madcougar

It's even funnier that this is a thread devoted to Rob Liefeld.

Timber

Well there's that too...

fujishig

That's only because nobody got up to defend Liefeld...

madcougar

Well... not to defend Rob Liefeld, but I think he gets a really bad rap because he became so popular. He was the poster boy for what was wrong with comic books in the 90s. Over the years, I've seen many artists who sucked as hard as Liefeld and no one's said boo about them. There was one guy who drew either Robin or Nightwing for a while was was so awful, that I wrote a strongly worded letter to DC about it. This was during the days of email already, yet I typed a letter, printed it out and mailed it to the actual DC offices in New York. The guy was worse than Liefeld.

Timber

Those guys come and go though while Rob came and stayed and never improved. I can go pick up an issue of New Mutants and other then the coloring would look the same as something he did this year. No growth at all.

Like you said though there are plenty that are worse then him. I remember when he left X-Force they had someone come on to copy his style (Pacella?) and his art was absolutely horrible. I think Kordey's work was much worse too although somehow his pencil work looked very good.

madcougar

I certainly wouldn't argue the point he has failed to improve, but shouldn't people's distain be directed at his fans? The difference between Liefeld and the other guys is the fact that Liefeld keeps getting hired to do work, or people keep buying enough of his own stuff to support him.

Liefeld could make the argument that if it's nor broken, don't fix it. Why change his style when it's made him a good living for more than 20 years?

fujishig

What I meant by nobody defended Liefeld is that nobody actually said he's a great artist and that people need to stop taking shots at him. There are people, like you and me, who don't think he's the worst in the world, and that a lot of the hate has to do with his popularity. Heck, I'll admit that I liked his style back in New Mutants and X-Force. I liked Hawk and Dove, only reading after the fact how difficult he was to work with. I even liked Youngblood #1, before I knew it was a bi-annual comic (if that).

Now find me your favorite cover of his, madcougar, so we can all go at it...

JasonF

How do you know that? Do you have any evidence that the editor was lazy, or that there were deadline issues?

Timber

Not going to lie, I've always liked the simplicity of this cover.

JasonF

FYI, it's an homage:

whotony

Not copied?

mrhan

Oh, come on now. Really? If I have to explain that I'm typing more than I should.

Yeah, this guy does a lot of "homages" without giving credit where credit is due. The worst was probably X-Force #1 in which he stole the 1st few pages from Teen Titans #39 without giving credit to Perez.

Edit: Here's a couple of samples of the issues I was referring to.






More:

http://adlo.dreamers.com/estudios/comparativas.htm

Timber

I'm not digging out the issue but if I remember he did credit Byrne in the signature.

majorjoe23

But it's also a swipe

ultimaton

It's not a swipe, it's an homage. He properly credits Byrne on the New Mutants cover -- not that he'd really need to in this case as UX 139 is one of the more iconic X-Men covers and they're clearly calling back to it with the New Mutants. Liefeld is guilty of a lot of swipes through the years, but not in this particular instance.

TimeandTide

And further evidence (not that we really need any though) that Liefeld is indeed the "worst comic book artist ever."

Not to derail the thread again, but Art Adams should have had the career Liefeld did. What that guy did on Longshot's short run was better than anything Liefeld produced. (Only bringing this up because when I first saw Liefeld's work, I immediately thought that he was trying to imitate Adams' unique -- at the time -- style.)

PhantomStranger

I never thought much of Liefeld's art, but will forgive him for his perceived artistic transgressions simply because he allowed Alan Moore to run wild on Supreme. Alan Moore's Supreme ended up being the best run of Silver Age Superman there ever was.

slop101

I LOVE Art Adams, and while he has talent to spare (he was self "taught"), he admittedly works far too slow (all that detail) to do a regular monthly book.

JasonF

Yeah, you do. If you're going to claim Jim Salicrup was lazy and Sal Buscema blew a deadline (two statements that most pros would probably say would be completely out of character for the men in question), you should have some evidence to back it up.

Just because you don't like an artist's style doesn't make him a bad artist.

Just because you don't like an artist's style doesn't give you any insight into how long it took him to draw a particular image.

Just because you don't like an artist's style doesn't mean that the editor who published the artist shares your view.

If you want to say you don't like Sal Buscema, knock yourself out. If you want to say you find his drawings ugly, go for it. I think you have terrible taste, but whatever -- I probably dislike artists that you think are awesome. But when you start making statements about the skills -- or even worse, the work ethic -- of creators and editors, then you're just making up facts to try to justify your own aesthetic preferences as somehow being objective statements rather than mere opinion, and there's just no point to that.

mrhan

Ummm, I was being sarcastic and making an assumption at the same time. Anyways, it looks like your fanboyism is coming out. You need to reign that in. You, yourself are making assumptions on what I like or don't like. If you want to play it that way..okay. As I stated before in a previous post my favorite artists are Neal Adams (He happens to be the worst when it comes to blowing deadlines), Jim Aparo, John Buscema and Marshall Rogers. Have at it. Critique all you want but I'm not going to get all bent out of shape about it like you. I don't care if you don't like them. You should also note for the record, I never said I disliked Sal's art. I just think that if your going to put something out; it shouldn't be lazy or poorly drawn. I think that was the basis of all these posts about Sal. Also, the artists I happen to like are light years better than Sal and I'm sure most here would agree to that.

Randy Miller III

Sorry, bumped these quotes from the first page:

Am I missing something? Erik Larsen drew that cover, not Rob Liefeld. And Larsen damn well better not be considered a "worst artist".

Nick Danger

Liefeld came up with a style that made him a good living. That's great. He managed to do what almost no artist gets to do. I wish the artists in my life could do that.

But the artists in my life try to improve themselves. They think about what they do, they look at other people's art to figure out how other artists solved problems, and look at their own past work to figure out they could have improved it. Even Jim Davis, who had a formula that made him rich, kept tweaking Garfield in its first ten years.

It's the notion that Liefeld knows his artistic faults but can't be bothered to correct them that rubs me the wrong way. He could have both kept drawing in his personal style and taken a night class in anatomy. But he didn't care.

madcougar

Well since you asked...



I post this half kidding. I realize the guy's artwork is... extreme. I had to look through 100 different covers until I found this one.

And again, I totally get that... but like I said the argument can be made that he thinks that his style has gotten him this far so why change it now. Do we know that the guy realizes he isn't very good? Seriously, if you are an architect and you keep getting work and getting paid, do you really sit there and wonder if you're any good? Not everyone has it that little voice in them that drives them to improve and push boundaries.

fumanstan

Yeah, that seems pretty obvious. Not sure why someone would be using that cover as an example.

fujishig

I say that Supreme cover is cheating. He really only had to draw like a third of the body, and he basically hid the hands beyond the border. Though I give him some credit, he did put feet in there...