Interview: Todd McFarlane and Emil Salim Discuss Their Creative Approach to Bringing the World of SPAWN Into DIABLO IMMORTAL – Daily Dead
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Interview: Todd McFarlane and Emil Salim Discuss Their Creative Approach to Bringing the World of SPAWN Into DIABLO IMMORTAL
2026/09/18 20:39:20 +00:00 | Jonathan James
Diablo Immortal has partnered with Todd McFarlane to bring the world of Spawn to the popular RPG, with the upcoming collaboration set to launch in-game on September 29. To celebrate, McFarlane joined the Diablo Immortal team at BlizzCon last weekend for a panel, signing, and more, including an interview I conducted with McFarlane and Diablo ImmortalAssociate Art Director Emil Salim. From McFarlane’s approach to partnerships to Salim discussing the creative collaboration and teasing what to expect in-game, I’m excited to play as Spawn in Diablo Immortal at the end of this month:
How did this collaboration come together? It sounds like a perfect match. As soon as I heard it, I’m like, “This makes so much sense.”
Todd McFarlane: I don’t recall whether it was us approaching [Blizzard] or them coming the other way. Remember that we had Spawn in Call of Duty, right? So I don’t know if somewhere along the line in the big Activision of it all, some of it sort of trickled down, and they went, “He’s got a cool character. He seems like an okay guy and is easy to work with. You should give him a phone call.”
It could have actually been that easy from my perspective, but my guess is that they probably reached out and just said, “Hey, what if…” Because they did exactly what you said. “Todd’s got a hell thing, you guys got a hell thing. Why don’t you put it together? It might be a hell of a thing.”
Emil Salim: I do remember the first meeting that I had with you. Since the first meeting, you were very open to encouraging the art team to explore different ideas. We were asking you, “Hey, how much are you willing to let us push the original signature look of Spawn?” And you basically just told us, “Just go for it. If it looks cool, then I’m good with it.”
Todd McFarlane: It wasn’t even a suggestion. I was almost insistent. My belief is that when you lend your character to somebody else’s brand, you shouldn’t be dictating the rules. They should be dictating in reverse, right? And I’m not a big Fortune 500 company, so I don’t get to puff off my chest and do that.
My attitude has always been, and always will be, that they have their game, they have their audience, they have their look. The chances are just a small fraction [of players] knowing what Spawn is and who I am; that’s only going to be a small sliver. What I want and what I insist is: assume nobody knows any of who I am or my character is. Just do the best damn Diablo character you can come up with.
You and I—wink, wink—know it’s Spawn, but somebody else, which is probably going to be 95% of the audience, doesn’t care. But they’ll play it if it’s a cool character to play. That’s what your task is. Make it so that you yourself, the development team, would want to play it, but more importantly, that fans you’ve been dealing with for years would want too. And forget that it’s Spawn. Keep me happy last in that equation.
You’re totally right that many Diablo players are going to be introduced to Spawn for the first time, and because of that, they’ll read the comic books. But for our readers who may be comic book fans and will be playing Diablo Immortal for the first time, what can they look forward to in terms of the Spawn mythology and characters.
Todd McFarlane: It’s not just Spawn. Obviously there’s a handful of the characters. They have a lot of fans on their side, and they know what they wanted to do. So they approached me with a list of saying, “We think these characters and what we’re trying to accomplish would fit [this is] what they’re trying to do for the Immortal game.” I go, “Okay, you guys give me the list. Worst I can do is not sign off on the character.” But I thought that they [came up with nice choices] that would meld with what it is that we’re doing. And again, I said the same thing. If you’ve got to modify anything for any of those characters to fit in the game, then go ahead because we, the comic book fans, we’ll get it, right? Unless you’re breaking some kind of rule—but they’re not—it’s just really cool with a lot of extra chrome on it, essentially.
Emil Salim: We had way too many ideas to begin with. The universe was so big. Jonathan, in case if you haven’t noticed, this is why it’s a dream to work with Todd. For me as a creative person to work with somebody like Todd, there are no limits, and it allows us to really just go for it—go for all of our ideas—which is why we have way too many ideas. But to summarize for your question, I would say players will get to battle Malebolgia. They will get to play that event with various Spawn abilities, they will get to play with a Spawn cape to use it to deal damage to the enemies, they will get a very special cosmetic set that is themed to Spawn, they’ll get to dress up in the likeness of Spawn, and they will get Violator as a familiar in the game.
Todd McFarlane: With some visual pops, The Clown. Same with Malebolgia; he’ll visually be there someplace too. So some of the core group that the comic book fans would be used to seeing are there. And to go back to his point, I just think it’s just smart to try and get my character integrated into what their rules are. I made a career in doing some changes on Spider-Man that they fought me the whole time, and then eventually they saw that the fans kind of liked it and it worked. And they sort of shifted. But what always bothered me was that then after I left, they then told the next group of kids coming along, “Hey, here’s Spider-Man. Can you make it look like McFarlane?” And it was all the things I was fighting against. I was fighting against status quo.
And then my Spider-Man became the new status quo. And my attitude was, “Why wouldn’t you want to bring on kids, artists, creative people, say, go…?” And they might have come up with something on Spider-Man that was 10 times better than anything that had ever been laid down by anybody at that point, instead of always trying to funnel people in. So look, I don’t believe I have all the answers to my own characters. So I’m always gracious to step back and watch what other people do. And then if they do really cool stuff, I take it over to my side and go, “Oh man, I wish I thought of that first.” So it’s fun to see the expansion.
Emil Salim: He’s a dream collaborator, seriously. And there are artists in our team who have grown up reading Spawn. Spawn is the inspiration that got us to become artists. And so to have somebody like Todd with his very quintessential approach to collaboration, it really was a dream come true.
It’s kind of unique in this industry to have that kind of creative freedom when collaborating with a major property, so I’m excited to see all the surprises in store for players in Diablo Immortal.
Todd McFarlane: It’s not really unique. It’s limited because most people are working on characters that they don’t have any authority over, right? The great thing about comic books is that anybody who does a creator-owned book, whether it’s with Image [Comics] or someplace else, are the masters of our own destiny, good, bad, or indifferent.
We can make good, bad, or mediocre decisions, but this is why I’m constantly encouraging people to go and invent your own stuff because then you can do whatever you want, right? That’s the victory that the creative person gets to say, “No, keep it exactly the way that I want it.” That’s their choice.
Or for me going, “Have fun. How about it?” The victory is that the creative person gets to do it. I couldn’t do that when I was doing Spider-Man or Venom. Intellectually, I just don’t own them. I don’t have that authority. So I think that there are a lot of people if put in my shoes would be doing the same thing I’m doing.
Emil Salim: Also, because you’re an artist yourself, and so when you’re collaborating artist to artist, it’s just so easy. When we talk about contrast, for instance, or when we talk about sharp edges on the cape, we get it instantly because we speak the same language, artist to artist.
Todd McFarlane: Yeah, when they did something and it needed a tweak or whatever, sometimes it would just be easy for me to just do a quick drawing and go here like this. Boom, done, right? So let’s stop talking. Let’s just draw it and put it on paper and then they would come back and go, got it. But I got to tell you that they gave me way crazy good stuff, right?
Jonathan, the best days of my life are when I’m the dumbest guy in the room, right? I’m sitting there seeing these drawings going, oh my God… in my brain. Never say it out loud to the people that are in the room going, “Oh my gosh, that is way better and way cooler and way smarter than I could ever do.” And when I get that from my own employees and they bring me stuff, I usually put on a straight face and go, “I’ll take it under advisement,” which basically means, “Oh my gosh, I wish I was that smart.” I tell you, they’ve got a team that keeps showing me stuff that I go… it kind of makes the comic book look bland.
It’s true because we can’t do the detail. We can’t do the detail that’s in that game because it’s too hard to draw panel to panel, right? You have to simplify costumes in comic book superhero stuff because you have to draw panel after panel after panel. But once you invent it on a 3D model, you don’t have to. So they got to go as crazy as they wanted.
- About the Author – Jonathan James
After more than a decade as a consultant in the entertainment industry, Jonathan James launched Daily Dead in 2010 to share his passion for horror. He takes immense pride in Daily Dead’s talented team of writers, who passionately explore and celebrate horror as a respected art form capable of telling complex, character-driven stories with deep emotional and cultural impact.
Over the course of his career, Jonathan has written more than 10,000 articles and hosted panels at major conventions, including New York Comic Con and San Diego Comic-Con. He is also consulted with as an expert on horror and pop culture, offering insights on horror history and the latest trends through media outlets, film festivals, and conventions.
Read Jonathan’s Articles
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After more than a decade as a consultant in the entertainment industry, Jonathan James launched Daily Dead in 2010 to share his passion for horror. He takes immense pride in Daily Dead’s talented team of writers, who passionately explore and celebrate horror as a respected art form capable of telling complex, character-driven stories with deep emotional and cultural impact.
Over the course of his career, Jonathan has written more than 10,000 articles and hosted panels at major conventions, including New York Comic Con and San Diego Comic-Con. He is also consulted with as an expert on horror and pop culture, offering insights on horror history and the latest trends through media outlets, film festivals, and conventions.
Read Jonathan’s Articles
