Friday Fun Link: Hatin' on Rob Liefeld

Brian Doherty | December 7, 2007

Attention all: this is one of those comic book fan things; if you aren't interested, feel free to not click on the link. But I think any fan of comedic invective might enjoy this very long and very funny extended attack on 40 bad drawings by superstar and supercrappy '90s comic book artist sensation Rob Liefeld.

Some excerpts:

If you asked Rob Liefeld to draw a diagram of the uterus he'd put on a pair of gauntlets and punch the shit out of your chalkboard.....I don't want you looking at the stuff he's drawing and think he's a conscious adult male with a creative job who can and has influenced the minds of young artists. The man is a pair of blue jeans with a face. He has on a backwards cap, and when he turns it around, it's still backwards.

.........

Any time he draws anyone running ANYWHERE, they always have their arms held straight out to their sides. Like, I understand that you have to create the illusion of movement but I think what is more important is the illusion of me not hating you.

...........

If I had a nickel for every time Liefeld had his characters standing behind something so he didn’t have to draw their feet, I would still not have nearly as much money as Rob Liefeld.

..................

Rob Liefeld cannot grasp the basic concept of how the blade of a sword sits on the hilt. Or hey, maybe he just doesn’t give a shit. Here you see the blade kind of resting diagonally or almost perpendicular to the hilt, probably because he used a ruler to draw the blade and then was like “Hey I used a tool to make sure that line was straight, now kiss my ass, PHYSICS.”

Hat tip: Douglas Wolk.

Comments

Elemenope|12.7.07 @ 5:48PM|#

I don't really know or give a damn about anything comic-book related, and yet those put-downs are still funny. Hot damn.

|12.7.07 @ 5:58PM|#

Liefeld pretty much specialized in creating characters that no one could give half a fuck about, and then took that to new levels when he helped start Image, which was like an entire company dedicated to that principle.

This is good stuff, even if you aren't a comic geek. Of course if you are [raises hand] it's even better.

The Wine Commonsewer|12.7.07 @ 6:00PM|#

I'm clueless and ignorant of such things, yet I'm LOL at the excerpts.....

|12.7.07 @ 6:04PM|#

Holy shit this is funny! The comics links on H&R alone are worth gold. I hated that guy in the 90's and he was so big. I also thought Frank Miller was just a terrible artist.

In my mind John Byrne could draw and was a great writer too. His FF run was great.

V|12.7.07 @ 6:11PM|#

"Rob Liefeld cannot grasp the basic concept of how the blade of a sword sits on the hilt. Or hey, maybe he just doesn't give a shit. Here you see the blade kind of resting diagonally or almost perpendicular to the hilt, probably because he used a ruler to draw the blade and then was like "Hey I used a tool to make sure that line was straight, now kiss my ass, PHYSICS"

This moron spills this much ink criticizing someone for how the blade of a sword looks, and Rob Liefield is supposed to be the loser of this piece?

Brett|12.7.07 @ 6:22PM|#

Man, this is making my Friday. Even if I wasn't a comic junkie in the 80s, this would still be hilarious.

|12.7.07 @ 6:27PM|#

Thank you for this, Brian.

|12.7.07 @ 6:34PM|#

Nobody could touch Ernie Chan.

the innominate one|12.7.07 @ 6:37PM|#

hilarious

|12.7.07 @ 6:50PM|#

Funny stuff.
Reminds me a bit of "Superman is a dick", immortalized here:
http://www.superdickery.com/dick/1.html

|12.7.07 @ 7:14PM|#

Littlecupcakes, thanks, I never get tired of hte Superdickery site...It goes to show you how hard it is to write for a Superhero who can do anything. BORING! So they come up with various nutty things throughout the ages...

I always thought the dumbest power he had, in terms of making no sense, is SUPER FAST READING (which of course implies SUPER FAST THINKING)...

|12.7.07 @ 7:16PM|#

If you think about it Lex Luthor was a cool guy. His arch-nemesis had pretty much every super power out there and he fought the guy to a standstill many times with his one power: he was smart...

The ultra-libertarians would have to love LexCorps. Think of how it provided millions with low cost products thereby raising the standard of living for all while making a tidy profit for Lex which then stimulates more entrepeneurs to make the world a better place!

|12.7.07 @ 7:19PM|#

...but we both don't appreciate Garth Ennis having Superman demand blowjobs in a comic and expecting people to call him a genius.

HUH?!?

Franklin Harris|12.7.07 @ 7:47PM|#

In my mind John Byrne could draw and was a great writer too. His FF run was great.

And then he got old and grumpy.

|12.7.07 @ 7:52PM|#

Any o' you wierdos ever checked out this dude:
www.art-by-andy.com/

?
?
I'll come back later for responses.
Have a nice weekend!

|12.7.07 @ 7:56PM|#

Thanks very much, that's a great site.

|12.7.07 @ 8:01PM|#

Who was the guy who drew the Robin series that was out about a decade ago? He was fly (his name started with a G I think).

|12.7.07 @ 8:28PM|#

Jim Walsh,

"...but we both don't appreciate Garth Ennis having Superman demand blowjobs in a comic and expecting people to call him a genius.

HUH?!?"

Garth Ennis is currently working on a series called "The Boys" which featuers a Justice League like super-team. The Superman character in the team gets blown by ... well , you know the rest.

|12.7.07 @ 8:33PM|#

Great stuff. Liefield & co. are the guys who destroyed my interest in comics, so it's nice to see there are others who felt the same way.

|12.7.07 @ 8:37PM|#

Most people in the industry (which I'm not a part of) consider Liefield pompous and arrogant. I'm not here to defend his art. It's art. It's also comic book art. Meaning it's totally over the top and sensational. It beats the hell out of the crap that Jack Kirby was doing in the 60's. That was lacking.

Anyways the bash Rob Liefield shtick is pretty much played these days. He pissed everyone off years ago and they all bashed him for it. Apparently they can't leave well enough alone. I liked X-Force. I guess I'm just a fanboi.

|12.7.07 @ 8:38PM|#

"Now for a tasteful splash page of the Human Torch fucking The Thing missionary-style!"

aaahahahahahaha

|12.7.07 @ 8:55PM|#

My favorite comic personality story other than Larry Welz's cocaine parties was when one of the artists for the ILLUMINATUS! comic (a true collector's item!) was working a con booth. Mister Spawn himself walks up: "Oh hey, I know you, you're working on that ILLUMINATUS. Hi, I'm Todd MacFarlane." She replied with a smile, "Oh, hi. And what do you do?"

SxCx|12.7.07 @ 9:07PM|#

I know dick all about comics, but I'm finding this funny simply because one man is so enraged by the success of another.

I honestly don't think I've ever considered the movement arc of a comic book illustration, which makes me a caveman...?

SxCx|12.7.07 @ 9:09PM|#

And sorry, is this dude asking a comic book artist to respect reality?

Franklin Harris|12.7.07 @ 9:20PM|#

If you think about it Lex Luthor was a cool guy. His arch-nemesis had pretty much every super power out there and he fought the guy to a standstill many times with his one power: he was smart...

Which is why Batman is now more popular than Superman. And unlike Luthor, he doesn't just fight Superman to a standstill, he wins every time the two tangle.

Franklin Harris|12.7.07 @ 9:21PM|#

Anyways the bash Rob Liefield shtick is pretty much played these days. He pissed everyone off years ago and they all bashed him for it. Apparently they can't leave well enough alone.

It had played out. Then DC let him draw Teen Titans.

Ali (aka iih)|12.7.07 @ 9:27PM|#

Is this the weekend thread?

Ron Paul:

Pro-drugs (all of them), pro-prostitution, pro gay marriage:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=3970423&page=1

(well, he's pro people's rights to do so if they wish)

(make sure to watch video)

Cool!

(sorry if this is off-topic, but, hey, we're stripped of our weekend thread! Dave can't be allowed to do that!)

|12.7.07 @ 9:45PM|#

OK, I haven't even read the article yet, but I know that Liefeld's original Captain America drawings have to make the top 3.

BakedPenguin|12.7.07 @ 9:59PM|#

I don't read comics, but I did work with an artist for a short while on a project. He was a second year student, and he had better draftsmanship than this Liefeld guy. IMO, Liefeld deserves the hate he's gotten, especially if he made lots of money drawing shit like that. OTOH, it people want to buy that crap...

BakedPenguin|12.7.07 @ 10:18PM|#

...we're stripped of our weekend thread!

If it makes you feel better, iih, here's some progressive rock.

Ali (aka iih)|12.7.07 @ 11:10PM|#

Just came across this from a Paul fan:

"Go to google and search for:

bill of rights

click on the first non-sponsered link - a us government site.

And the result is a "Error 404: Not found"

Ironic."

(I couldn't verify it (because I have a French Google, which returns different search results)

Ali (aka iih)|12.7.07 @ 11:21PM|#

BakedPenguin, if that is substitute for Dave's songs, I'll take it. This is much better than the songs he posts.

Ali (aka iih)|12.7.07 @ 11:31PM|#

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QjJrIp2G9Q

Kim Scarborough|12.7.07 @ 11:39PM|#

See also http://ape-law.com/GAF/2007/09/classic-gone-and-forgotten-rob-liefelds.html for more examples of Liefeld awfulness.

Franklin Harris|12.7.07 @ 11:50PM|#

The fact that Rob Liefield makes lots of money because a lot of tasteless fanboys like to spank it to his deformed female characters (and maybe some of his deformed male characters, too) is a market failure. Like all market failures, it is the result of the market actually meeting the demands of idiots. The only solution is a government program to pay artists to draw superhero comics. But a superhero comic drawn by Art Spiegelman would definitely be a government failure, so we're just plain screwed.

Matt|12.8.07 @ 1:57AM|#

Oh man, I remember reading some of those. I hated Liefield's shit back then too. I read a couple Image titles, mostly Spawn (yeahyeah) and The Maxx, and, say what you will about either of those, it always seemed like the guys drawing them actually cared about what they were doing, whereas Liefield's titles looked like he just didn't give a shit.

|12.8.07 @ 7:36AM|#

what does it matter? yaniger rules.

Brian Defferding|12.8.07 @ 10:09AM|#

When I started drawing comics at 14 years old, I sadly have to say I was using Liefeld as one of my role models. Thank God I got over that when I went into a fine art school.

I look back at those old drawings, though, and laugh my ass off.

SxCx|12.9.07 @ 9:02AM|#

This is crazy, I was under the impression comic fans lapped up the absurd inhuman proportioning being dismissed here. You're telling you wished Cable's gun wasn't bigger than his head?