The Spider-Man and Spawn legend says AI art is fine. Artists disagree.
Todd McFarlane told a podcast he doesn’t understand why artists are upset about AI, comparing it to the car and the word processor. The Image co-founder does not care what you or his peers think.
Todd McFarlane went on a podcast and said the thing you’re not supposed to say in comics right now. Clips have been ricocheting around X, Instagram, and TikTok ever since.
Appearing on The Escape Pod Podcast (Episode 175, with hosts Andrew Parker and Alex Azor), the Spawn creator and Image Comics president was asked about AI in creative work during the show’s Agree/Disagree segment. His answer: “I don’t get why people are so worked up. It’s a tool that’s efficient.“
Then he reached for the history book. “Every tool that’s come along... put somebody out of business,“ he argued. “Somebody along the line was selling a lot of buckboard wagons,“ and then somebody invented the car. Nobody cried for the wagon makers, he said, or the pencil sellers when the word processor showed up, or the DVD manufacturers when streaming arrived. By his count, ninety percent of them don’t exist anymore.
The tool itself is neutral, in his telling. Hand somebody a hammer and they can build you a house or bludgeon you over the head with it. Same hammer.
And he pushed back directly on the theft argument, saying people upset about AI think “they’re stealing artwork or something like that,“ while he sees efficiency. His example: he still needs to hire a human artist for gun designs. But an artist using AI can hand him twenty options to choose the two best from, where a hand-drawing artist with no guidance might deliver three. “And if all three of them are mediocre, I am stuck with mediocrity from you.“ Twenty options with a little help, he said, gets you cool-looking guns: “Our job is to put out our coolest-looking stuff possible.“
The pushback writes itself
The criticism flooding the podcast’s comments and social channels follows one main line: McFarlane’s historical analogies compare AI to tools that changed how work gets made, while generative AI is trained on the existing work of living artists, mostly without consent or payment. One widely shared response argued that the car and streaming had nothing to do with creativity, while AI is being used to replace it.
Working artists also heard the math in his gun-design example. Twenty AI options curated by one artist is a different labor market than three drawn by one artist, and the people who used to draw the other seventeen noticed.
The receipts: Spawnuary 2024
This isn’t McFarlane’s first round with this exact fight. In January 2024 he ran Spawnuary, a contest inviting artists to submit speculative Spawn covers, with winners published as variants. One winner, Luis Ruiz (@robot9000 on Instagram), was almost immediately flagged by fans who found matching images in his public Midjourney gallery, per Bleeding Cool’s reporting. The contest rules prohibited AI submissions, according to Comics Illustrated.
Professional artists including Marvel and DC veteran Mahmud Asrar publicly called for the entry to be invalidated. Ruiz responded on Instagram by declaring “I’m an artist. Period!“ and taunting the thousands of entrants he beat. McFarlane never publicly addressed the controversy, the entry stood, and the episode became Exhibit A this month for everyone arguing the podcast comments weren’t a one-off.
The man has never once cared
Here’s the context for anyone expecting a walkback. Todd McFarlane is a lightning rod with a four-decade charge built up, and shrugging at industry consensus is roughly his entire career.
This is the artist who walked away from drawing the best-selling Spider-Man in 1992 to co-found Image Comics with six other Marvel defectors, a move the industry called suicide right up until Spawn #1 reportedly became the best-selling independent comic ever printed.
He built McFarlane Toys into an action figure empire.
He spent $3 million on Mark McGwire’s 70th home run ball because he felt like it.
And when Marvel and DC marched cover prices up past four bucks, McFarlane held Spawn at $2.99 for years, framing the industry-wide price hikes as a suicide pact he refused to sign.
He’s a rare comic book creator who became genuinely wealthy doing it, on his own IP, on his own terms, usually over the loud objections of his peers. The man has outlasted every consensus that ever formed against him.
So the backlash will rage, the quote-tweets will pile up, and Todd McFarlane will go back to running Image, shipping toys, and putting out Spawn #373 or wherever we are now. He’s heard worse from people who mattered more to him, and that list is short too.
Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, visit clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts. Sign up for the free newsletter at more.clownfishtv.com.
Hat Tips:
The Escape Pod Podcast (Episode 175, June 2026), primary source for McFarlane’s AI remarks in the Agree/Disagree segment
ScreenRant (June 2026), verified for the extended transcription of McFarlane’s comments and the social media reaction
Bleeding Cool (March 2024), Rich Johnston’s original reporting, verified for the Spawnuary winner’s Midjourney gallery match
Comics Illustrated (March 2024), verified for the contest’s no-AI rule and the Ruiz Instagram response
Comic Book Club (March 2024), verified for the professional artist reaction including Mahmud Asrar