Todd McFarlane Productions is signing its seal of approval on the brand new Multiverse Magazine with a bundled special preview of Spawn, Haunt, and much more in the inaugural issue of the comics industry magazine.

2012 marks the 20th anniversary for both Image Comics and Todd McFarlane Productions, and to start the celebration they are offering this special deal for the magazine in February that also coincides with The London Super Comic Con and Image Comics Expo, which will also celebrating the company’s anniversary. Todd McFarlane and his creator-owned series, Spawn, have been a mainstay for Image Comics for the entirety of its 20 year time span, so of course it will be one of the primary focuses of the company’s celebration.

On Thursday at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con the first game from Curt Schilling‘s 38 Studios was announced — a fantasy RPG titled Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning.

Schilling, a former MLB pitcher and self described hard core gamer (who apparently had specific internet connection for hotel rooms written into his later contracts) is the heart and soul behind the project, but he has assembled an A-list of talent to create his first game. Writing the story for the game is New York Times best selling author R.A. Salvatore, who is well known in fantasy circles for writing some of the most successful novels based on the Dungeons and Dragons brand. Providing a lot of the art for the game, as well as supervising all the other art is comic creator Todd McFarlane, creator of Spawn. And the lead designer for the game is Ken Rolston, who was the lead designer on two modern classic RPG’s: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind as well as its sequel The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

Todd McFarlane is tired of all the runarounds he’s been getting from Hollywood regarding his Spawn film franchise. It’s been awhile since the first Spawn movie, but McFarlane hasn’t forgotten about his most popular creation.

McFarlane has never been shy about his Spawn 2 plans. Last year he announced he was working on a “˜darker, grittier, scarier’ script for the next Spawn movie. Apparently three smaller Hollywood studios are interested in the project, but McFarlane wasn’t naming any names.

McFarlane spoke to Newsarama about his Spawn 2 plan while in New York City recently to promote his McFarlane Toys 2010 product line at Toy Fair.

Remember a few years ago when Todd McFarlane created his Twisted Land of Oz toyline, which gave the classic Wizard of Oz characters a new risque look and quite the alternate storyline?

Well, artist Tom Kyzivat has done some twisting of his own lately with some of the most beloved 1980’s toys in his Post-Apocalyptic 80s Toy Storyline series.

The artist has posted five drawings on his Deviant Art page that depict Strawberry Shortcake as the leader of a rebellion against Brainy Smurf, known here as The Brain, with Rainbow Brite on her side as a Tank Girl-like demolitions expert.

While I love what Kyzivat has done with the ladies, my favorite re-imagined character is The Necromancer. See that image here at top right. I don’t want to tell you who it is, because Kyzivat wants you to guess (if you look at the comments on the image on his site, you’ll see him confirming this character’s identity).

Lastly, there’s a bear named The Pessimist (easily recognizable) and another Mystery character for you to guess (again, the answer is in the author’s comments section).

Check out all the images and descriptions collected here below.

It appears that the creepy world of The Wizard of Oz that everyone wanted to see from Spawn creator Todd McFarlane may not be coming our way any time soon. A scoop from Pajiba points to Warner Brothers passing by McFarlane and moving forward with a take that was once thought to be disliked by those involved.

Back in October was the last time that we heard from McFarlane about the progress of his film, and things seemed to be moving forward (Read: Todd McFarlane Talks The Status Of His Twisted “˜Wizard Of Oz’; Shares Story Details). He claimed that he was developing the film with A History of Violence scribe Josh Olson, whose first script was too light and “too Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” for his darker vision, and that rewrites were happening. The interesting thing about that situation, is that it sounded like McFarlane had sold Warner Brothers on his idea, and that he was perfectly okay with the fact that he would have to sacrifice some of his extreme ideas, saying “I just found it odd that they bought that cool, creepy pitch and now they’re taking a step back.” This quote is now even more interesting with the revelation that Warner Brothers is now leaning MORE toward Olson’s script, and running away from the darker idea all together.

Click on over to read a brief description of the Oz that we just might be seeing in the near future.