McFarlane Toys‘ Kickstarter-funded Spawn became the most successful action figure Kickstarter ever, and opened enough eyes at retail that we even started seeing Spawn action figures back on toy shelves. McFarlane promised a follow-up one for Medieval Spawn — even giving us the first look at the prototype — but it has yet to materialize, and now we may know why.
It turns out the company has been working on its own proprietary crowdfunding platform, and kicked it off today with a Spawn-Batman statue based on the comic book one-shot cover. As of this writing, there may still be a few left if you hurry, but the early-bird specials with bonus comics and figures sold out extremely fast.
Whoa…Kickstart My Art
The big difference in McFarlane’s platform, dubbed Drawing Board, is that if they fail to fund any item, they reserve the right to extend the campaign. Most such platforms have hard-and-fast cut-off dates, which generally inspire a wave of last-minute purchases. Very few crowdfunds fall short by just a few — usually it’s self-evident whether the demand is or isn’t there, and the numbers clearly reflect it. However, on the off-chance that anything “missed it by THAT much,” Drawing Board is the first major attempt at this to allow an escape valve to get those last extra few sales.
The Spawn-Batman statue runs $500, and is in 1/10 scale, meaning basically the same scale as most McFarlane action figures. In statue form, though, it’ll be easier to make the preposterously sized Todd McFarlane-style capes without worrying that they might inhibit a figure’s poses. Take a look at more images of the statue in the gallery below.
It’s a pretty safe bet that this is the way Medieval Spawn will arrive eventually. But much like HasLab, Todd could also use this platform for oversized DC items that would have to retail for more than $100. A Batcave, perhaps?
