mrhan

Back from the dead and nothing has changed for Liefield. The last dumb ass thing I remember him doing was asking Russell Crowe to read for Cable. Totally pissed Crowe off.

Nick Danger

Because of this thread, I'm re-reading Tex Arcana. But all of the scans on the internet are too low a dpi, and they all look muddy. Anything that looks like a wash or a scribble in this image is actually extra-fine cross-hatching. His output was only about 4-6 pages a month in Heavy Metal, and he didn't make it into every issue.

Why So Blu?

One of my all time favorite artists from the early Image era was Nick Manabat. He was tasked with providing the art for Cybernary, which premiered in Jim Lee's Deathblow as a two-in-one series. You had Deathblow in a limited series drawn by Lee then you flipped the book and had the Cybernary story. Cybernary was also written and co-created by Steve Gerber. Sadly, Nick Manabat died shortly thereafter.




His style concentrated on heavy blacks. There's lots of his artwork online in black and white before the colors where added and it's goddamn beautiful. Cybernary eventually came back with Weber writing and someone else drawing it but it did not do well. Weber later commented that the artist just could not nail the aesthetic. Well, no shit, there was only one Nick Manabat.


Here's a black and white piece:




Manabat had an almost Frazetta look to some of his work:

PhantomStranger

Surprised news of Liefeld's Twitter meltdown hasn't reached here. He got into it with several comic book professionals on the site, claimed that DC was going out of business, and some other nonsense. Quite an epic Twitter war that ended in Rob leaving Twitter.

whotony

I didn’t my follow him on twitter so I missed it.
Im in a fb group of comic book professionals were they mostly talk about art before 1986.
He quit that group because of the pre. 1986 rule and started his own group for discussing comic art from any era.

I thinks he’s posted some unusual opinions in the 1986 group a few times and quit at least once before years ago over a beef with someone who called him out on some of his own talent.

He’ll eventually go back to twitter

ytrez

First, Sal Buscema is a fucking da Vinci compared to Liefeld.

That out of the way, Liefeld is a guy that came along at the right time, during the speculators boom, when comics were selling a million copies. He capitalized on his limited drawing experience to throw in with the Image guys and gave us years of characters with way too many pouches, huge breasts, no feet, and impossible anatomy, all in the worst possible way. During that time, he created Deadpool (or maybe co-created) and has been riding the success of Ryan Reynolds to a career resurgance.

I'm no Deadpool expert but I did read the early stuff - his appearances X-Force and his first few mini-series. I never liked it. For me, he was a mediocre, meaningless character until Reynolds put him to film. That allowed Liefeld to ride the wave to bring us all Major X, who may have the worst helmet in comics. Or maybe the worst helmet ever. Ugh.

Liefeld can say whatever he wants on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or where ever. I won't bother to listen to him. I will happily live in a comics world that is Liefeld free.

fujishig

I'll disagree with two things:
Liefeld did not just chance on success, he did have a dynamic and different drawing style that accounted for his popularity, the problem is he never really evolved like other artists do. I don't really fault him for the pouches and whatever, even designs like Perez's New Teen Titans can age horribly. I'll agree that he came along at the perfect time, though.

Deadpool was way popular even before the movies. I agree that this had little to do with Liefeld, however, it was mainly runs like Joe Kelly that really established the character outside of a Deathstroke ripoff. Same with Cable, Rob created him but so many other creators have evolved him beyond what Rob originally intended.

Obi-Wanma

Yes, Deadpool was great long before Ryan Reynolds adapted him to the screen, but the success of Deadpool has little to nothing to do with Rob Liefeld. Rob did nothing except for rip off Deathstroke from Teen Titans. It was Joe Kelly who made him into the character that we know and love today, and is the true creator of Deadpool IMHO. Tons of stuff that Joe Kelly created (including Weasel, Blind Al, and the idea of Deadpool as a wisecracking anti-hero) made it into the films. If you've never read Deadpool's ongoing that started in 1997, it's really worth your time. You'll see a lot more parallels to the film version than you probably realize.

Red Hood

Agree with Obi-Wan and fujishig here on how Deadpool became popular. Liefeld's main (and only) contributions were creating the character and designing it. Other than that, Kelly was the mastermind of giving Deadpool a personality and making him a cult character in the late 90's and then popular in the 2000's.

Personally, I like Liefeld. By this, I mean than in private, he tends to be a smart, charming guy and usually nice to everyone around him. His online persona is the worst of Rob. Not only is he extremely opinionated, but he antagonizes everyone, most of the time without any reason whatsoever. I know a lot of people give him shit because of his art and are simply straighforward disrespectful, and I agree when he block those assholes, but I've seen in other situations when people ask him honest questions about characters, comics, etc, and for some reason he takes it the wrong way and blocks them. I find that childish of him and apparently, is one the biggest criticisms of people who have dealt with him at a professional level.

I've seen the opposite of this too in other artists, writers and creators. I've some who are just great online and very talkative to people on social media only to be dicks in real life. I won't name names, but I can tell you that happened to me this past weekend at Heroescon where some creators who are pretty popular where complete dicks to their fans at the show. One of them was just an asshole to people to the point that I asked myself why was he there. He gets along great with other creators but is almost completely silent when people stopped by his table to get signatures and talk to him.

slop101

McFarlane is 1000x the asshole Liefeld is.

stingermck

If Deadpool had faded away like lets say Nightwatch, or any other 90s marvel character, Liefeld would have faded away too. His luck is that someone else made Deadpool a hit.

Red Hood

I've heard that too, although I've never met him. One thing I can tell you is that McFarlane hates Marvel and DC corporate but like the company's characters. He felt that they were going to do a Kirby on him and that's why he left for Image, but the hate he carries even today towards corporate comic book companies is ridiculous. I believe he's the only one that after the Spawn/Batman book, has refused to work with either Marvel and DC, even for a special occasion like Marvel Comics #1000. I got a feeling that the whole Miracle Man rights and Angela ending up at Marvel still pisses him off to no end.

PhantomStranger

What gets me about McFarlane is that he's one of the most gifted comic book artists of all time and his "prime" years were wasted on Spawn. Then he basically quit drawing to run a toy company. There's an alternate universe where Image never forms and McFarlane ends up drawing 100 issues of Batman and Daredevil.

Red Hood

True, but I respect what all these guys did for Image. And they were/are right. If they kept working for the big two, they could end up being just the hot artist of the moment but their earnings would have been much, much lower that what they have gotten at Image. I'm pretty sure that all of them are millionaires or close to it. Compare the Image 7 to artists and writers like Bill Mantlo, Gary Friedich, Steve Gerber, Siegel, Shuster, etc, who worked as contract for hire yet never got paid a good percentage of what their creations have made the big 2.

The ironic thing is that McFarlane, for all grandstanding, committed the same sins that he accused Marvel and DC of doing. He tried to steal Angela away from Neil Gaiman and Miracle Man from everyone who was involved in all runs of this character. He also screwed himself when he made Chapel, a Liefeld character, an important part of the Spawn lore in the early days.

B5Erik

You know, I loved McFarlane's art back in his Marvel and early Image days, but upon further review I'm not a big fan. I don't find his artwork to be all that great. It's highly stylized and detailed, but in a cartoonish way.

I don't find his work to be very enjoyable anymore. I think it was overblown in terms of style and presentation. Sometimes less really is more.

But that's just me...

slop101

Yeah, I always thought McFarlane's style was best for covers, but he lacked the story-telling ability for good panel-to-panel artwork. It was fun to look at, but didn't tell the story properly. He needed someone like Alan Moore telling him exactly what panels to draw and where to place them (which Moore does a lot for his artists).

Why So Blu?

The sacrifice being that he's worth 300 million dollars now.

Red Hood

One ironic thing I find about the Image 7, specifically about Erik Larsen, is that he post a lot on social media on what artists today are doing "completely wrong". While I understand his criticism, it's become the exact same situation in which the artists from the 70's and 80's criticized the Image 7 for the way they were drawing and doing things in comics. Larsen has now become the old man yelling at the young kids to get off his lawn.

fujishig

Well, that and he draws porn now.

Timber

The funny thing is that McFarlane's art isn't really McFarlane's art. Capulo came on Spawn around what issue 16? He didn't get penciling credit until a year later or so but Capulo is the man behind way more of Spawns run than McFarlane.

slop101

When I think of McFarlane at his best, I think of his run on Amazing Spider-Man, Spawn doesn't even register - less than a year into Spawn, he cut a lot of corners with that book's art before bringing in help.

Why So Blu?

Greg Capullo's art is awesome. I remember he had a limited series on his own creator owned character that McFarlane published called "Creech." It was awesome and I disappointed that it never came back for a regular run.

fujishig

I actually liked Capullo's early art on Quasar. It was clean and not full of the squiggly line syndrome he developed with X-Force and then trying to ape McFarlane. I mean I still enjoy his art, I just look back fondly on that run (maybe the inkers had a lot to do with it).

Red Hood

I'm a little lost on this reference to porn. Care to elaborate?

fujishig

I mean, he doesn't literally draw porn, but Savage Dragon is out there.

Take this, for instance:
http://www.criticalblast.com/article...-my-comic-book

Also, a few years ago Savage Dragon's son Malcolm took the spotlight of the comic. His girlfriend/wife Maxine is an Asian nymphomaniac who is drawn like a little girl (IMHO). Their big issue 200 basically included the two of them having a threesome with his adopted sister. Which seems to happen quite often. Here's an example:
https://www.bleedingcool.com/2017/03...omic-spoilers/

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2017/11...outrage-april/

I don't read Savage Dragon regularly anymore but everytime I hear about it it seems like Larsen's gone off the rails a bit. But maybe someone who reads it regularly can comment.