There was an interview with Jae Lee a few years back where he admits his earlier artwork sucked. I think it's on CBR.com.

I kinda felt his earlier work is interesting in how it has such a dark, sharp, dangerous feeling to it that fits that gritty era of comics.

CrossGen had several excellent books. Besides Ruse there was Sigil.

Did anyone listen to the podcast. I tried the first episode hoping it would be epic rants and grievances, but it was very boring. It was just about his love of comics as a kid. Not interesting and very repetitive.

Did he repeatedly sniff throughout?

He's so manic in his short Instagram vids that I can't imagine he's able to focus on a long form podcast.

He did a bit but it wasn't that noticeable. It reminded me of a kid hopped on on sugar excitedly trying to tell his mom something and she is saying slow down Rob I can't understand you. So he was talking at an understandable pace but it felt forced.

Stephen Platt did illustrate a thinly veiled Conan the Barbarian character called "Bram the Berzerk."

Spoilerd for size.

He really needs a good inker or something. All the lines just look like they have equal weight so I have a really tough time even seeing what's going on there.

That image would be easier on the eyes if it was colored, I think. There's a crazy amount of detail and texture in that image, but there's so much that it all runs together.

Looks like a good fit for the old Extreme. The arms and legs are out of proportion. The ax is the size of the man. And he is doing the Liefeld pouch thing with the 4 sheaths around the waist which would make combat impossible.

For a well drawn (tehcnically) page that sure is garbage.

It's WAY too busy. It's hard to see everything because it's so damned busy.

Let the ghost of Vince Colletta ink that one. He'll get rid of half the arrows and half of the other figures and it will actually be better.

Color does improve some things (separates the figures, brings out the axe he's swinging, better separation of foreground/background) but also draws out other problems with the art like the anatomy, and it's still a cluttered mess.

How to keep alienating your peers 101: Throwing a shit fit when a popular artist does a homage of one of your classic covers for your only project right now

Ok but why would he sign a piece of art he didn’t draw?
From that tweet or instagram Didn’t look like he was throwing a fit at all

Isn’t it the cover for a book he did interior work on? If artists weren’t signing books with cover art by a different artist I might never get a Marvel comic signed again.

He did the interiors. For some reason Rob does this shit, which to me a hissy fit

Yeah okay then.
No reason he shouldn’t sign it then.

So he's okay with signing a variant cover, but he's upset because about one of the variant covers being a homage to his New Mutants cover?

I can't even find that variant on Big Time Collectibles' site. Seems like they have multiple exclusive variants (it still boggles my mind that this is still a thing in comic book collecting, but whatever). Maybe he just doesn't like them for some reason?

As swipes go, that's a poor once since everything is basically redrawn and even the basic composition is different from New Mutants 87. Contrast that to his other variant cover sold on his site that apes his own New Mutants 98.

Ok so he’s just not signing books from Big Time Collectibles whatever that is.

This one?

This is not a bad cover at all.

I think it's awful.

What's wrong with it?

Yes. That's basically it.

Still not on sale/pre-sale. Multiple variants is what's keeping afloat a lot of the industry. I don't think it's a bad thing at all as it's giving artists from everywhere a chance to draw character they weren't usually going to a get a shot at.

And I disagree. It's one of the best homage to NM 87 I've seen. Of course, is not an exact match to NM 87 but that's the style Mico Suayan decided to go with.

Big Times Collectible is a retailer with a pretty big online presence. They like doing variant covers for all companies and they got some good prices too.

But...that makes no sense, coming from Rob Liefeld. He copied LOTS of artist's panels throughout his time at Marvel and he justified it saying comic artists do it all the time and that it's a "homage." One famous example is how he copied Miller's Ronin panel for a panel in New Mutants #100.

He's a complex individual to say the least