Quote from: jibbajibba;463087I only object to the Liefield comments because its obvious the guy can draw but just opts to draw superheroes in a hyperstylised way.

It's obvious to you he can draw? Why? This may be one example, but I dare anyone to find a good picture by Leifeld. This isn't a matter of not liking his style, it's that he displays a complete lack of competence in regards to anatomy, composition,

Exaggerated anatomies are a stable of the superhero genre, but we're talking about someone who routinely distorts human proportions to the point they're unrecognizable. The cap picture is merely one drop in the bucket of amorphous, over-rendered blobs.

Style indicates that there is a conscious choice on Liefeld's part to make these mistakes, but even to dismiss it as style would require some sort of consistency. His characters will rapidly switch hairstyles, change size and proportions, there is no rhyme nor reason to the masses of muscles, even outfits alter constantly from frame to frame. And guns. Liefeld has never drawn the same gun twice, even if the character is using the same weapon throughout an issue.

Sorry, not to harp on about this, but I think it is an insult to the many hard-working legitimate artists out there to even suggest that Liefeld is a good artist who is simply working on disposable projects. There is no Liefeld drawing in existence that would suggest he has any skill whatsoever, and talent is worthless if you're stuck at the same level as a high schooler because you never professional develop your skills.

Liefeld is a personal insult to comicbook readers and artists alike.
But don't take my word for it: LINK

On a comic book forum I used to frequent, Liefeld's terribleness came up from time to time. I remember once, someone posted his earliest professional work on DC's Hawk and Dove.

It wasn't....  awful.

Hold on, found some. With feet, no less!





So, he had some modicum of talent to get him in the door. I wouldn't buy anything he touched now for pennies, and especially if he wrote it. The only thing worse than something Liefeld drew is something the fucker wrote.

Quote from: TristramEvans;463185It's obvious to you he can draw? Why? This may be one example, but I dare anyone to find a good picture by Leifeld. This isn't a matter of not liking his style, it's that he displays a complete lack of competence in regards to anatomy, composition,

Exaggerated anatomies are a stable of the superhero genre, but we're talking about someone who routinely distorts human proportions to the point they're unrecognizable. The cap picture is merely one drop in the bucket of amorphous, over-rendered blobs.

Style indicates that there is a conscious choice on Liefeld's part to make these mistakes, but even to dismiss it as style would require some sort of consistency. His characters will rapidly switch hairstyles, change size and proportions, there is no rhyme nor reason to the masses of muscles, even outfits alter constantly from frame to frame. And guns. Liefeld has never drawn the same gun twice, even if the character is using the same weapon throughout an issue.

Sorry, not to harp on about this, but I think it is an insult to the many hard-working legitimate artists out there to even suggest that Liefeld is a good artist who is simply working on disposable projects. There is no Liefeld drawing in existence that would suggest he has any skill whatsoever, and talent is worthless if you're stuck at the same level as a high schooler because you never professional develop your skills.

Liefeld is a personal insult to comicbook readers and artists alike.
But don't take my word for it: LINK

Now I am not saying he is a great comic artist and I think his sucess outweighs his talent but you can't legitimately say he is the worst artist about just compare say ....




to

Well, you're correct that Leifeld is probably not the worst artist working professionally today, but well...that's kinda like saying The Happening wasn't that bad a film in comparison to Manos, Hands of Fate. Sure, there is a lot of really awful stuff out there, but it wasn't featured on the covers of the best-selling comicbooks at the time, or plastered all over Wizard. They didn't do Levis ads. Leifeld is big-league crappy.

Leifeld was the spokesperson/posterboy for everything that went wrong with the comics industry in the 90s and led to a collapse that it doesn't look likely to ever truly recover from , at least not in the time before the form becomes obsolete. For those who remember how the comics industry was before...before the Death of Superman, before the collector's craze, before the hologram covers, and Lady Death, and Image, and Spawn, and WTF? Spider-man has a machinegun, the clone wars...my god the clone wars...


I think at the very least, Leifeld has earned his place as scapegoat.

Quote from: TristramEvans;463358Well, you're correct that Leifeld is probably not the worst artist working professionally today, but well...that's kinda like saying The Happening wasn't that bad a film in comparison to Manos, Hands of Fate. Sure, there is a lot of really awful stuff out there, but it wasn't featured on the covers of the best-selling comicbooks at the time, or plastered all over Wizard. They didn't do Levis ads. Leifeld is big-league crappy.

Leifeld was the spokesperson/posterboy for everything that went wrong with the comics industry in the 90s and led to a collapse that it doesn't look likely to ever truly recover from , at least not in the time before the form becomes obsolete. For those who remember how the comics industry was before...before the Death of Superman, before the collector's craze, before the hologram covers, and Lady Death, and Image, and Spawn, and WTF? Spider-man has a machinegun, the clone wars...my god the clone wars...


I think at the very least, Leifeld has earned his place as scapegoat.

Fair enough you have a pretty big axe to grind

but I think all your comments about Leifield are becuase he is a douche rather than because he can't draw....

And I loved the 90s for comic books 'cause I was reading Vertigo.

And that Batman picture is the batman picture they chose for their Classic Batman delux cover so .....

Quote from: Kaz;463188On a comic book forum I used to frequent, Liefeld's terribleness came up from time to time. I remember once, someone posted his earliest professional work on DC's Hawk and Dove.

It wasn't....  awful.

Hold on, found some. With feet, no less!

FEET!!!!

Quote from: TristramEvans;463358Leifeld was the spokesperson/posterboy for everything that went wrong with the comics industry in the 90s and led to a collapse that it doesn't look likely to ever truly recover from , at least not in the time before the form becomes obsolete.

Tangent: I think it's a mistake to blame the speculator bubble of the early '90s for the crash of the comic book industry. If anything, that bubble kept the industry afloat longer than the trend-lines were indicating.

The only mistake the comic book industry made during the speculator bubble was that it failed to reinvest the profits from that bubble into fixing the fundamental problems with comic book distribution: The direct distribution system was a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it saved the industry from the much more dire crisis of newstand distribution collapsing. On the other hand, it ghetto-ized comics in a way that made it very difficult for the industry to reach new readers.

The only reason comics still exist today at all is because manga and the Marvel movie boom managed to crack the door on getting trades into mainstream bookstores. If comics survive, it will be because of digital distribution.

Quote from: jibbajibba;463236Now I am not saying he is a great comic artist and I think his sucess outweighs his talent but you can't legitimately say he is the worst artist about just compare say ....

I think it's kind of pointless to hold up these cross-era comparisons as if they were telling you anything. It's like criticizing Tudor fashion because people would look ridiculous wearing pumpkin pants in Times Square.

Quote from: Kaz;463188On a comic book forum I used to frequent, Liefeld's terribleness came up from time to time. I remember once, someone posted his earliest professional work on DC's Hawk and Dove.

It wasn't....  awful.

Hold on, found some. With feet, no less!

He was being inked by Karl Kesel. And if you look carefully, you'll see quite a bit of Karl Kesel in those images. Like many inkers working with neophytes in the comic industry, Kesel was correcting the art.

(This, of course, can go both ways. Vince Coletta, for example, is infamous for butchering Jack Kirby's art by stripping out detail and simplifying composition.)

Quote from: Justin Alexander;463429Tangent: I think it's a mistake to blame the speculator bubble of the early '90s for the crash of the comic book industry. If anything, that bubble kept the industry afloat longer than the trend-lines were indicating.

If the speculator bubble hadn't actually affected the products being sold, I might buy that. But the problem wasn't really the speculators themselves, it was the fact that the comic companies made the deliberate decision to cater to the collectors in a way that deliberately ostracized the (very substantial) readership at that point.

QuoteThe only mistake the comic book industry made during the speculator bubble was that it failed to reinvest the profits from that bubble into fixing the fundamental problems with comic book distribution: The direct distribution system was a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it saved the industry from the much more dire crisis of newstand distribution collapsing. On the other hand, it ghetto-ized comics in a way that made it very difficult for the industry to reach new readers.

I think your history is a bit off. The direct distribution market started in the early 80s, and this was the birth of the "comicbook store". Yes, it has been claimed that this ostracized new readers who would previously buy their comics from the local supermarket or convenience store (though comicbooks weren't not removed from these outlets until the late 90s, with the increase of gratuitous sex & violence that marked "the Image generation". (Funny how appropriate that name was in retrospect). There's no indication as far as sales that comicbooks were negatively affected by the direct market...in fact this change precipitated the biggest boom in comic sales since the 60s.

QuoteThe only reason comics still exist today at all is because manga and the Marvel movie boom managed to crack the door on getting trades into mainstream bookstores.

Comicbook trades have been in bookstores since the late 80s. I bought my first trade ever at a Barnes & Nobles in a mall in '88. There has been no change to that in regards to the "movie boom". Manga sections in bookstore chains didn't start appearing until around 2003.

QuoteIf comics survive, it will be because of digital distribution.

Well, I think the "artform" will make that move eventually...but, well, they won't be comicbooks any more.

back OT, i recall the art in millenium's end to be pretty poor.  the people varied between not too bad and oddly proportioned.  but a lot of shots of folks with guns (the majority of the art, to be sure) were out of whack--usually the firearms, while well illustrated, were much smaller than they should be, making it look like folks were carrying .22 or airsoft versions or something O.o

i don't have a copy anymore to show some of the more egregious examples, alas.

Quote from: beeber;463487back OT, i recall the art in millenium's end to be pretty poor.  the people varied between not too bad and oddly proportioned.  but a lot of shots of folks with guns (the majority of the art, to be sure) were out of whack--usually the firearms, while well illustrated, were much smaller than they should be, making it look like folks were carrying .22 or airsoft versions or something O.o

i don't have a copy anymore to show some of the more egregious examples, alas.

I believe the art for that was done by the guy who wrote the book. I could be wrong though. I was never really troubled by it; just assumed he was going for a stylized look.

Somehow threads like this always put me in mind of this poem.  Not to defend Liefeld or anything but still, as people go on and on about bad art...

"Who stuffed that white owl?" No one spoke in the shop,
The barber was busy, and he couldn't stop;
The customers, waiting their turns, were all reading
The "Daily," the "Herald," the "Post," little heeding
The young man who blurted out such a blunt question;
Not one raised a head, or even made a suggestion;
                And the barber kept on shaving.

"Don't you see, Mr. Brown,"
Cried the youth, with a frown,
"How wrong the whole thing is,
How preposterous each wing is
How flattened the head is, how jammed down the neck is--
In short, the whole owl, what an ignorant wreck 't is!
I make no apology;
I've learned owl-eology.

I've passed days and nights in a hundred collections,
And cannot be blinded to any deflections
Arising from unskilful fingers that fail
To stuff a bird right, from his beak to his tail.
Mister Brown! Mister Brown!
Do take that bird down,
Or you'll soon be the laughing-stock all over town!"
                And the barber kept on shaving.

"I've studied owls,
And other night-fowls,
And I tell you
What I know to be true;
An owl cannot roost
With his limbs so unloosed;
No owl in this world
Ever had his claws curled,
Ever had his legs slanted,
Ever had his bill canted,
Ever had his neck screwed
Into that attitude.
He can't do it, because
'Tis against all bird-laws.

Anatomy teaches,
Ornithology preaches,
An owl has a toe
That can't turn out so!
I've made the white owl my study for years,
And to see such a job almost moves me to tears!
Mr. Brown, I'm amazed
You should be so gone crazed
As to put up a bird
In that posture absurd!
To look at that owl really brings on a dizziness;
The man who stuffed him don't half know his business!"
                And the barber kept on shaving.

"Examine those eyes.
I'm filled with surprise
Taxidermists should pass
Off on you such poor glass;
So unnatural they seem
They'd make Audubon scream,
And John Burroughs laugh
To encounter such chaff.
Do take that bird down;
Have him stuffed again, Brown!"
                And the barber kept on shaving.

"With some sawdust and bark
I could stuff in the dark
An owl better than that.
I could make an old hat
Look more like an owl
Than that horrid fowl,
Stuck up there so stiff like a side of coarse leather.
In fact, about him there's not one natural feather."

Just then, with a wink and a sly normal lurch,
The owl, very gravely, got down from his perch,
Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic
(Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic,
And then fairly hooted, as if he should say:
"Your learning's at fault this time, anyway;
Don't waste it again on a live bird, I pray.
I'm an owl; you're another. Sir Critic, good day!"
                And the barber kept on shaving.

                                                        James Thomas Fields.

Quote from: TristramEvans;463453Well, I think the "artform" will make that move eventually...but, well, they won't be comicbooks any more.

I suspect that like the dead-tree book, comic books as a physical and not digital medium won't be disappearing anytime soon.  However, what does make eminent sense in terms of what people want to buy and the type of stories that comic writers/companies seem to want to tell is for the serialized comic-issues to be mainly digital, while the compilation of several issues into one full story is what should be really pushed for sale as graphic-novels/trade-paperbacks/whatever.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;463627I suspect that like the dead-tree book, comic books as a physical and not digital medium won't be disappearing anytime soon.  However, what does make eminent sense in terms of what people want to buy and the type of stories that comic writers/companies seem to want to tell is for the serialized comic-issues to be mainly digital, while the compilation of several issues into one full story is what should be really pushed for sale as graphic-novels/trade-paperbacks/whatever.

RPGPundit

I would see that as the ideal compromise. It even makes a lot of sense as far as the serial/soap-opera nature of most comics. Like buying a season of a TV show on DVD/BlueRay after it's finished airing.

Quote from: TristramEvans;463638I would see that as the ideal compromise. It even makes a lot of sense as far as the serial/soap-opera nature of most comics. Like buying a season of a TV show on DVD/BlueRay after it's finished airing.

Exactly! You don't go around spending inordinate amounts of money to purchase the "Game of Thrones Seaon 1 episode 2" DVD.  

I think DC's move toward same-day digital distribution with initial price parity (and reduced price on the digital comic after a month) is a good first step, but that's all it is right now; it ultimately doesn't go anywhere near far enough.  Ultimately, the realistic final picture is going to be that digital comics being much cheaper, Trade Paperbacks being the main print product, and individual comic issues in print being virtually if not entirely non-extant.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;463837Exactly! You don't go around spending inordinate amounts of money to purchase the "Game of Thrones Seaon 1 episode 2" DVD.  

I think DC's move toward same-day digital distribution with initial price parity (and reduced price on the digital comic after a month) is a good first step, but that's all it is right now; it ultimately doesn't go anywhere near far enough.  Ultimately, the realistic final picture is going to be that digital comics being much cheaper, Trade Paperbacks being the main print product, and individual comic issues in print being virtually if not entirely non-extant.

RPGPundit

Agreed I haven't bought a 'comic' since Preacher but I have bought a lot of graphic novels.