I never really cared about reading the comics, but instead just looked at the pictures and the action - you could say that I did skip most of the text as a kid and instead just watched the art and all the action-scenes. But even so I probably did read the dialogue on some of the pages with a lot of action in them. Spawn had the most bad-ass cape out of all the heroes and anti-heroes - he was basically immortal - and he had something unique about him that drew you in. The brutal scenes of the comic must have been the main attraction - finally a comic that wasn't that kid-friendly. Kids love stuff that aren't for kids. Spawn was for kids - but it felt much more violent than what was common in other comics at the time. This was also before the arrival of Japanese manga in Sweden.
Spawn, he was the number one selling comic in 1994 in the United States, he had a Hollywood-video in 1997 - and later he got his own animated HBO TV-show - which is very good - only lacking the detail of the comic in its artistic style. Manga turned into anime often has a very similar animated style, while the Western Animated Shows rarely look anything like the comic counterpart - the reason being that the Western production companies want to make cheap animated shows for the highest profit, so they won't spend that extra money on the details of the animation. Something I always thought sucked and one of the things that made Japanese Anime better than Western Cartoons at least when it came to the artistic detail and style. I always wanted Batman, X-MEN, Spider-Man, Superman etc to have the exact same art-style as in their comics - because in the actual comics from the late 1980's and until the early 2000's had a very detailed and professional looking art-style. Modern comics are lazy by comparison - with the exception of SPAWN made by the same guy.
So I did come into contact with the SPAWN-comic as a kid in school, and I became a huge fan immediately - reading all of the comics that my classmate brought to school. The movie from Hollywood I didn't watch until much later because it was for older teenagers and I were like 7-9 when I read the comics in school. The HBO-show didn't air in Sweden and also were not for kids so I only ended up watching it as a young adult in like 2009 through a site with a lot of anime - yes, anime - the Spawn animated show has a similar style to that of anime even though it is Western made and not an anime. But the episodes are continuations of each other and the show is very dark and violent - it's an animated TV-show for teenagers and young adults. It had such a high quality that it won rewards. In any case, I watched the show as a young adult back in 2009, and I did watch the Hollywood movie, which is pretty bad, back in my teenager-years - but the comic I did read as a kid in school as stated already.
I even bought myself a monthly issue of the SPAWN-comic and it became my favorite issue until my parents, being Christians, read on the cover that "Spawn is a Hellspawn sent out by the Devil to destroy Hells enemies, and bring the war to Heaven.". Well, what did they do? They got rid of my comic and gave me another one as compensation - another comic that wasn't nearly as violent or as cool.
I were as such not allowed to own SPAWN-comics in my childhood because of my adoptive parents beliefs. Despite it just being a comic, and not real in any way - it wasn't like I believed in Satan or something - Spawn fights hell as well, despite starting out as a champion for hell. Well, he is in his past a mercenary who kills for money, he is a black man, and he has a wife - he is betrayed during a mission and killed - after which he enters into a deal with the Devil and trades his soul for a chance to see his wife again - he is returned to earth by the Devil but is now a Hellspawn, a champion of Hell with endless powers who can do basically anything, and that's the prelude to the story - Spawn will then have to fight multiple monsters, beasts, evil humans and even angels from heaven sent out to kill Spawn because he is a Hellspawn - in the end Spawn will turn on the Devil and kill him as well - which makes him an anti-hero.
Alright, so I loved SPAWN but weren't allowed to own the comic - I did however read the issues that my classmate brought to school and I also played a rom of the SNES/Super Nintendo SPAWN-game as the first rom I ever played on my old Windows 95 computer. I did buy one issue of Spawn that I still own that I hid for years under other comics - but it wasn't the best issue and far from as good as the one my adoptive parents threw away.
As a young adult I decided to buy all the issues of Spawn, something I couldn't do during the years 2009-2020 when I had a conservatorship enforced on me - but in 2020 I bought every issue of the SPAWN-comic in Swedish - 35 issues in total plus the first six issues of Witchblade which also included Medieval SPAWN and Lara Croft from Tomb Raider - a known computer/Playstation game.
Spawn has in the States reached over 300 issues, and the creator Todd McFarlane is still working on the comic - fact is that he is the President of Image Comics - the third biggest comic book company after Marvel and DC. Marvel and DC have all gone woke and inserted feminism and political agendas into their comics since 2010 - the professionals have been fired in favor of people with the right political agenda - comic book readers have fled to Japanese manga to escape all the political garbage inserted into the comics MARVEL and DC are putting out in the stores - comics like SPIDER-MAN, BATMAN, the AVENGERS, JUSTICE LEAGUE of AMERICA, X-MEN and so on - all garbage because of modern creators and their political agenda.
How has this been allowed to happen? What caused this? How is it possible? Well, Marvel is owned by Disney - an extremely WOKE feminist company - and DC is owned by WARNER BROTHERS - another woke and feminist company - they've forced their political agendas into the comic books, and fired anyone who protested.
IMAGE COMICS on the other hand, is a company created by comic book artists because they were tired of corporations owning their characters that they would draw, and hence controlling the narrative of which the artists themselves could work in - Todd McFarlane with his company, a company created in the early 90's because they wanted the artists and creators of comic books to be in charge of their own creations - which means that SPAWN, WITCHBLADE and other comics made by them are entirely under the control of the creator of the respective comic book - unlike Batman, X-MEN etc which are under the corporations thumb - and any artist working on them will have to listen to Disney or Warner Brothers and can't do whatever he or she pleases - if the corporation wants feminism, woke political agenda, strong women and so on in the comic then they'll have no other choice but to include that - while in the case of IMAGE COMICS it's entirely up to the individual comic book creator what he chooses to include in his or her comic book.
This system of IMAGE COMICS is the same system in use by most manga-artists over in Japan - where the artists themselves are in charge of their own creations, and not like with DC and Marvel under the thumb of a corporation.
SPAWN is as such still the same as back in the 90's, and hasn't changed much unlike Batman, X-MEN and the others - who are unrecognizable. As I wrote most kids and teenagers have moved away from the political garbage put out by the western comic book industry - and has instead embraced Japanese Manga - because unlike western comics the Japanese manga isn't driven by western political agenda, and Japan being a conservative country is focusing on the story instead of on political messages. The Japanese manga industry is very much what the American comic book industry used to be in the past - before Disney and Warner Brothers bought up DC and MARVEl.
With this said it is of no surprise that the western comic book industry is on the verge of bankruptcy and collapse, while the Japanese manga industry is thriving - the exception to this being the SPAWN-comic which has recently during August sold almost 500k copies of the new "KING SPAWN" issue number 1.
Todd McFarlane, the creator of the SPAWN-comic and the President of IMAGE COMICS - has gone on the offensive this year, and is releasing four new monthly issues all set in the SPAWN-universe but with different main characters - such as Gunslinger Spawn, King Spawn etc. He even went as far as calling the year 2021 the "Year of Spawn" - only the future can tell if he is right but I'm happy to see that at least one of the old-school 90's western comic books isn't woke feminist garbage, and instead still stays true to its roots after three decades - SPAWN is still worth a read and I highly recommend it.
The Swedish iteration of SPAWN ended at issue number 35 in the year 2002 - when MANGA took over in Sweden. On the final page they said "goodbye" to SPAWN - and asked if they'd see him again? I'm not convinced. Todays Sweden is extremely woke and if SPAWN is the one western comic that isn't woke that's not to its benefit in the eyes of the Swedish woke elite.
Anyway, I do own the complete Swedish collection and will have to read them all in the not so distant future. Highly recommended comic book.
