersonable, buy product of that is cash. Cash to me should be sort of the last thing in the equation.

Build the toy, price the toy the fair way, put it out there, and if it sells, you make cash. It's the buy product. And we've been able to put out quality product. And the byproduct is a little bit of success and a little bit of money. Cool. Cool. So we're here. So that's why I need it. And again, we're trying to push the Spawn movie coming out and fingers crossed. by late summer, there should be some big news on that. Oh, that'd be great. For a couple of reasons, Jordan, for the first time after years of years, between the pandemic and the writer's strike, whatever else, I'm pretty hopeful that we're here for a couple of reasons. One, I know Hollywood, and Hollywood is copycat. And so right now, the word on the street is superhero movies are,

they're in a bit of a malaise. A slump. Okay, a little bit of a slump. But here's what's going to happen. I'm making my predictions. So we'll maybe come. back and see if I was off. There's going to be a movie coming out called Deadpool, and it's going to make a bunch of money, and it's going to have Wolverine in it, and it's the first time Disney gets to do the market, and it's going to make a ton of money.

Here's what Deadpool has. It's got an R-rating on it. And then in October, you're going to have, I think, the biggest movie this year. Most people call it Joker 2. It's got a different title, but Joker 2. Joker 2 is going to make over a billion dollars. And once it makes a billion dollars, Hollywood's going to go, ah, it's not superhero comic book movies that are in a bit of a slump.

What we need is superhero comic book movies that are R-rated, because arguably the two top movies of the year are going to be R-rated comic book movies. So everybody's going to be searching. Oh, man, we've got to go get dark, R-rated comic book stuff. And they're going to look at the chart and they're going to see Spawn sitting near the top. And then once you redact Marvel and DC character, because you're not going to get those, because Warner Brothers and Disney are not going to share them, then the next closest one is sitting at about 122, right?

Spawn's been staring them in the face for a long time. And then they're going to go, wow, what's the best of the comic book properties? Spawn. Can it go dark? It is dark. Guys are in the pit of hell. It is an R-rated movie. I've said it forever.

It's an R-rated movie. And they're going to go, wow, so we can get the top property and its comic book and it's R-rated, that's not all. The movie Joker 2 is going to make a billion dollars. There's only been one R-rated movie ever in cinema history that's been rated R that's ever made a billion dollars. It was Joker 1. I think Joker 2 is going to make a billion dollars,

which means there's only going to be two movies ever in cinema history to ever have been made a billion dollars at R-rated, and guess what they have in common, besides they both called Joker? that the writer in both of those script is a man named Scott Silver. Guess who's writing the spawn script right now? Scott Silver. I'll get with some other people.

Sure. So Hollywood, which is a copycat, are going to go, we need dark R-rated movies, and they're also like to make money. So they're going to go, man, when the Joker makes a billion dollars, we should try and get all those people.

The directors, the actors, everybody, put them in our next movie, we're going to be able to say, from the Joker people. and the Joker movie, which is going to make a billion dollars, and I think be the number one movie, they're going to be chasing those people, and one of them is Scott, and they're going to go, Scott,

what's your next idea? And he's going to go, coincidentally, you guys are also looking for our rated dark movies, bam, spawn. So we're going to get this deal done. We're going to figure us out, we're going to get this deal done, Jason Blum's attached on the producing end, Jamie Fox attached on the acting.

That's cool. And we've got other top. flight people that are on it. Like, this deal is going to get done, right? So we'll push that off, and I'm going to, I'll negotiate my own deal. Hell yeah. Well, Todd, this has been a lot of fun. I was pleased to see your email in my inbox. I'm glad we finally made this happen. Yeah, I appreciate you giving me the time. Yeah, absolutely, man. Nice to meet you. All right, be good. You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show with the skilled Art Forger, who made millions selling his fakes. He gave me a book on art forgery.

I began to unlock the secrets. I was a storehouse of knowledge of how to create an illusion, presented to a experienced expert, manipulate his mind, and bring him to the inevitable conclusion that the painting is genuine. We flooded the market with my paintings, and I couldn't believe what I did. I couldn't believe it. Then the dominoes started falling, and eventually the FBI will lead to my door.

They uncovered a mountain of evidence against me. But they never actually got you. Why did it go away? Why did you never get indicted? How are we having this conversation? I guess that's the greatest story of all. To hear details of how Ken Perenni evaded the scrutiny of everyone from the mafia to the FBI and live to tell the tale,

check out episode 282 of the Jordan Harbinger Show. What a super intense, but very cool and smart dude. Very sharp. There are now more than 300 editions of Spawn. Image Comics is just massive. Todd continues to rack up win after win. It's really something.

It's really impressive. He also did the Avatar toys. He told me off air about meeting Spielberg and James Cameron, and these guys, they just turned into 10-year-old boys when they're left alone. Then the lawyers and the accountants and all the business people walk in

and they get real serious. before that, it's like, oh, cool, look how cool this vein is on the thing and this part moves. Isn't that rad? It's just, you can tell these guys are successful because they haven't forgotten their inner child. They can readily access that. And I feel like at some level, I am no Spielberg, I am no James Cameron. I'm no Todd McFarlane for that matter. But accessing your curiosity and the thing that you love about what it is that you do is so important. There's a part of me that just goes, whoa, this person got kidnapped by Isses. How interesting is that? I want to hear that story. and I feel like there was a period of my life where I was just a serious professional.

I was going to be a lawyer. I just didn't care about a lot of that stuff as much. And I sort of tucked this aspect of my personality away. And that was no good. That was no good for creating things. And as I've been a creator over the last 20 years or so, I've really started to re-access that stuff. And I think it's kind of where the magic is, really, if I had to pinpoint one or two things.

Also, Todd, he's just a genius when it comes to business. He mentions that when toy companies would order, they would initially play a big order and he would talk them down, forcing them to reorder. So if they wanted 100,000, he'd be like, you know what, why don't you start with 30? And they'd be like, 30, oh man, okay, you don't think you can sell that much or make that much. And he's like, just try 30 and test it out. And he knew he would sell more than that because even they knew they would sell more than that. So then they would reorder, which looks good versus not selling it all, which is bad. So if they place a huge order, a massive one, and they don't sell it all, it's like,

oh, we had to send some of this back. That's no good. But if they place a smaller order and they have to reorder, even if the total number of that order is still smaller, they go, we had to reorder this twice. That looks really good. It's just a really fun, deliberate little trick that he had. I initially said, or is it just that you couldn't make that many? He's like, yeah, that was part of it. But what it turned out to do is signal to that buyer that they needed to keep ordering and

ordering and ordering. So they'd place orders early. They'd order bigger and he would talk them down again, and then they would reorder. It's just very, very sharp guy. They call him the Toddfather, which is a cool nickname. I wish I had something like that. I can't be the podfather. That's already taken.

I'm just another weirdo with a podcast at this point. Maybe I'm the odd father. I don't know. All things Todd McFarland will be in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com. Advertisers, deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show. All at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals.

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It's a great companion to the show. Jordan Harbinger.com slash news is where you can find it. Don't forget about six-minute networking as well over at six-minute networking. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram, or just connect with me right on LinkedIn. That's where all the sane people are these days, LinkedIn. And I'm writing about podcasting and stuff there, the industry stuff. People seem to really be into that. I don't use Twitter or Instagram that much, but I will answer your DMs.

This show has created an association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace, Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. The greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. So if you know somebody who's interested in the business of comics, or even just comics in general, or likes a good conversation with a sharp businessman, definitely share this episode with him. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you'll learn.

And we'll see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast, focused format. Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to ask, and the topics are all over the place in the best way.

Recently, they've covered things like why we care so much what other people think, the benefits of laughter, why sports fans get so invested, and what makes people like you or not, the through line is always the same. Smart ideas you can actually use in real life. Something you should know has been featured in Apple's shows we love, and it's got thousands of five-star reviews because it's consistently interesting. So if you want another show that scratches that I want to understand how people in the world really work itch, search for something you should know wherever you get your podcasts. Look for the bright yellow light bulb and start listening. You can thank me later.