Liefeld prank at Wizard World

Not much of a prank, don't a lot of people give Liefield anatomy books to sign?

I thought the prank was him being there in the first place.

Outside of his questionable artwork, is Liefeld a jerk or something? If not I'd kinda feel bad for him. I mean, at least asking him to draw a pouch (which I've heard was done) is at least kinda funny.

I love that he can't comprehend the difference between resting and flexing.

Yeah, exactly, to me that seems less mean or something. Unless, like I say, he's a complete jerk.

I'm starting to think that what's getting people so riled up about this is less what the dude did* and more the self congratulatory circle jerking tone of the post. Also there's something sad about Liefeld these days...like his art was always a joke to a lot of comic fans, but he used to have pull - strong fanbase, the people at Wizard giving praise in their usual one-step-from-a-press-release way, deals with Marvel. Now he's just this guy who only ever gets mentioned as a punchline. So this reeks very much of kicking a man when he's down.

* The request for an apology was dickish and unfunny, but sorta normal Comic Book Guy type behaviour - I sort of imagine most comic book artists hear these types of lame criticisms all the time at cons. The book thing kinda made me laugh, though I'm not surprised to hear it's been done before and he ruined it by writing the note.

Captain America has no penis.

It's true. This man has no dick.

I heard someone asked him to sign some baby shoes, and he did, laughed about it and moved on.

Generally I think Liefield is a dick but this guy is the dick in that room. As if he's picking on liefield for a few issues he did over ten years ago, topical!

From what I hear it's the opposite, actually. Supposedly he's a really nice guy in person.

He gets all the flack that he does because he never attempted to improve his one marketable skill and continued drawing things wrong his entire career. His current output is nearly indistinguishable from his stuff in the early nineties. And that's just about the worst thing you can do as an artist.

Back when I was really trying to break into comics ('91-'94), I used to clog Artist Alley by doing a "How to Draw Comics the Liefeld Way" Seminar. It went very much like the Strong Bad "Japanese Cartoon" E-Mail.

"Tiny head...pouches...single shoulder pad shaped like a shovel...immense boobs (equally at home on a man or woman)...giant rectangle for a gun..."cyber" monacle...large belt...more pouches...

The coup de Gracie (Ju Jitsu) was the ubiquitous CROSSHATCHED CLOUD OF DUST - insuring that the figure would not need to be completed past the POUCH attached at the thigh. The only thing missing was the holofoil. I used to give the drawing away when I was done, and five or six people would pay me to do one like it afterwords. It was fun.

One year, Peter David saw my act and paid for me to throw five balls at a dunk tank target with Rob inside (it was a Legal Defense Fund fundraiser). I missed with all five (I suck). Liefeld taunted me with "C'mon, c'mon!" - to which I added "Feel the vibration!" David told me I was lame and asked me if I could do better if I punched the target. I gave him 25.00, ran up to the tank, and struck the target with a Bruce Lee-style "owwwwwwwwWWW!!" and everyone was happy.

Ugh...Liefeld. I went to the con, saw his table, and never looked in that direction again. He is the opposite of good (which, as we all know, is UNGOOD). He was sitting on the same wall as Edward James Olmos - who I stopped just long enough to say "GANOS!" to on Sunday. We found out he's gonna' be in Gondry's Green Hornet.

He's sort of a loveable goofball, isn't he? Like some sort of Adam Sandler character. Stuff like his getting all het up when Peter David made Shatterstar gay, or annoucing to a reporter that he's gonna "go after" Alan Moore and then he ends up just sort of babbling about how Moore just wants money and the mystic thing is a shtick while praising him every second sentence, like he's totally sure that this way he can have his cake and eat it, too. It's all sort of weaselly and mean spirited on one hand but on the other there's something so childish about him that you can't really get mad, he's this perpetual ten year old, in his public persona as much as in his work. Plus just look at the dude:



Doesn't he look like he's about to have some wacky adventures, possibly involving lots of poop jokes and his learning a valuable lesson at the end?

Liefeld's isn't selling a milion copies like in the 90's, but he is drawing five comics (Marvel and Image), and has the highest number of commission requests in his life (i'm a fan of Erik Larsen, so i visit Image's forum a lot). It's the most sought-out he's been since the 90's...

And he's probably making a lot of money off the Breatt ratner Youngblood movie, too.

This really sums up why I hate so many comic fans. Impotent, jealous, angry retards.

Dev - I don't know if it's about jealousy. I think Liefeld long ago became the poster boy for the nine-cover gimmicky, speculation-driven downside of comics. I remember back when Nick was doing the CHUD-style comic book-oriented sister site, he asked me to do a piece of art much like what I described above to accompany an article he wrote about the comic bubble bursting (and why). That was ten years ago. Liefeld left a bad taste in people's mouths back then. There's no doubt that Rob made a gazillion dollars. There's no doubt he was an impresario cum-rock star in the comics world. But there's a great deal of written word (some from his own pen) that attests to the idea that he's not the greatest artist - or business partner - a guy could ever have.

I'm not sure I see how different taking his awkward style to task is from your taking shots at boneheaded filmic decisions. People see odd stuff - and they comment on it. Way it goes.

I don't go up to filmmakers and try to humiliate them to their faces.

To be honest, there's a few filmmakers that would deserves it. Liefeld is the Uwe Boll of the comic business. Except he's not funny.

Yeah, it's pretty much a given that if Michael Bay or Brett Ratner were doing more low profile convention appearences you'd have people asking for apologies/giving them "how to direct" books as well.

I had no idea! Checked his wiki before posting and all it talked about was a new Youngblood series. What's he doing for Marvel?

Also Boll has never had the high profile (comparatively speaking) that Liefeld had; dude was a juggernaut in his day.

Forgot to add that he also used to be famous for plagiarizing other artists rather shamelessly. I dunno if he's still at it, but it's pretty well documented in his career. Trouble is, with a guy like him it's damn hard to tell parody (or homage for that matter) from straight up thievery.



Maybe his closest analogue in Hollywood is Bay what with The Island being ripped off of Clonus and all.

I don't know if there are other, better examples of plagiarism, but that particular one just doesn't do it for me. They both have codpieces and v-shaped abdominal plates. That's about it.

He was able to draw the hands, because he was copying. I wish the original image included feet, then there would be no argument about it.

Really? REALLY?

Well if that's not enough, there's this:

Yes, those are much better. I wasn't doubting you, just pointing out a bad example.

Everyone here reads you calling out execs and directors and actors on the main. Are you saying you lack the spine to say to their faces what you say about them on CHUD? I wouldn't think that's your style. I'd think that, in a room full of Fox execs, you'd tell them to their faces exactly what you say about them here. Certainly you've no qualms about approaching those who you think (and rightfully so) tarnish your profession. I think the situations are pretty much the same.

People don't begrudge people the success when it's merit-based. I think there are plenty of fantastic artists to admire and learn from...some of whom are, to my mind, seriously underappreciated. I remember being at one of those aforementioned cons ages ago...seeing Liefeld's studio booth mobbed...and seeing Berni Wrightson sitting alone for hours. To me - that's criminal. It's the equivalent of watching Transformers II make a shit-ton of cake while The Hurt Locker limps to seven digits. I'm not entirely sure why you don't se the rationale for the indignation here.

Having said that - the guy's schtick falls kinda' flat. But there's truth to the thing.

Yes, Devin should professionally shoot himself in the head to live up to your idea of having a spine.

The thing is, it's not like Liefeld went home that night, looked through that book, and said, "My god, I FINALLY get it!" And it's not like a bunch of Fox execs are going to change their ways because Devin yells at them. If people stop buying Liefeld's books or going to Fox films, if they affect their bottom line, THAT will have an impact.

Liefeld is a shitty artist.

This guy is a shitty person.

What Brad said.

The "prank" is also completely stupid and executed in the most unfunny way. So we don't even get something really clever out of this. A lose, lose situation for everybody.

Did he even watch his own video, after being told about his gift, he pretty much ignores the whole thing.

Yeah that fell very flat. I can understand not liking someone's art, but this was just dumb. I don't think I would punch Leifeld in the face in real life if I saw him, I just wouldn' want to talk to him. I don't hold him responsible in any way for the multi-cover stupid hyper collectable debacle in the early 90's. He was more just the poster boy for it. Sort of like this girl:



You wouldn't punch her, would you? She also looks like she had many madcap adventures with lessons learned at the end!

Pollock, what's Liefeld supposed to do? Tell his fans to go away and visit Wrightson instead? Not show up at all?

And what is the "truth" to what that yellow hat douchebag did?

There are no feet in that poster.

If by madcap adventures, you mean loading people onto freight cars, or running the showers... then yes, she should be punched.

You know what the real truth is? The reason that so many people are pissed off at Liefeld?

It's because when they were younger, they bought into all the bullshit in the early 90s. They bought into all the holofoil chromium magneto-sized special issue nonsense, artists like Liefeld and Lee and that scratchy house style, shitty "edgy" characters like Spawn and Youngblood, and all the awful bullshit that they claim to be above now. They're ashamed of themselves, and they think that Liefeld somehow conned them. That he's somehow responsible for their bad taste.

No, he just draws poorly, but nobody made you dumb fucks by X-Force.

I was 19 when all of these crazy marketing gimmicks came out, so I guess that was old enough to have a shred of wisdom and not buy into any of them. But for a solid year, I watched as mobs of kids ate that shit up. Not that the comic stores did anything to discourage the behaviour. The Silver Snail in Ottawa was my comic store around that time (as I had to leave Strange Adventures behind when I left the Maritimes), and they used to offer packs of all of the variant covers for each issue that had multiple covers. Which made it really easy for the kids to get everything in one fell swoop. Hell, they were even selling the little cards that came in the polybags seperately, just like single cards of Magic: The Gathering.

I'm not interested enough in looking up the value of all of these gimmicks now, did anyone actually get rich off of collecting all of this garbage?

The only one I ever owned was the trade of Gambit and the Externals with the shiny gold cover; and I feel bad enough about that.

I'd really love to see what comics Yellow Hat Guy is currently buying, because if every single one isn't better than an average Liefeld issue, he needs to shut the hell up.

Also, he looks like David Cross, if David Cross was a Down Syndrome pedophile.

We should send him a book called How To Look Like David Cross and write our email in it so he can send us a formal apology for not properly looking like David Cross.

How To Look Like David Cross the Marvel Way!

At least Berni Wrightson doesn't look like David Cross. And can draw feet.

And feathers. Goddamn, look at that feather. You could kill a man with a feather like that.

That's not a feather, it's baleen.

This picture is awesome, both by itself and because of the many photoshopping possibilities that it suggests.