Link

[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

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I hated (and still hate) this guy's art, too ... and even more so, all the aping of the style. I know it might be kind of petty of me, but I can appreciate a proper rant about it, too. ;)

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

This is not to say that I appreciate the profanity, though. Why can't someone do a decent critique of utter trash without the crude language?

[level-head.livejournal.com]

The artist's approach to drawing the human form seems to be crude, disproportionate and inclined to get up front areas completely wrong, creating a distraction from the points he gets right.

Exactly like this rant's approach to the critique, in my opinion.

===|==============/ Level Head

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

I agree.

Liefeld was one of the factors that turned me off comics. I didn't analyze it at the time, but thought of it as "why are comic book artists no longer drawing people who look like PEOPLE."

The reason was that other artists began emulating Liefeld.

This also corresponded with a sudden extreme lack of respect for female characters. This was, of course, also the fault of the writers.

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Ooo. ZING!

See, now THAT's how to make a really biting critique. Class gets far more mileage than waving one's rhetorical arms about wildly and going, "&%$! %^&#! I mean, $%^!&!*!$! for real, man! Seriously, $#^&@!" as if that's going to somehow add more punch.

Some people get the idea that if you resort to curse words - well, man, you're really %&@#*$!%&$%&!*&$ serious now so we should LISTEN and take it, you know, *seriously*.

This is closely related to the phenomenon of using ALL CAPITAL LETTERS on a REGULAR BASIS, or ending every sentence with an exclamation point! No, not just one! It has to be TWO EXCLAMATION POINTS!! No, why even stop there?!?!?!?!! LET'S KEEP GOING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111!!!!!11!!!

It's also not far off from ellipsis-addiction. I suffered from that malady in 4th grade. I had developed the idea that if you trailed off sentences into ellipses, that was dramatic.... It got to the point where, in one year's project to write a "novel" in a notebook, adding to it daily, every single sentence ended in an ellipsis.... Every one.... Really.... It was so dramatic....

But it's not just for 4th-graders. When I worked at the Evil Corporation, there was one co-worker who ended every sentence with multiple punctuation marks. If it was a period, that wasn't enough. It had to be three of them... And if it was a question, wouldn't it be better with three question marks??? And, of course, an exclamation ended with three!!! But even stranger, sometimes he'd end sentences with a comma, and that got duplicated as well,,, I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean, but emphasis works best by contrast. It's just that, for some folks, it's not that they wish to contrast within their own vocabulary. (That is, most of the time, I'm calm and collected, but WHEN YOU REALLY GET ME RILED, OOO, WATCH OUT, BABY!) No, the contrast is apparently that everyone else talks in calm, mannered language, so therefore if they speak in all capital letters, all exclamation points, or all curse words, then every word from them must therefore be treated as extra-special by comparison with everyone else who doesn't resort to such measures.

I am not convinced that this is a terribly effective way of going about things. It's sort of like the Hollywood movie cliche of the fellow who is always calm and reserved and peaceful ... but, oh, finally somebody pushed him over the line, so now it's time to roll up his shirt-sleeves and, everybody watch out, it's time for a smack-down. But once you cross that line, it's not really special anymore. What if whatever pushed him "over the line" is merely the precursor to worse things? Can he really maintain the persona of "calm and collected" if he loses his cool the first time, but even worse things come down the line later? How will he react to them? Past this point, will it always be with sleeves rolled up and fists flying?

Or, take the tendency of some people to pack their comments to the very brim with much verbiage, incapable of making a simple point in a single sentence. Why, the ... oh ... wait a minute.

Now seems like a fine time to wrap things up.

[octantis.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, I laughed at the reviews, but to play the devil's advocate, I believe strong language to be a spice. To use it overly much and without any art is to spoil the dish, not unlike serving a steak and then putting it under a six-inch heap of chili powder. To use it strongly but blended in the right way can make a dish that's spicy, and maybe not to everyone's taste, but can be delicious.

I tend to agree with you, however. The most widely appealing dish is the one that uses this spice sparingly, if at all.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Some of the comments were funny, but (aside from the very first picture, my god) most of the things he was complaining about weren't that bad. I mean, compare it to something like Archie, or anything in the Sunday comics section of the newspaper. Yeah, whee, this arm is slightly out of proportion and OH MY GOD there's something obscuring a foot! Sheesh.

Not to mention the ones that amounted to "Hey look, this superhero's outfit is stupid-looking!" That makes about as much sense as "Ha ha, look at all that face paint that clown is wearing, what an idiot!"

Really, most of the pictures don't look any different than comics from before he even started drawing. Comics were always kind of ugly. Some of them are pretty now, and some of the pretty ones managed it by exaggerating stuff the same way Liefeld did, just doing it with some actual talent behind it.

... that said, that first picture is really frighteningly horrible. I'm going to have nightmares.

[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.

[the-vulture.livejournal.com]

Thanks for pointing the way to that rant! I enjoyed, profanity and all!