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[rowyn]

To truly appreciate this rant, you need to have been reading comics in the late 80s, early 90s, when Rob Liefeld first hit it big as a comic book artist.

You know, if he'd just been a lousy artist, I wouldn't've minded so much. What drove me nuts about Liefeld is that he was insanely popular. He not only drew horribly, he inspired everyone in the industry to draw horribly too, so that they too could make pots of money for drawing characters that looked like crap.

So, yeah, I did have better things to do than read a rant about a sampling of Liefeld's worst drawings, but it felt so good to hear someone else say "Hey! Look! The emperor has no clothes!"

Comments

[octantis.livejournal.com]

The funny thing about all this, to me, is that one can actually recognize how Liefeld managed, which is what the article doesn't point out.

On the first point, his art is, yes, horrible... but it's horrible in a sneaky way. He hides (poorly) his deficiencies in confusing layers of detail and lines of action. It comes off an absurd farce to anyone paying attention, but a lot of people read action comics in kind of a skimming way, moving quickly from panel to panel. To the people that didn't care, it was enough to have these symbols of what was going on rather than what actually was going on. Symbols like gun, muscle-bound, boobs, butt, sword, jump, and violence. They didn't necessarily have to be perfectly depicted, they just had to be THERE IN CAPITAL LETTERS, if that makes any sense. Which brings me to the next point.

Readers at the time were, I guess, looking for wish fulfillment, with over the top muscles, guns, sexy situations, etc. When a 'frontier' is explored, the first people that stake their claim often aren't the best, but get established and (horrifyingly) set a precedent that's difficult to shake. Obviously, there were already comics that were doing what Liefeld was doing, so it's not always the first people that stake their claim. If you're early enough, and hit the right spot, you don't necessarily have to be good at the rest. It helps he had/has the energy to bulldog his way through all criticisms.

That kind of points out the next factor... blind stupid luck. He made some money and his name at the perfect time... then he happened to throw both of those in the right direction.

Finally, if there's anything I envy about him (besides his luck) it's that he's had the energy to go full speed ahead all the time, even if he's missing deadlines. Having the energy to butt your head against lawsuits and critics and do all this stuff and make commercials... I wish I could do that.

All this makes his faults all the more glaring, and I think that's why we focus so hard on them.