The comic book industry is essentially plagued with uncredited work. Due to payment arrangements, contractual agreements, or simply the adage of “pay your dues,” many legendary comic book creators have worked on projects without their contributions being acknowledged. These issues aren’t necessarily malicious, since comic books are a collaborative medium by their nature – it’s inevitable that some contributions simply fall through the cracks. One name that joins the prestigious list of “uncredited legends” is creator Todd McFarlane, who recently revealed he made an uncredited contribution to Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns.
Todd McFarlane broke in after sending more than 700 pages of his artwork to Marvel and DC, and eventually landed a gig doing back-up stories for DC. After his work for Marvel and DC, McFarlane went on to found Image Comics, a comic book company that placed creators at the forefront – and allowed them to produce creator-owned work. McFarlane’s own comic book creation Spawn became the company’s flagship character and remains popular to this day. During the 1990s McFarlane became one of the hottest artists working in comics.
Before founding Image he had a run with the Spider-Man character, handling double duty as both the writer and artist for a title simply called Spider-Man to differentiate it from the Amazing Spider-Man. The first issue of McFarlane’s Spider-Man sold 2.5 million copies. Though the high-sales figures were largely due to the comic book speculator bubble of the 1990s, it demonstrates just how valued McFarlane’s work was. In a recent Facebook post, McFarlane recounts how he managed to land the role of inking Miller’s Batman series thanks to a friend. According to McFarlane, comic artist, Klaus Janson visited a mutual friend of McFarlane to drop off some pages he needed inked for Miller’s story. “Back in the day, Klaus Jason, was just beginning to ink over Frank’s pencils on an upcoming mini-series ‘The Dark Knight Returns’,” McFarlane recounts.
“Klaus came over and dropped a bunch of pages off to my friend who was helping out on the backgrounds of that mini-series. He told my pal that he needed the pages back in a couple days. When Klaus left my friend turned to me and said, ‘Hey Todd, can you help me ink these pages while you’re here?’ I was thinking, ‘Are you kidding? I get to work on Frank’s new BATMAN book!’ So, that evening I sat at a table and tried to do my best impersonation of Klaus Jason inking over Frank Miller.“
Miller’s 1986 The Dark Knight Returns was a four-issue miniseries. The story features a 55-year-old Batman returning from retirement to confront the criminal element of Gotham, as well as Superman who now acts as a lapdog for the US government. The story is regarded as a classic and has produced several prequels, sequels, and spin-offs.
In McFarlane’s case, he found an opportunity to work on a critically acclaimed project and seized the moment. As a young artist still very much building his reputation and fanbase in the comic book industry, Todd McFarlane was simply delighted for a chance to ink Miller’s panels regardless of whether he’d receive accolades for it. But those who own The Dark Knight Returns now also own keepsake to an additional legend within the comic book industry.
