Creativity Quote by Todd McFarlane

McFarlane’s complaint lands like a dare: if modern TV can’t scare him “for even four seconds,” the problem isn’t his nerves, it’s the industry’s risk tolerance. Coming from the artist who helped turn Spawn into a goth-industrial fever dream of the ’90s, this isn’t just fandom grumbling. It’s a creator telegraphing a mission statement: horror has been declawed into vibes, and “adult” has been mistaken for “prestige.”

The phrasing matters. “Cool, creepy and suspenseful” is a triad that reads like a storyboard brief, not a critic’s wishlist. He’s after craft and mood, not gallons of blood. And the oddly specific “four seconds” is a jab at how fleeting TV fear has become: quick shocks, predictable beats, then back to plot mechanics. The subtext is that horror’s oxygen is uncertainty, and contemporary serialized storytelling often over-explains its monsters. When everything has lore, nothing has menace.

There’s also a small flex baked in. “As an adult” frames fear as something culture quietly tells you to outgrow; McFarlane pushes back, insisting that mature entertainment should still be able to destabilize you. In an era where horror is frequently repackaged as trauma allegory or elevated genre, he’s arguing for a simpler, more primal contract: make me feel something in my gut, not just admire the metaphor.