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Rob Liefeld - Worst comic book artist ever?

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Rob Liefeld - Worst comic book artist ever?

Old 07-15-19, 07:14 AM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

I've heard the stories about Suydam taking other artists' table space at conventions and the like and won't defend him on his accussed assholery but with regard to the pictures above, surely he was hired by DC to do zombie versions of famous DC covers. And my understanding of the above is that they're fully painted and not photoshopped. The extra bit of controversy on the Killing Joke picture is that he used a picture of a cosplayer for reference vs. Bolland's actual Killing Joke cover. But even if he did, that's still just reference if he repainted everything and didn't photoshop the cosplayer's picture. These are obviously homage covers he was hired to "zombify" so I can't get upset about this. These are nothing like Liefeld's swipes:






Old 07-15-19, 09:27 AM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

Artists are saying that those DC covers are photoshopped. You can clearly see Margot Robbie's face in the second one.
Old 07-15-19, 11:57 AM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

Didn't know he Sudyam was a prick.

I always dug his painted Alien covers.
Old 07-15-19, 12:13 PM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

I wanted to say how much I dig Michael Allred's comic book art.
He's just the right amount of "quirky", keeping his work interesting without being too out there.
He has really clean lines, and great sense of motion/action and story-telling.


Old 07-15-19, 07:18 PM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

His next masterpiece:
https://www.idwpublishing.com/rob-li...-with-g-i-joe/

(somewhat ironic, given the swipe above with Roadblock)

Last edited by fujishig; 07-15-19 at 07:26 PM.
Old 07-15-19, 10:01 PM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

Originally Posted by fujishig
His next masterpiece:
https://www.idwpublishing.com/rob-li...-with-g-i-joe/

(somewhat ironic, given the swipe above with Roadblock)
He did a pretty good job with Snake-Eyes feet!
Old 07-15-19, 10:07 PM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

I remember even Marvel observed the swipe in their 1991 "Marvel-The Year in Review" magazine, a faux version of Time Magazine that covered the Marvel Universe. They had a "Who did it better" section of fashion with Cable and the GI Joe guy.

About Mike Allred, his style makes even the goofiest of Marvel/DC comics look interesting and otherworldly. I didn't grow up on Kirby, and I think some of his cosmic stuff looks incredibly dated. Allred illustrates it and it looks trippy and psychedelic.
Old 07-15-19, 11:19 PM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

Thought this was funny.
I don’t think I want to even imagine this.

Old 07-16-19, 06:42 AM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

Originally Posted by Red Hood
Artists are saying that those DC covers are photoshopped. You can clearly see Margot Robbie's face in the second one.
And Suydam is saying they're painted. I don't know who's telling the truth. The fact that Robbie's face is used for Harley could just mean he used a screen grab from the Suicide Squad as reference. He has admitted to using the cosplayer's photo as reference for the Killing Joke cover and apparantly even offered to pay the guy for it's use.

I haven't seen anything from Suydam on the Robbie issue but here's a quote from him in response to criticism on the Killing Joke cover: The Joker homage piece is a fully painted homage illustration, not a photo. No filters were employed in the painting process. Numerous pieces of reference were used for the piece, including some homage photos out there, used as art reference for the gloves, suit and folds in the fabric, etc. We are all doing homages to the same pieces and all images are owned by the copyright holders, not the artists or anyone else.

In the 21st century I don't know if "fully painted homage illustration" means you break out your easel and paints and start working on a canvas or if you fire up Procreate or Photoshop on your iPad pro and get to work. But does it matter? If you're skilled enough to load an image of Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn into your iPad and "paint" that zombie cover over it using modern day artistic methods I think that counts as a legitimate illustration. At most there might be likeness rights issues involved with using Robbie.

So, unless he's just using filters as opposed to illustrating over photos, I don't have a problem with what he's doing in this case because he was hired to do homages of famous covers and tried to mix it up a bit to use more than just the original illustration as reference. Hell, Robbie's scene was an homage to that Ross cover to begin with. So Suydam ended up doing an homage of an homage based on an homage.

Last edited by ytrez; 07-16-19 at 06:44 AM. Reason: typo
Old 07-16-19, 07:23 PM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

That's what he's doing according to Dave Johnson and Bill Sinkewickz. Suydam is using filters and photoshop instead of drawing things himself.
Old 07-16-19, 07:27 PM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

Wasn’t that guy an airbrush specialist years ago?
Old 07-17-19, 06:58 AM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

Originally Posted by Why So Blu?
Didn't know he Sudyam was a prick.
I'm assuming it's a reference to this:

https://www.cbr.com/controversy-surr...-artist-alley/
The Arthur Suydam Situation Gets Weirder ? Nerd & Tie
https://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/07...efuses-to-die/
https://vertigology.net/2015/07/08/a...-take-it-down/



Old 07-17-19, 08:11 AM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

Originally Posted by Red Hood
That's what he's doing according to Dave Johnson and Bill Sinkewickz. Suydam is using filters and photoshop instead of drawing things himself.
Sienkiewicz, IMO, is an absolute artist (pronouced ar-teest) and knows more about this stuff than I ever will. I'll take his word for it. I don't know how Photoshop and filters work so I don't know how you filter out a face for a skull and add blood & stuff that way. But I do use Procreate on my iPad (I reproduce comic covers and pages or ink pencil commissions I find on the web just for fun) and it boggles my mind that a professional artist wouldn't just use modern tools to "paint" over the photos of the cosplayer and Robbie. I've never "painted" in Procreate, just inked and colored (poorly) but my son, who is not particularly artistic and has never tried this before, started painting over a picture of a K-Pop band and his work looks surprisingly good. Not professional or anything but my point is, it ain't hard Suydam. How this got past DC's editors is beyond me.

Yeah, that's the gist of what I've heard about Suydam. Seems like a real prize.
Old 07-17-19, 12:33 PM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

Is the Joker/Harley piece something he did for DC? At cons he has tons of prints that just seem to be produced for shows.
Old 07-18-19, 06:25 AM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

Originally Posted by majorjoe23
Is the Joker/Harley piece something he did for DC? At cons he has tons of prints that just seem to be produced for shows.
I think it's a variant cover for DCeased #4.
Old 08-01-19, 09:04 PM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

Seems that Liefeld has lost control or ownership of Youngblood

https://comicbook.com/comics/2019/08...th-youngblood/
Old 08-01-19, 10:26 PM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

They split the Awesome properties three ways, but I feel like Rob got (pardon the pun) shafted:

I have BLOODSTRIKE, BRIGADE, BERZERKERS, BLOODWULF, Re:GEX, KABOOM, AVENGELYNE and others in my portfolio, completely under my domain.
Youngblood was no masterpiece, but that, Supreme, Glory, and because of the revamp Prophet are probably my favorite of his properties, but he chose these?
Old 08-01-19, 10:48 PM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

That sucks. Reminds me of the 1963 breakup and separation of characters between Alan Moore, Rick Veitch and Stephen Bissette.

Wonder where Supreme resides now? Don't see him mentioned in Rob's post.
Old 08-02-19, 05:59 PM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

Originally Posted by The Valeyard
That sucks. Reminds me of the 1963 breakup and separation of characters between Alan Moore, Rick Veitch and Stephen Bissette.

Wonder where Supreme resides now? Don't see him mentioned in Rob's post.
Liefeld mentioned in the comments of that FB post that Scott Mitchell Rosenberg also has Supreme.
Old 08-03-19, 12:00 AM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

That sucks. Youngblood and Supreme are the stars of Rob's roster.
Old 08-09-19, 09:16 AM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

The Comic Beat has a pretty good and detailed article about what's going on between Liefeld and the new owner of Youngblood, Andrew Rev and Terrific Productions. Looking at Terrific's twitter account, it's pretty clear that this guy is a huckster without any social skills. Between sounding like a bot and Keya Morgan (guy who scammed Stan Lee) mixed together, and trying to recruit professionals through public tweets, I feel that this company is going to fall soon. The only issue is that he'll probably keep those Liefeld IP's until he can no longer do anything with them other than sell. My only question to Liefeld is why didn't he try to buy the rights back to all these characters he let go back in late 90's? I mean, he's well paid due to the Deadpool royalties and has a high appearance fee for conventions. His covers still sell and now he's back working at Marvel. He should have started this process a while back to get his stuff

https://www.comicsbeat.com/rob-liefe...om-youngblood/
Old 08-09-19, 11:16 AM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

I dunno, are you sure Rob's well off, enough to buy back his properties? I don't think so. The fact that he had to go back to writing/pencilling seems to indicate to me that the Deadpool/Cable royalties alone aren't paying the bills. And then there's this:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...ns/description

He went to Kickstarter to fund a Brigade comeback. The goal was 17,500 and the backers doubled that. This was supposed to come out October 2013. Nothing.

Then he double dipped on Indiegogo for another round of backing in late 2018:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/brigade--2#/

When will BRIGADE launch?A few weeks after the end of this campaign. The book will be sent to press with the updated print run and be on its way!


funding ended November 2018. If you look at the updates, in Feb he says final colors and letters are in and it's going to press. In April he claims he's getting a special guest star put in (to the cover I assume, because he said the comic is done). In May he says he's awaiting final approval, but hey you'll be able to buy extra copies if you're a backer. Then nothing but crickets. I mean, I'm sure there are real delays and whatnot, but this doesn't sound like a dude rolling in cash that can just purchase Youngblood back.

My main question is why did he agree to the split of properties that way?
Old 08-09-19, 01:15 PM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

Originally Posted by fujishig
I dunno, are you sure Rob's well off, enough to buy back his properties? I don't think so. The fact that he had to go back to writing/pencilling seems to indicate to me that the Deadpool/Cable royalties alone aren't paying the bills. And then there's this:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...ns/description

He went to Kickstarter to fund a Brigade comeback. The goal was 17,500 and the backers doubled that. This was supposed to come out October 2013. Nothing.

Then he double dipped on Indiegogo for another round of backing in late 2018:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/brigade--2#/



funding ended November 2018. If you look at the updates, in Feb he says final colors and letters are in and it's going to press. In April he claims he's getting a special guest star put in (to the cover I assume, because he said the comic is done). In May he says he's awaiting final approval, but hey you'll be able to buy extra copies if you're a backer. Then nothing but crickets. I mean, I'm sure there are real delays and whatnot, but this doesn't sound like a dude rolling in cash that can just purchase Youngblood back.

My main question is why did he agree to the split of properties that way?
I've heard about the Brigade thing when Rob "quit" twitter. And that leads me to your second question. I don't think Rob is good at handling his finances. He always like living the high life. I mentioned this before, but one of the reasons as to why Rob was kicked out of Image back in the mid 90's was because of accusations of embezzling company funds. As seen in the Image documentaries, Rob grew his company to quick and too fast without any business knowledge. That included paying ridiculous amounts of money to young talent to come work with him, including Stephen Platt. That lead to him being bankrupt pretty quick and that's why he quickly accepted going back to Marvel. When the Marvel thing didn't work out, and the industry's bubble bursted (thanks in part to Rob himself), he was in need of money. The only way he could get pack on track was getting investors and that's what the article I posted talks about. He, with advise from Jeph Loeb, brought 2 investors to work and promote his properties. When that didn't work out, he agreed to split his properties between the 3 parties and that's how he lost 2/3 of his IP.
Old 08-09-19, 01:27 PM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

Originally Posted by Red Hood
I've heard about the Brigade thing when Rob "quit" twitter. And that leads me to your second question. I don't think Rob is good at handling his finances. He always like living the high life. I mentioned this before, but one of the reasons as to why Rob was kicked out of Image back in the mid 90's was because of accusations of embezzling company funds. As seen in the Image documentaries, Rob grew his company to quick and too fast without any business knowledge. That included paying ridiculous amounts of money to young talent to come work with him, including Stephen Platt. That lead to him being bankrupt pretty quick and that's why he quickly accepted going back to Marvel. When the Marvel thing didn't work out, and the industry's bubble bursted (thanks in part to Rob himself), he was in need of money. The only way he could get pack on track was getting investors and that's what the article I posted talks about. He, with advise from Jeph Loeb, brought 2 investors to work and promote his properties. When that didn't work out, he agreed to split his properties between the 3 parties and that's how he lost 2/3 of his IP.
Oh, I understand why he had to split his properties, I was more wondering why he decided to keep the ones he did (unless he was just given the dregs, but I'd think when splitting them up they'd get to choose round robin style or something).
Old 08-12-19, 06:32 AM
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Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?

New Youngblood under Rob Liefeld would be just as bad as old Youngblood under Rob Liefeld. Poorly written, poorly drawn, unoriginal, uninspired, and consistently late. It's a shame when any creator loses his IP but it sounds like he basically gave it away. I'm not crying for the guy. Especially after learning about the Kickstarter and Indiegogo scams he seems to have pulled off.

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