Legendary Comic book artist Todd McFarlane 
and Steve Aoki’s NFT Agency, Aoki Industries, announced the launch of OddKey.com today—an NFT marketplace powered by Metaplex. Founded out of a desire to help provide creators (from comics, sci-fi, fantasy, music, and more) with a safe platform to showcase and sell their authentic digital art. OddKey empowers artists with the ability to control the destinies of their own digital properties. The site will be a permissionless on-chain protocol for buying, selling, and auctioning collectibles natively on the Solana blockchain.
McFarlane is the creator of the record-setting superhero series Spawn. During his award-winning time at Marvel Comics, he co-created the Venom character from his stint on The Amazing Spider-Man franchise. A page of his original Spider-Man artwork sold for a record $657,250 in 2017, but McFarlane has not sold any hand-drawn art in 30 years since the creation of Spawn in 1992. OddKey.com will mark the first time this century McFarlane has offered original digital art for sale.
With over 2.8 billion music streams, Steve Aoki, and his agency Aoki Industries, will provide guidance and strategic assistance, while Aoki himself plans to use his musical skills and visual collaborations to deliver new NFT offerings in the near future.
“Steve and I wanted to help build a place where creators are in complete control of their work while retaining the vast majority of the finances. This same model made Image Comics, which I helped co-found in 1992, the third-largest publisher in North America (behind Marvel and DC Comics). Steve and I want to give that same freedom to creators in the NFT space… and let them know it’s a place formed by two leading artists instead of people in suits,” said McFarlane about OddKey.com.
The launch of OddKey will provide NFT comic and music aficionados with the opportunity to own original and authenticated digital works including original digital Spawn art for the first time ever.
“Music has always been what my life is rooted in, but I’ve been a passionate collector of collectibles and various forms of art for as long as I can remember,” Aoki states. “NFTs gave me an opportunity to finally merge art, collectible culture, and music in a way I’ve never been able to realize before. Working with a visionary like Todd to build OddKey.com can help raise independent artists to a whole other level.”
In advance of the full site launch, a raffle will be held for a lucky 6,666 registrants that register their crypto wallets on OddKey.com. They will receive the inaugural OddKey NFT, an authentic Todd McFarlane x Steve Aoki digital collectible with an array of “easter egg” surprise utilities.
Understanding the need to reduce the hefty environmental impacts of earlier cryptocurrency blockchains, OddKey’s storefront will live on the Solana blockchain utilizing Metaplex’s decentralized protocol marketplace. Any NFTs minted through Metaplex will be stored on Arweave, which backs data with perpetual payments, enabling creators to receive automatic payouts.
“We’re beyond thrilled to be working with OddKey.com as they develop an online marketplace for some of the most prolific creators in the comic book world,” said Jonathan Choi, CIO & Head of Partnerships of Metaplex Studios. “We believe that Metaplex will provide the tools for creators to have more ownership over how they monetize and distribute their art, and this is an excellent example of that.
“Building on the foundation of Solana and Arweave, Metaplex is able to dramatically reduce minting and trading fees,” said Raj Gokal, COO of Solana Labs and strategic advisor to Metaplex. “The launch of a Solana-based NFT platform will help accelerate the pace of innovation we see in the space by providing an easy to use and more economically viable platform that can better serve both the creators and their communities.”
OddKey.com will also feature a robust NFT secondary marketplace that allows creators and buyers to participate in the long-term life of each NFT. Artwork created utilizing intellectual property owned by a third party will not be considered or featured on the platform.
To learn more about OddKey, please visit their Metaplex storefront, which can be found at https://oddkey.com
Discord: https://discord.gg/OddKeyNFT
Facebook: https://fb.com/OddKeyNFT
Instagram: @OddKeyNFT
TikTok: @OddKeyNFT
Twitter: @OddKeyNFT
About Todd McFarlane and the McFarlane Companies
McFarlane has also earned two Emmy Awards, 1 Grammy Award, two Grammy nominations, two MTV Video Music Awards, a Canadian MuchMusic Award, and more than 150 International awards in action figures, comic books, and publishing.
Todd McFarlane’s Spawn is one of the world’s best-selling and longest-running monthly creator-owned superhero comic books, with hundreds of millions sold worldwide in more than 120 countries. The title’s hugely popular 1992 debut sold an astonishing 1.7 million copies – an unprecedented feat for a creator-owned comic. With the release of “Spawn #301,” McFarlane earned the GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS title for the “Longest-Running Creator-Owned Superhero Comic Book Series.” The Spawn live-action film opened at theaters nationwide, ranking second at the box office in week one, grossing more than $100 million. With McFarlane as its executive producer, the comic was also adapted for television, becoming a two-time Emmy Award-winning animated series on HBO. At the time, it was HBO Home Video’s top-selling original programming video of all time.
McFarlane became a true comic book superstar for his record-setting work on Marvel Comics’ Spider-Man franchise, a title that Marvel gave him to write, pencil, and ink. The first issue sold an astonishing 2.5 million copies in 1990 – making it the best-selling comic of its time. During this time, McFarlane co-created the character Venom.
2021 “The Year of Spawn” continues with McFarlane’s new titles from the Spawn mythology, setting three record-breaking sales in less than five months. “Gunslinger Spawn #1” is the biggest launch of a new superhero monthly title in the comic industry of the past 25 years. “Gunslinger Spawn #1’s” total sales are bigger than Marvel’s Spider-Gwen launch in 2015, and there hasn’t been another new character comic close to that number in the 20 years prior to that. The sales of “King Spawn #1” surpassed The Avengers record, becoming the comic industry’s highest ordered monthly superhero launch in the 21st century, while McFarlane’s “Spawn’s Universe #1” (June 2021) was Image Comics’ top-selling first issue of the 21st century.
McFarlane Toys is one of America’s top action figure manufacturers, raising the bar and redefining the art of action figures. An industry leader, McFarlane Toys is one of the most respected toy manufacturers globally and a licensee of world-class brands and leading global franchises.
Website: www.mcfarlane.com
Instagram: @ToddMcFarlane
Facebook: @LikeToddMcFarlane
Twitter: @Todd_McFarlane
About Steve Aoki
Steve Aoki, the two-time Grammy-nominated producer/DJ is one of today’s most successful American cross-genre artists, collectively counting 2.8 billion music streams on Spotify. As the founder of the trendsetting record label, events/lifestyle company, and apparel line Dim Mak Records, which he founded in 1996, Aoki has helped launch the careers of global acts like The Chainsmokers, Bloc Party, The Bloody Beetroots, The Gossip, and The Kills, among many others. Dim Mak today counts more than 1,000 official releases from the biggest acts and most buzzing newcomers across EDM, indie rock, hip-hop and beyond over its two-decades-plus discography. As a solo artist, Aoki boasts a lauded discography that includes: Wonderland (2012), his debut solo album, which garnered him his first-ever Grammy nomination for Best Dance/Electronica Album; hip-hop centric Kolony (2017), and the Neon Future series, which includes ‘Neon Future I’ (2014, certified gold by the RIAA), ‘Neon Future II’ (2015), ‘Neon Future III’ (2018) and the recently released ‘Neon Future IV’ (April 2020); which has rocketed in streaming to date and received praise from singles such as “Maldad” ft. Maluma and “Let It Be Me” ft. Backstreet Boys. Recognized by Forbes as one of the top 5 world’s highest paid DJ’s and the world’s hardest working DJ, Aoki is “one of the most in-demand entertainers in the world” (Billboard), counting more than 250 tour dates per year. In 2012, Aoki founded THE AOKI FOUNDATION, which primarily supports organizations in the brain science and research areas with a specific focus on regenerative medicine and brain preservation. Most recently, Steve Aoki released his critically acclaimed memoir entitled BLUE: The Color of Noise published by St. Martin’s Press.
About Metaplex
Metaplex is a permissionless on-chain protocol for buying, selling, and auctioning non-fungible tokens (NFTs) natively on the Solana blockchain. Metaplex dramatically lowers minting and transaction fees and is a platform for independent NFT marketplaces. Along with the on-chain protocol, an open-source application framework can be fully customized, self-hosted, and extended without passing through a centralized authority.
Website: www.metaplex.com
Discord: https://discord.com/invite/metaplex
Twitter: https://twitter.com/metaplex
