When it comes to collaborations, there’s one that comics fans have been waiting for for years. That would be a collaboration between Todd McFarlane and J. Scott Campbell. Two of comics most legendary artists, fans have been waiting to see them team up, a wait that got even more exciting after an announcement during New York Comic Con 2025. Now, that wait is over with a new, exclusive collection of covers for The Scorched #52, giving fans their first collaboration by the creators in the Spawn Universe.
The collection, which features six Artist Exclusive variants for The Scorched #52, feature Campbell’s original sketches brought to life with McFarlane’s inks on the “McFarlane” editions while the “Campbell” editions feature Campbell’s work done entirely in his own pencils and inks. Both collections feature colors by Sabine Riche and a special McFarlane x Campbell “Green” sketch variant is the best of all worlds with Campbell’s layouts paired with McFarlane’s inks. Now, ComicBook has an exclusive interview with both Campbell and McFarlane about the collaboration and the long road to get here.
Speaking with ComicBook, Scott revealed the first time he met McFarlane and how conversations from as far back as the ‘90s ultimately led to the upcoming collaboration.
“I actually met Todd first over the phone before I met him in person later because he approached me when we were doing Cliffhanger and I was doing Danger Girl to do the Danger Girl action figures through Todd McFarlane Toys,” Campbell recalled. “And so, we would have conversations over the phone and at that point I was very nervous. I don’t think I said a lot on those phone calls. Pretty much I think I more just absorbed what he had to say and Todd’s a chatty guy so it made the phone calls very easy. I told him years later it was almost like listening to the radio more than a phone call.”
He went on to talk about how after an in-person meeting in the early 2000s, the conversation started to shift towards working together, specifically for Spawn 300 and it was that winding road that would ultimately lead here.
“This was maybe a year or two after Spawn 300, and he was doing Spawn Universe, and he goes, ‘I want you to do four covers because we’re going to have four different Spawns in this issue. And it was the She-Spawn, the gunslinger medieval Spawn. And so, I said that’s cool,” Campbell said. “He famously for years would remind me that I pitched him four sketches. And I don’t have a good explanation for why I did this. He liked the sketches, but then when I turned the covers, they were four completely different ideas. I think I just was like too excited. I had too many ideas. So, my thought was oh, if he liked those ones, he’ll like these other pones, too. But years after, he always reminded me how much he really liked those first pitches, you know, and he would never let me forget it. He’d always be like one of these days we’ve got to finish that She-Spawn sketch. I love that sketch, and I was like yeah, we got to do that sometime.”
For McFarlane, the difference between Campbell’s initial sketches and those covers was akin to looking differently on a dating profile versus real life—and he wanted the original sketch to make it out into the world for years.
“It’s just that he sent those in and I fell for those. Like, I’m going, ‘oh I know what I’m dating,’” he said about the initial sketches years ago. “This is my date. And then all of a sudden, he sent me the original artwork for the other one and it was like, you look way different on Tinder. The first time around it wasn’t the same. It was a completely different composition.”
He added, “It was like, somehow he does multiple sketches. I didn’t know this about him. I’m so efficient, never draw a line that you’re never going to use and he just did it, sent it, and then came up with something else … it was just a shame. It was a shame to never be able to have that original one. Like for years, I’ve been sitting on that going, the world’s never going to see that.”
That changes now with The Scorched #52 and that sketch will finally come to life.
The collaboration begins with six exclusive covers for The Scorched #52 before continuing with an all-new cover collection for Gunslinger Spawn. Fans will have the opportunity to purchase signed and unsigned editions from both creators, alongside an exclusive dual-signature McFarlane x Campbell edition available only as part of the collection.
Available exclusively through J. Scott Campbell’s online store, the collection launches Saturday, July 18. Fans are encouraged to join the waiting list and mailing list ahead of the launch to receive updates, cover reveals, and ordering information before the collection goes live.
THE SCORCHED #52 COLLECTION
Todd McFarlane Editions
J. Scott Campbell Editions
Duo: McFarlane x Campbell Edition
What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
