shaxper
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Post by shaxper on May 4, 2014 7:31:43 GMT -5
the story i heard it was rob's dad was really ill and he left school and got a job at DC at 16 to pay the medical bills. he then started inking his own work because he was indeed of a lot of cash for the hospital. so maximum respect. totally manned up when he was just a kid. people give him grief but it was DC and Marvel who were employing him. they probably just saw all these young artists as cheap labour and they didnt seem to care much for their quality of their books. Interesting perspective. I've never understood why Liefield is the biggest target of that whole group of first generation Image pampered pencilers. I've always felt Todd McFarlane deserves all the damning. Quality of art aside, he did so much damage to the industry from a business perspective. I don't have time to go on a rant right now (and probably won't for several more weeks), but I sure could. |
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Post by Nowhere Man on May 4, 2014 7:39:42 GMT -5
Steve Rude is brilliant, but I recently read John Byrne of all people (!) say that he was difficult to work with. Just think about that, if true. (And I'm a big Byrne fan)
I'm wondering if that has something to do with why Rude doesn't do much at Marvel or DC?
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Post by Icctrombone on May 4, 2014 7:42:10 GMT -5
The last thing I heard about Rude was that he was arrested for fighting with his neighbor. This was over a year ago.
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shaxper
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Posts: 22,866
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Post by shaxper on May 4, 2014 8:13:55 GMT -5
Steve Rude is brilliant, but I recently read John Byrne of all people (!) say that he was difficult to work with. Sorry. I'm just savoring the irony. |
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ironchimp
Full Member
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Post by ironchimp on May 4, 2014 8:18:20 GMT -5
Interesting perspective. I've never understood why Liefield is the biggest target of that whole group of first generation Image pampered pencilers. I've always felt Todd McFarlane deserves all the damning. Quality of art aside, he did so much damage to the industry from a business perspective. I don't have time to go on a rant right now (and probably won't for several more weeks), but I sure could. that story of rob's early days was told by ethan van sciver. From memory Ethan goes to say that Rob became so popular that he just never had time to practise and develop and that style he had at 16 just became his total style. I think, beyond Liefeld's very eccentric body shapes (but are they any more eccentric than the mannerists with their distorted body shapes, giant babies etc) Marvel made his style a semi house style and other artists were told to copy him. None of this was rob's fault - but entirely marvel's who for most of late 80s and 90s didnt have a clue what they were doing. Rob was just a guy who drew some comics. The fault lies solely at marvel's door for me anyway  |
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Post by Nowhere Man on May 4, 2014 8:23:07 GMT -5
I believe I read once that it was Mark Gruenwald who brought him into the fold and felt that he was going to be "the next Kirby."
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Post by Cei-U! on May 4, 2014 9:15:28 GMT -5
Steve Rude is brilliant, but I recently read John Byrne of all people (!) say that he was difficult to work with. Pretty sure that's Byrnespeak for "He didn't kiss my ass." Cei-U! Big ol' Rude fan here! |
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shaxper
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Posts: 22,866
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Post by shaxper on May 4, 2014 9:27:52 GMT -5
Pretty sure that's Byrnespeak for "He didn't kiss my ass ...enough"  |
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2014 9:55:52 GMT -5
The last thing I heard about Rude was that he was arrested for fighting with his neighbor. This was over a year ago. A couple of years ago, if memory serves. My understanding is that bipolar disorder may've played a part, which if so could indeed make him hard to work with at times (I unfortunately speak here, of course, from personal experience). |
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Post by Icctrombone on May 4, 2014 10:22:44 GMT -5
The last thing I heard about Rude was that he was arrested for fighting with his neighbor. This was over a year ago. A couple of years ago, if memory serves. My understanding is that bipolar disorder may've played a part, which if so could indeed make him hard to work with at times (I unfortunately speak here, of course, from personal experience). Thanks for that Dan. I didn't want to damage Rudes reputation by repeating something I wasn't sure of. My first wife had mental illness as well so it's a sensitive issue for me too. |
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Post by impulse on May 4, 2014 10:44:57 GMT -5
re: Lee vs. Liefield, while it's unfortunate artists of the time period ushered in an unfortunate era of style over substance and artists over writers, I will say I believe Jim Lee was by far at the top of that pile. He was technically much better than the rest and I think better in a subjective manner, too. Despite that, his work feels dated now as his style hasn't really evolved. If anything, it's a bit worse since he seems to have spent so much more time on the business side that he has lost some refinement.
Liefield's technical atrocities aside, the guy has his fans, and I do enjoy the odd Liefield book now and then for nostalgic reasons, child of the 80s and 90s that I am.
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Post by Randle-El on May 4, 2014 14:37:39 GMT -5
re: Lee vs. Liefield, while it's unfortunate artists of the time period ushered in an unfortunate era of style over substance and artists over writers, I will say I believe Jim Lee was by far at the top of that pile. He was technically much better than the rest and I think better in a subjective manner, too. Despite that, his work feels dated now as his style hasn't really evolved. If anything, it's a bit worse since he seems to have spent so much more time on the business side that he has lost some refinement. Liefield's technical atrocities aside, the guy has his fans, and I do enjoy the odd Liefield book now and then for nostalgic reasons, child of the 80s and 90s that I am. Honestly, I think a lot of the 90s hate in general, and the Liefeld-bashing in particular, is just way, way, over the top. Sometimes people on the web just like to sound like they know what they are talking about, and one of the easiest ways to do that is to have an easy whipping boy and make fun of him. I would also imagine that there's probably an ingredient of shameful self-loathing to it as well, like when you look at an old picture and can't believe you used to like that old hairstyle, or that style of clothing. The ones hurling the most insults probably were the ones buying Liefeld books by the truckloads and are now feeling vindictive because that polybagged copy of X-Force #1 didn't pay for their college education like they thought. I agree that Jim Lee was one of the better artists of that group. You can say what you want about his style, but he just seems more technically competent to me than Liefeld or McFarlane. I think he peaked with his early DC work though, specifically Hush. His more current work is sorta hard for me to judge though. I mean, how many other artists do you know who pencil monthly books AND have a full-time job as an executive for a major corporation? Frankly, I find it amazing that he's able to draw a monthly book at all these days. In interviews it says he basically does his DC work during the day, and then draws books all night. I don't know when that guy sleeps. |
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Post by Ozymandias on May 4, 2014 14:51:20 GMT -5
Honestly, I think a lot of the 90s hate in general, and the Liefeld-bashing in particular, is just way, way, over the top. Sometimes people on the web just like to sound like they know what they are talking about, and one of the easiest ways to do that is to have an easy whipping boy and make fun of him. I would also imagine that there's probably an ingredient of shameful self-loathing to it as well, like when you look at an old picture and can't believe you used to like that old hairstyle, or that style of clothing. The ones hurling the most insults probably were the ones buying Liefeld books by the truckloads and are now feeling vindictive because that polybagged copy of X-Force #1 didn't pay for their college education like they thought. I agree that Jim Lee was one of the better artists of that group. You can say what you want about his style, but he just seems more technically competent to me than Liefeld or McFarlane. I think he peaked with his early DC work though, specifically Hush. His more current work is sorta hard for me to judge though. I mean, how many other artists do you know who pencil monthly books AND have a full-time job as an executive for a major corporation? Frankly, I find it amazing that he's able to draw a monthly book at all these days. In interviews it says he basically does his DC work during the day, and then draws books all night. I don't know when that guy sleeps. Maybe he draws in his sleep? About the hate for the 90's, the only bad thing about it is that it arrives more than a decade late. I started reading and collecting in the 70's, in the 80's I was buying like 50 titles per month, in the 90's there were a lot of moths when my list was reduced to just two titles. |
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Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on May 4, 2014 14:59:31 GMT -5
I think Liefeld gets the crap in large part because his work, both as an artist and as a writer, is so over the top, even compared to contemporaries like Lee and McFarlane. It seems almost to be parody, but he plays it straight, which gives readers some cognitive dissonance. If Liefeld seemed in on the joke - if he seemed to realize his stuff is parody and if he played into it on purpose - his work would be a lot easier to take.
I actually think Liefeld shields Lee and McFarlane and the others from his generation of artists. Because his stuff is such an easy target, their stuff looks better by comparison. If Liefeld wasn't around, I think they would get a lot more guff. I agree with others who have said that Lee's current work looks a little stagnant and dated, but as long as Liefeld is around, Lee is going to continue to look like a genius in comparison.
I think his downfall was getting too much power too fast; not only did he never have to get better, he was allowed to actively get worse. His early work on New Mutants was actually stronger than his work just a couple years later on X-Force, because by that point he had so much power due to sales that Marvel started just letting him do what he wanted instead of having some editorial oversight on his artwork. Instead of making him at least try to fit into the house style in terms of storytelling basics, they were just like, you sold 2.5 million copies of X-Force #1, so do whatever you want. So he just got worse with time in stead of better. If he had had a few more years being shaped by editors, he might have turned out okay.
As it was, though, while I was on the Liefeld bandwagon (like most fans) during the end of the New Mutants run, by the time Youngblood #1 came out, Liefeld was a laughingstock. My friends in high school and I just bagged on him mercilessly for Youngblood. So Liefeld bashing is not revisionist history either. It was happening even when he was popular. And the shift happened very quickly. New Mutants #87 was March 1990. X-Force #1 has a cover date of August 1991. Youngblood #1 was April 1992. In the space of two years, he went from complete unknown to one of the three most popular creators in comics to a complete joke among fans.
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2014 15:21:48 GMT -5
The Rob Liefeld Legacy can be summed up like this-because of his popularity Marvel made Herb Trimpe draw like this....  -M |
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