If you haven’t figured it out by now, those of us in the United States of America are going through some tough economic times. The recession has caused massive layoffs in the publishing industry (with many magazines, and newspapers shutting down) to the point where my long running claim that print is dead may finally happen.  The bad times don’t just affect the print, automotive, and housing industries, however. Todd McFarlane wrote an official announcement of the layoffs at toy company in the Spawn message board.
Hey Gang:
Todd McFarlane here. I thought I’d drop in and take the time to answer some of your questions. I’ve been doing that over on the comic book boards since our relaunch of the SPAWN comic. It seems to have worked out pretty well there, so I am hoping that we can take a stab at doing the same thing here.
The way it works, is you post your question (please keep it fairly short and I like those questions that have meaning to more than just the person writing it). I will then go into your actual post and edit my answer into your question. When you see:
****TODD SAYS**** that means I have given you an answer. I will go in numerical order and try to answer most of them, though for some reason or another I might skip over the odd one. At some point in time, I’ll cap the thread and start another one fresh.
Before we get going, I’d like to announce that both Mark Weber and Ben Vance will no longer be moderating these boards. Both of them, especially Mark, have done a tremendous job facilitating these boards and keeping it in line so that it is a reasonable place to spend time. They have also been instrumental in getting out the word of our coming product lines. Marks dedication and professional efforts were some of the building blocks of gathering so many of you out there in cyber space. And his presence at some of trade shows helped bring some of you face to face with our company. He will be greatly missed. Ben, has also been pouring his efforts into getting out the information to you and we wish him and Mark all the best in the future. Neither one was fired, as some have quickly speculated. Their absence is a sad byproduct of my company dealing with the reality of the current business world.
Recently, my company was forced to reduce some of our workforce. Most of those that unfortunately were laid off were very good workers and even more, very good people on a personal level, but in an effort to continue to stay competitive, some hard decisions were made. I wish I could say that my company was somehow special or unique, and that the reality of the world had no bearing on our day to day activities. Sadly, I can’t say that.
Does this mean that my company is on the verge of going out of business? No. Does it mean that we will be pulling back on our efforts for the sports lines? Absolutely not. It simply means that some corrections were needed within my company. If you have been reading the news you know that I am in the same boat as many hundreds (and perhaps thousands of companies that are also feeling the same business pain).
My company has been through these bumps before. Remember it’s now been about 15 years we’ve been doing this. Though each day hasn’t been all fun, we have learned how and when to adjust so that we can continue to bring you products at a high quality and a fair price.
So with that said, I wanted to come here to answer your questions on what the future holds for all of us in the world of SPORTSPICKS. So please fire away and I will give you the honest truth to all that is a mystery to you.
Thanks for your continued support.
TODD MCFARLANE
It’s sad times indeed for everyone, but hopefully the new year will see a new outlook by everyone, and those laid off will find work real soon.
