Doug: Dark Age, Copper Age, Best-Forgotten Age... Whatever you call the 1990s, there is no doubt some noise was made. Thomas F. is along today to shepherd us through a conversation on one of the decade's (and beyond) iconic artists -- Todd McFarlane.
In retrospect, no doubt we’ve all had our fill of hologram covers, embossed covers, glow-in-the-dark covers, foil covers, chromium covers, die-cut image covers, polybag issues, slide motion covers, thermal ink covers, multiple interlocking covers, etc. At least I’ve had enough of them to last a lifetime.
Nevertheless, I believe that there was at least some late Eighties/early Nineties artwork that had its appeal—with plenty of iconic covers—and like many fans at the time of McFarlane’s tenure at Marvel, I felt that McFarlane drew the “spideriest” Spider-Man my preteen eyes had ever seen. Caught up in the craze of McFarlanemania, I snapped up nearly everything and anything he’d penciled.
By the way, for a few dollars I recently picked up a copy of All-Star Squadron #47, from July 1985, “The Secret Origin of Dr. Fate.” The cover and interiors were drawn by a 24 year-old McFarlane early on in his career, just shortly after he’d broken into the comic book industry.