"I love cross-hatching everything on Captain America until he looks like everything else I draw"

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/images/users/uploads/9043/captainlie feld.jpg

PfffffBAAAAHHAHAHAAAAAA

I remember seeing that Capt. America in Wizards magazine when I was a teenager and going "What the hell is going on here?"

Zircon is on a Liefeld rampage!

I don't follow comic book history. Someone tell me how a guy with zero understanding of basic art concepts like anatomy, perspective, scale, and vanishing points managed to not only get in the door as an illustrator, but go on to become one of the most successful ones instead of being instantly laughed out like he should have?

Man when was this made? Cassady drew the chain mail in Ultimates Vol 1 for Cap years ago....

As for the question about how Rob Liefeld got succesful there is a myriad of reasons how he achieved success and why he was lambasted so much. Rob came in as an energetic young guy at the same time that all the other people who would form Image comics later on so he bonded with that group. Lee and Mcfarlane especially, Erik Larson not so much. He's credited with making X Force a hit and some people find that a non achievement considering that back then if any title was remotely connected with X Men and/or had an X in the title it sold like hotcakes. In addition Rob's style of drawing, huge musclebound guys, knives, spikes, non determinant straps of metal and guns galore-deemed "Bad guy or bad girl" style was for some reason popular in the 90's. Most of the guys in Image had that exagerrated style as shown by Jim Lee's take on X Men, McFarlane's take on Spiderman and Venom, Portacio's art on Wetworks (though it alsohad an interesting anime influence as well). Valentino, Silvestri and Larson to a lesser degree. Rob was the right guy at the right time since his style was even more so though admittedly everyone thought him the weakest in terms of artistic skill (imo it's Larson but Larson gets props for being the most on time publisher then any of those guys for Savage Dragon though he's made fun of in circles as well, less for his work and more for his opinions)

The main other reason is Rob kinda brung the shit to himself with his mouth and his actions whether it be deadlines, talking shit across fences, burning bridges and the like. In addition Robs imprint Extreme Studios were really hated on in the convention circles for their assery. It's well understood that comic book fans by and large are nerdy guys and many of those geeky types will hate on people who treat them as such in an enviroment that they think they should be free in. The Extreme Studios guys were known to be assholes to some fans ,that's the story, I never really bought the asshole antics. To me those guys where just dudes who got lucky and wanted to act like they were rockstars. People like that who achieve a little something can be insufferable sometimes. They did however grovel in their excess and rip people off. In Wizard magazine they admitted selling at conventions variant covers of certain issues at ridiculous prices that misled customers.

Plus Liefeld was a former model for Tommy Hillfigher and married the chick from Saved by the Bell that replaced the Kelly Kapowski character (it was either her or her twin sister can't remember). A nerd who doesn't fit the "conventional" nerd framework can be a target oddly enough in the community.

Really that's just half of the story, there's more. I mean there was a time when he had the highest selling comic for a while, Youngblood #1. And then he was accused (rightfully imo) of being a ripoff artist. Got kicked out of Image, started his own label, tanked, came back to Marvel for Heroes Reborn/Return. Bought up all the Avengers vs Justice League art by Perez, wrote a comic book with Jada Pinkett Smith and was creating a franchise for Will Smith. Just lots of shit but I've written enough. Though I actually like Rob because he cocreated Deadpool and a few others some of the jokes at his expense were pretty funny. Such as the issue of Toyfare where they had a comic where Superman and the Flash would race and whoever lost would have their costume redesigned by Rob Liefeld.

What was he on acid when he drew that?

Granted Deadpool wasn't fully fleshed out but the idea of a mercenary with jokes was there in the beginning and was developed by both Nicieza and Liefeld as both felt the series needed a comedic foil. Say what you will but the guy has created important characters in the Marvel universe, specifically in the mutant section, since New Mutants which he was a large part of that success. Sometimes he's good (Deadpool, Domino, Stryfe, Cable) and other times crap (Strong Guy, sadly Shatterstar) Deadpool just kept getting pushed farther by each subsequent writer and that's how he became a fan favorite eventually, that and the fact that he had ties to Wolverine via Weapon X which automatically makes a character more bankable in comicdom.

If I were to choose one writer that actually solidified Deadpool it's Joe Kelly with his first ongoing series, combined with Ed McGuiness' blocky style of art, the series was really good. Not many other characters keep a blind old lady as a companion/mother figure in their booby trapped house Norman Bates style while talking to the reader and breaking the fourth wall via Star Wars and Seinfeld references. That wasn't the first time it had been done (Animal Man did a similar story when I believe Grant Morrison took over writing duties years ago plus Psycho Pirate from Infinite Crisis) but it was still pretty ballsy in a mainstream comic.

I understand why Liefeld is hated in many regards but a lot of them are stupid things like his haircut, his wife, modeling (yes he was a model, he did print ads for Hillfigher and the GAP as well if memory serves as well as those Levi 501 buttonfly jeans that Spike Lee hosted/created in the mid 90's).

If you're gonna hate on a dude for his drawing style then there are alot of people from that time that should be chastised as well but aren't for whatever reason cough*Brian Pulido*cough*Joe Maduiera*cough*Jeff Matsuda*cough...

It's really odd to think that Rob held the title of record selling issues twice, it would be similar to Pauly Shore being awarded the Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain award.

The only thing that I liked from Awesome comics was Supreme but that's because I thought at the time anything that Alan Moore did was automatically golden plus Liefeld threw money at artists and writers, Moore isn't cheap and seemingly every other issue of Supreme had a Alex Ross cover and that guy costs money.

A much bigger issue is how his characters were the thinnest veiled knockoffs of other characters. He had a character that was a Capn America rip off, a Mega Man rip off, Lady Death/Dawn rip off, he just flouted it like he didn't give a shit. Probably the reason why only months after a series came out it was in the 10 for a dollar box at my old local comic shop.

Man I completely blocked out Marat Mychaels, Brigrade was horrible. Pretty much everything on that side of Image was garbage, maybe an issue of Bedrock here and there was ok but aside from having the skimpiest dressed chicks in comics as well as a nude Riptide (I think that was her name) which back then was a huge fk'n deal.

Man all this nostalgia is making me realize how much better comics have gotten due to lose of shock factor. I remember people loosing their shit when the Native American girl from Gen13 was revealed as a lesbian. Now Archie has a legit gay guy character in it...

Five for making all the POETV comic aficionados write 5 paragraph long livejournals. I'm learning a lot about Mr. Liefeld.

"SDAusmus
Cassady didn't draw Ultimates, that was Bryan Hitch. Cassady drew Cap in the Marvel Knights relaunch post-9/11."


Man I fucked up, I allways get those two mixed up, which one drew Desperadoes (great series). For the life of me I can not remember a Cap title on the Marvel Knights imprint. Maybe I blocked it out after Bernie Wrightson's take on Punisher...


"Toenails
Think of his comics as a two-dimensional version of wrestling or the Insane Clown Posse."


I don't think ICP has enough substance for two dimensions, they're like a Borel Set. And they've actually had a comic, twas garbage...made Evil Ernie look like Remembrance of Things Past.


"Or more apt, think of how Ion Storm acted when they thought they were hot shit, and now you have a pretty basic understanding of what to expect."


Hahaha. That's awesome. Romero and Ion Storm are to videogames as Liefeld and Extreme Studios were to comics. Maybe Carmac = McFarlane? Great analogy, I'm gonna use it in the future.

All Liefeld had to do with creating Deadpool was drawing Deathstroke, filing the serial numbers off, and changing a few letters. "Well, that guy is SLADE Wilson, and this guy is WADE Wilson! They're completely different characters!" I think that's basically the saddest part of Liefeld's career; even his really really hacky stuff was REALLY hacky.

On the other hand, Joe Kelly's run on Deadpool is probably one of my favorite runs on anything in comics ever (BEARD ATTACK: favorite run ever is James Robinson's STARMAN.)

lots of words