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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 31, 2022 22:32:26 GMT -5
I'm glad there's been a backlash to the Rob Liefeld criticism in recent times, especially some of the public shaming that goes on. I do think folks go too far in the other direction when they claim his work is avant-garde or when they compare him to Kirby. However, I think the modern cartoonists who grew up on Liefeld have a lot more interesting things to say about his work than his detractors. Apart from the usual circles (Comics Journal), at the time, Liefeld wasn't criticized any more than any artist. however, with the Image launch and some of the statements they made in public, they became lightning rods for everyone who hated what was happening in mainstream comics, as they were pretty much the poster children for the worst elements: sloppy art, bad storytelling, pin-up pages over story pages, gimmicks, speculator buying, artists are the only ones who create, etc. Rob wasn't as vocal as McFarlane or Larson; but, he took some potshots at Louise Simonson, as writer, on New Mutants and then started claiming she contributed nothing and it became open season on him for a patently dumb statement by a punk kid. I will count myself in that group. Outside of Hawk & Dove, I hated his art; but, never cared enough to fixate on it, until the Image launch and the cumulative attacks on other people in comics ticked me off. That made me want to mock and ridicule his work more; but, at the same time, that was with friends, at my local shop and it was mostly just poking fun at the quirks and cliches in his work. We actually drew a series of "creator trading cards" satirizing the Image guys and a few others, with characters like Liefeld Man, a guy with massive pecs and thighs, no feet, no pupils, giant shoulder pads, a huge gun and pouches everywhere. It was juvenile, but harmless fun. Then, the internet came along. By that point, I didn't care about Image and was reading more indie stuff and I would just smirk and walk past their books at the local shop, apart from the few creators I liked, such as Mike Grell and Shaman's Tears (though I never truly thought that series was great) or Sam Kieth on The Maxx, or the 1963 stuff. When the Marvel deal came and I saw the preview art for captain America and I just shook my head and said, "They are paying him how much for that garbage?" and then smirked when he was dumped off his books. It was childish; but, there you go. I mellowed, over the years and saw some later examples of his work that looked so much better. Greg Burgas had some, in his column at CBR that stunned me, as they were REALLY good. The talent was there; but the maturity may not have been. So, I still poke fun at his young stuff; but, I don't begrudge him his success and it wasn't his fault that he was producing during a time when the industry was churning out crap. He was only responsible for his own crap and if someone liked it, that was their thing; I had mine, with stuff like Hellboy and Astro City and other things. Plus, he gets the jookes and has played up to them, like his Pouch Man drawing; so, we have all grown up, a bit. On a good day. On a bad day we make fun of tiny feet, 82 molars, and Lego guns. I also make fun of the weird coloring of Continuity and their bat-@#$% stories and violence and Neal Adams' weird theories about the Earth. So, even legends get some.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Aug 1, 2022 4:29:37 GMT -5
The accomplishment alone gets my attention. He made a fortune from his Marvel work and he parlayed it into starting his own company where he keeps the money for films etc. it’s really impressive. I remember being shocked when reading Sean Howe's Marvel Comics: The Untold Story at just how much money Rob Leifeld, Todd McFarlane et al we're making from comics at this point. Irrespective of the merits of their work, these guys were living like rock stars for a good few years there.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Aug 1, 2022 11:17:19 GMT -5
I've never hated Liefeld so much at marveled at the amount of success he accrued for (in my opinion) not generating all that much quality.
I'm not sure I'll ever understand how the age of the over-hyped artist began at Marvel, but it's interesting how differently each of those artists handled their fame. Each was young, immature, and entitled, but some were more grounded than others. Other than undercutting Simonson on New Mutants, I have no particular beef with Liefeld. Short of undercutting Claremont on X-Men, I have no issue with Jim Lee either. Really, Bob Harras was the one to blame in both circumstances. Erik Larson made a d*ckish comment about writers but otherwise seems to have been pretty inoffensive in his career(?).
But then there was Todd McFarlane...
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Post by MDG on Aug 1, 2022 12:01:56 GMT -5
I've never hated Liefeld so much at marveled at the amount of success he accrued for (in my opinion) not generating all that much quality. I'm not sure I'll ever understand how the age of the over-hyped artist began at Marvel, but it's interesting how differently each of those artists handled their fame. Each was young, immature, and entitled, but some were more grounded than others. Other than undercutting Simonson on New Mutants, I have no particular beef with Liefeld. Short of undercutting Claremont on X-Men, I have no issue with Jim Lee either. Really, Bob Harras was the one to blame in both circumstances. Erik Larson made a d*ckish comment about writers but otherwise seems to have been pretty inoffensive in his career(?). But then there was Todd McFarlane... I think part of the backlash was a feeling, especially among old-time fans, of, "It's great to see artists finally getting some recognition and cash out of their work. But why'd it have to be these guys?!?!"
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 1, 2022 12:18:46 GMT -5
I've never hated Liefeld so much at marveled at the amount of success he accrued for (in my opinion) not generating all that much quality. I'm not sure I'll ever understand how the age of the over-hyped artist began at Marvel, but it's interesting how differently each of those artists handled their fame. Each was young, immature, and entitled, but some were more grounded than others. Other than undercutting Simonson on New Mutants, I have no particular beef with Liefeld. Short of undercutting Claremont on X-Men, I have no issue with Jim Lee either. Really, Bob Harras was the one to blame in both circumstances. Erik Larson made a d*ckish comment about writers but otherwise seems to have been pretty inoffensive in his career(?). But then there was Todd McFarlane... I think part of the backlash was a feeling, especially among old-time fans, of, "It's great to see artists finally getting some recognition and cash out of their work. But why'd it have to be these guys?!?!" After being burned by those 7 leaving , Marvel down Played their artists and stated it was the characters and not the talent that sold comics.
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 1, 2022 18:27:23 GMT -5
Youngblood # 5PlotRob LiefeldScriptEric StephensonPencilsChap YaepInkerNorm RapmundColor Chameleon Prime / Kell-o-Graphics
Date of release:7-20-93 Synopsis:Darkthorn and a mind controlled Bedrock face off against the remaining Youngblood and Berkerkers. Bedrock is taken down by the Berserkers . Prophet is knocked out by Darkthorne and the only person left to possibly take him on is Psi-Fire, who is under a power dampening device. Riptide and Vogue decide that he is their only chance to survive this battle. After a game of chicken, Darkthorne escapes fearing he couldn’t take the Youngblood member. After Darkthorne escapes Kirby decides that he will stay with Prophet to help him find his destiny. Impressions:
Oh boy. Liefeld Abandons his flagship book to penciler Chap Yaep.I never heard of him. He must be new to comics. What follows is art that is a bit distorted and filled with splash pages. After a build up, Prophet goes down easily which is a let down. It feels like they didn’t know how to resolve this storyline and they chose this ending. Psi-Fire , who ultimately defeats Darkthorne was never shown to be present until this last issue. In Youngblood #4 , He is not on the plane or even mentioned. How did he suddenly appear ? Ugh. Really bad continuity , this is why early Image needed editors. What a disappointment this conclusion is. I’m afraid to read the next issue. The coloring was by another group of people and it looked weird. Almost like rainbow colors in the opening few pages. Distracting color choices Issue #5 is released 5 months after issue #4. Maybe that accounts for problems in continuity, And it is a flip book with Brigade #4. Brigade seemed to be on schedule more than their Flagship book. What a mess.
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 1, 2022 21:40:38 GMT -5
The Image guys benefitted from a perfect storm of different elements. Most of them came over to Marvel post-Shooter, when Tom DeFalco ran a looser ship. Shooter was more rigid about the art in the titles. DeFalco and his editors were not. All of them got onto high profile titles that were already among Marvel's bestselling titles and benefitted from heavy promotion of those titles. Marvel had its royalty plan in operation; and, since they were coming onto bestselling titles, they were guaranteed bigger royalties and encouraged to push higher. Speculator's were buying titles like crazy, particularly targeting those with special gimmicks, to make them stand out, new titles and significant anniversary issues. Most of the titles these guys were on were marketed with gimmicks. They also expanded their popular titles to create more titles, within those brands. So, they got new issues, which were also given special gimmicks, to help push them. You could put just about any artist into that and get similar results, with the marketing push those specific titles got. McFarlane was the true superstar of the bunch, as he was getting noticed, at DC, for Batman Year Two (after taking over from Alan Davis, on the second chapter). When he came onto Amazing Spider-Man, his art really livened up the book and people responded. That led to giving him his own title, which benefitted from being a first issue, bagged, with a trading card and speculators went into a feeding frenzy. Liefeld, who had some artistic similarities to McFarlane (but not as well developed a design sense and lacking the tutelage that McFarlane got from Dick Giordano), got onto a secondary X-book, when they were trying to shake it up and got to draw a Terminator rip-off, which was from the X-Men's future. Louise Simonson was heavily involved in that; but, Harras was listening more to his artists. They decided to rename the book, to haxe an X in the title, but decided to cater to speculators with a new numbering and another bagged issue, with a trading card.
Larsen got on a Spider-Man book, in time to bring back the symbiote suit and launch Venom. He benefitted greatly from following McFarlane. Lee got on the main X-title, after doing Punisher, both high selling books, already. Valentino got to launch a new series, with ties to the Avengers and X-Men and a future hook. Silvestri got on X-Men and Wolverine. Whilce Portacio got on X-Factor and Uncanny X-Men.
They all benefitted from being on high profile titles, which were receiving the heaviest marketing pushes, along with the use of gimmicks, which attracted speculators, who were inflating numbers. That meant they got big royalties (Chris Claremont bought an airplane with his X-Men royalties).
McFarlane is probably the one who most blazed a path and the others, by and large, followed in his wake, or in his example.
The royalty system made them great money, without speculators, as Shooter had boosted the average sales of the entire line enough that most writers and artists got decent to great royalties, depending on the title. Marvel's marketing department became a big deal, by the late 80s, promoting to the direct market and started carrying a lot of weight in what titles became pushed as the "hot" books. The marketing push could make or break a title, though the New Universe shows that you could polish a turd only so much). X-Men and Spider-Man were the top two franchises and they put their might into anything associated with it. Speculators were banking on making quick money and began targeting gimmicks titles and new launches, as they had higher demand. You start to see massive sales for new launches, despite estimates of actual readership being half of the sales figures. Comic shops are buying in bulk in hopes of selling those books for inflated prices. Speculators are buying multiples of titles. Marketing responds to these patterns with more gimmicks, more variant covers and more new titles tied to existing hot sellers. They push the artist's images, with posters and other merchandise, making it seem like they, alone, are responsible for sales of the titles and not the entire team, including the writer. They let the artists start writing their own books, catering to the idea of artist as god and the results are often laughably bad; but, the marketing pushes the books with gimmicks and heavy promotion, so sales are higher than readership and it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's a basic economic event, where belief in the scarcity or demand for a product leads to investing in that product, thereby creating that predicted success or a reverse of that belief leading to a collapse. It's the "boom" and "bust" cycle of speculation buying. Comics was going through that, at that time and that set of creators were the best positioned to benefit.
Image started out as a side project that Rob was doing, to use a bunch of characters he had created, as a Teen Titans/X-Men fan project. he was in a position, as a featured artist, to sell them to the market and Malibu allowed him ownership of the property, rather than give up a character, like Deadpool. He got extremely favorable terms, from Malibu, who were looking to move into color comics, after initially riding the black & white boom and bust. McFarlane was interested in doing something similar, especially with the offer of ownership and a bigger percentage of sales. Then they talked to some of the other guys, who were interested in those kinds of benefits. Larson had a fan-based character that had already made an appearance, at Megaton Comics, with Savage Dragon. Valentino had come from Renegade and other indie publishers and McFarlane had dabbled in that, too. They got the others involved and decided to play what Malibu was offering against their salaries and royalties at Marvel, to try to get a better deal. Marvel was hesitant and McFarlane and Liefeld already had deals, so they stood to benefit no matter what. The other guys had something to lose; but, when Jim Lee became miffed at an editorial slight, and he joined them, they now had the top Spider-Man guy and the top X-Man guy and the other s saw that joining that bandwagon would make them more money, as a group. And that is what happened as now, Speculators targeted those books, as they were all brand new, with gimmicks and variants, from Marvel's former high profile books. It didn't matter that the majority were thinly veiled (and conceived) knockoffs of what they had been doing at Marvel. They tweaked it just enough not to get sued (though Rob had to make changes a few times); but, everything that had Image slapped on it sold huge to the speculators and even regular comic readers joined in with the frenzy as often happens in these cycles. At the same time, Wizard launched and became the glossy cheerleader of the speculator frenzy.
So, a lot of forces were converging and these guys fell into the epicenter. It could have just as easily been the guys who later became the Legend imprint, at Dark Horse (John Byrne, Frank Miller, Art Adams, Mike Mignola, Matt Wagner, Paul Chadwick).
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Aug 1, 2022 22:43:04 GMT -5
I've never hated Liefeld so much at marveled at the amount of success he accrued for (in my opinion) not generating all that much quality. I'm not sure I'll ever understand how the age of the over-hyped artist began at Marvel, but it's interesting how differently each of those artists handled their fame. Each was young, immature, and entitled, but some were more grounded than others. Other than undercutting Simonson on New Mutants, I have no particular beef with Liefeld. Short of undercutting Claremont on X-Men, I have no issue with Jim Lee either. Really, Bob Harras was the one to blame in both circumstances. Erik Larson made a d*ckish comment about writers but otherwise seems to have been pretty inoffensive in his career(?). But then there was Todd McFarlane... I think part of the backlash was a feeling, especially among old-time fans, of, "It's great to see artists finally getting some recognition and cash out of their work. But why'd it have to be these guys?!?!" I vaguely recall Romita(?) losing his sh*t over McFarlane getting total creative control over his own Spidey book.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Aug 1, 2022 22:45:01 GMT -5
Youngblood # 5 I'd love if you'd include release dates for these books since they were published so infrequently. Theoretically, Liefeld had time to grow and mature as a creator between the more substantial gaps.
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 2, 2022 4:56:07 GMT -5
I'd love if you'd include release dates for these books since they were published so infrequently. Theoretically, Liefeld had time to grow and mature as a creator between the more substantial gaps. Thanks for the suggestion, I just went back and added the release dates to the posts.
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 2, 2022 5:18:54 GMT -5
There's a lot to unpack , so I'll try to address what I know and what is just common sense. 1. You claim that Marvel expanded and those particular creators benefited , but you're putting the cart before the horse. You could only expand if you have the demand for more books and the talent. The market has to be able to support the books. If you have fans for Mcfarlane, Lee and Liefeld, then you can start books at #1 and get the sales figures that they achieved. Even if you remove the speculators, those figures would still be huge. Try starting X-men , Spider-man and X-force at #1 with Don Perlin, June Brigman and Alex Suivak and see what type of numbers you get. 2. It's disingenuous to slight Liefeld by calling Cable a Terminator rip off. Just about all characters ,except a few, are rip offs. Shazam Captain Marvel =Superman and so on. That character and Deadpool have been realized in movies that grossed a billion dollars worldwide; Hundreds of characters have been introduced before and since and you can't even get a movie made. Hey, I'm not saying it's the best creation ever, I'm saying give him his due. 3. By mentioning John Byrne, Frank Miller, Art Adams, Mike Mignola, Matt Wagner, Paul Chadwick, you prove the point that what the Image 7 did was special. There was certainly timing at play but none of these creators were able to break a million sold or had the courage to break away from the old system to get a fraction of what the Image 7 did. Destiny favors the bold.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Aug 2, 2022 5:44:21 GMT -5
[ Impressions: This is a quick decompressed style story where nothing really happens except Badrock being taken over to the enemy's side. It’s surprising to see that it’s continued in Brigade # 4 until you discover that It’s a flip book that with Brigade #4 on one side and Youngblood # 5 on the back cover. Is it a ploy to get the buyer to buy 2 copies? The layouts and storytelling is decent. Maybe the team is hitting its stride. The backup story is the debut of Dale Keown's Pitt Character which was Keowns first work for Image. Reportedly, he was payed 10k to join Image with that story. I definitely remember the flip book thing, but I missed Brigade #4 (Which I was getting still) and my store display the Youngblood Cover.. ended up getting it when I asked having got the next issue. and to be fair, the Deadpool Liefeld created didn't get crazy popular, it wasn't until Joe Kelly turned him into a 4th wall breaking psychotic version of Bugs Bunny that he took off, IMO.
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Post by commond on Aug 2, 2022 7:35:59 GMT -5
Chad Yaep was a young 19 year-old kid who was the penciller for Team Youngblood, the other Youngblood series. He quit the business in 1999.
I'm not sure that any of the Legend guys could have moved the units that McFarlane, Liefeld and Lee did on Spider-Man, X-Force and X-Men. Arthur Adams seems like the closest fit artistically. The others I see as either not mainstream enough, too esoteric, or too old-fashioned/outdated. The success of the Image guys was based on popular appeal. The speculators may have driven sales through the roof, but the artists were hot because fans liked them. I don't think you can downplay the success Liefeld had with New Mutants and the X-Force relaunch after he took the book from Simonson, and as for Lee, fans were absolutely clamoring for him to work on the X-Men after the fill-in work he did for Marc Silvestri.
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 2, 2022 9:43:47 GMT -5
Chad Yaep was a young 19 year-old kid who was the penciller for Team Youngblood, the other Youngblood series. He quit the business in 1999. I'm not sure that any of the Legend guys could have moved the units that McFarlane, Liefeld and Lee did on Spider-Man, X-Force and X-Men. Arthur Adams seems like the closest fit artistically. The others I see as either not mainstream enough, too esoteric, or too old-fashioned/outdated. The success of the Image guys was based on popular appeal. The speculators may have driven sales through the roof, but the artists were hot because fans liked them. I don't think you can downplay the success Liefeld had with New Mutants and the X-Force relaunch after he took the book from Simonson, and as for Lee, fans were absolutely clamoring for him to work on the X-Men after the fill-in work he did for Marc Silvestri. You can explain it to Cody but you can’t understand it for him.
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 2, 2022 22:06:40 GMT -5
I didn't say they weren't popular (at least, McFarlane, Liefeld and Lee); I said they greatly benefitted from a specific set of circumstances that did not exist for the creators just ahead of them or behind them.
The speculator frenzy is in full force by 1987, starting with the Black & White Boom (soon followed by a bust) and sales start to be heavily skewed by speculator buying. This group of people benefitted from that, at Marvel, by being on high profile books, which were promoted with gimmicks, to appeal to those speculators, bringing disproportionate sales. Their individual popularity is a big, factor, too; but, unlike a Frank Miller or John Byrne, they aren't creating that success on solely the strengths of their work. The speculator frenzy helped put them in a position to reap disproportionate royalties from sales greatly skewed from the norm, for their titles.
When Image launched, speculators are all over them, as they are new titles, from Marvel stars, away from Marvel. The numbers got ridiculous. Then, they started to shake out; but, because everyone pointed out the massive increase in prices of Valiant back issues, due to smaller print runs and slow build; and, they were not going to miss out on another company. So, Image benefitted from the unfounded belief that those issues were going to rapidly increase in value. At the time, the best estimates of actual readership, within the industry, at any one time, was about 500,000. That's dedicated, regular readers, not speculators or casual readers picking up something now and again. When sales are double and triple the level of the audience it skews how much of a success a title is. The bottom fell out in 1994 and it fell out big time, for Image. At the start, the Image logo on the title meant at least another 50.000 or more sales than an average book. Larry Stroman, hardly a superstar, puts out Tribe, with a foil cover and makes enough, due to Image's terms, to build his own recording studio and pretty much leave comics as a full time gig. Go forward to 1994 and things are shaking out and retracting
My point is that timing as much as, if not more than talent built their success. There was a unique phenomena happening and they took advantage of that. That set of circumstances wasn't there for Byrne or Perez or Miller, when they hit star and superstar levels; but, it did benefit them when they sought independence from corporate terms. That same speculator frenzy boosted their works at Dark Horse; but, they didn't churn out gimmicks and went with the strength of their work. They had commercial success and were interested in artistic success (well, Miller; Byrne I think wanted more freedom to be left alone). After the bust came, in 1994 and into 95, those that followed had to try to sell to a massively reduced market and the corporate masters began changing the terms that even Miller and Byrne benefitted from that hadn't been there for Starlin or Adams, let alone Kirby or Ditko.
It was a perfect storm of distribution method, marketing, marketing creator as rock star, irrational speculator buying and a financial partner who was willing to take a much smaller cut than others, because they were trying to move into color comics and the opportunity that fell into their lap made it more lucrative to take a smaller cut and make more money long term. Those conditions didn't exist before and would not after. Individual talents added to that, certainly; but, 3-5 years before or after and the rewards are far different.
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