Creativity Quote by Todd McFarlane

McFarlane is doing two things at once: claiming audacity and making it sound like common sense. The line swaps the usual defensive posture of a creative risk-taker ("Why did I do it?") for a cooler, almost impatient confidence: the real mystery is everyone else's caution. It is bravado, but it also reads like a working artist's diagnosis of how industries stall. Innovation, he implies, is often less about genius than about someone finally ignoring the quiet rules that were never official in the first place.

The subtext is a jab at gatekeepers. Comics, especially in the late '80s and early '90s when McFarlane rose, ran on house styles, brand protection, and an unspoken hierarchy of who was "allowed" to stretch anatomy, rewrite visual grammar, or treat a superhero book like a personal signature. His question isn't naive; it's accusatory. If the idea was sitting there, visible, why did editors, publishers, and peers collectively choose the safer path? That shift in blame reframes risk as institutional inertia.

There's also a self-mythology at work. McFarlane, as an artist-entrepreneur (Spider-Man to Spawn, Image Comics, toys), built a career on making "obvious" moves that were culturally taboo: creators owning their work, artists being the brand, merch treated as art. The quote flatters his instincts, but its real intent is to normalize disruption. He's telling younger creators: if something feels glaringly doable, the only scandal is waiting for permission.