Rob Liefeld - Worst comic book artist ever?
08-22-12, 07:31 PM
#376
08-22-12, 07:58 PM
#377
DVD Talk Reviewer/ Admin
Join Date: Sep 1999
Location: Greenville, South Cackalack
Posts: 28,757
Received 1,865 Likes
on
1,228 Posts
Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?
08-23-12, 09:10 AM
#378
DVD Talk Limited Edition
Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?
Not to sound like I'm standing up for the DC editorial staff, but how are you sure about them being indecisive and miserable to work for?
08-23-12, 09:33 AM
#379
DVD Talk Legend
Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?
08-23-12, 10:17 AM
#380
DVD Talk Hero
Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?
Yeah, the consensus is that DC has been a bunch of douchebags to work for since this whole new 52 thing. Basically, the creatives with other options are jumping ship.
08-23-12, 10:23 AM
#381
DVD Talk Reviewer/ Admin
Join Date: Sep 1999
Location: Greenville, South Cackalack
Posts: 28,757
Received 1,865 Likes
on
1,228 Posts
Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?
"Unfortunately when you are writing major characters, you sometimes have to make a lot of compromises, and I was made certain promises, [...] and unfortunately not through any fault of Dan DiDio -- he was no longer the last word, I mean a lot of people were now making decisions [...] they were constantly going against each other, contradicting, again in mid-story."
"I didn't mind the changes in Superman, I just wish it was the same decision Issue 1 or Issue 2, and I had to kept rewriting things because another person changed their mind, and that was a lot tougher."
"I had no idea Grant Morrison was going to be working on another Superman title. I had no idea I was doing it five years ahead, which means ... my story, I couldn't do certain things without knowing what he did, and Grant wasn't telling everybody. So I was kind of stuck. 'Oh, my gosh, are the Kents alive? What's his relationship with all of these characters? Who exists?' And DC couldn't give me answers. I said, 'Oh, my gosh, you're deciding all these things and you mean even you don't know what's going on in your own books?' So I became very frustrated ..."
From the first issue on, I was essentially benched by Harvey Richards and artist/writer Scott McDaniel. All of my ideas and suggestions were met with disdain, and Scott McDaniel lectured me on how my method for writing was wrong because it wasn't what the Robert McKee screenwriting book he read told him was the way to do things. The man who'd never written anything was suddenly more expert than me and the editor was agreeing with him. Scott had also never read a Static comic book, nor seen the cartoon series, yet was telling me that my dialogue didn't sound true to the character and would "fix it."
This is what led Harvey to insist on the stuff with the two Sharon's and cutting off Static's arm. He had no answers for how to resolve these things, but thought it would keep reader's wowed enough to stick with the series. This, too, was frustrating. It was a lot of grasping at straws and trying to second guess what would keep it selling. It was decided that "bigger action" on every page of every issue was the key.
It could be said that it's Harvey's right as editor to decide that Scott's ideas, and writing in general, were better than mine, and maybe he was even right. In that case though, why keep me on the series as co-writer? Scott could have transcribed his own dialogue into script form. No one needed me for that. I was hired as writer, and the series was being published with me listed as such even though there was little to nothing between the covers of the comic that came from me. Even worse, it was all material I didn't believe in, and thought was substandard fare that we'd seen in a million comic books before.
I was stunned by how unprofessionally I was being treated by my editor, with whom I'd previously had nothing but a positive working relationship with for the bulk of my career in comics
08-23-12, 10:33 AM
#382
DVD Talk Platinum Edition
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Formerly known as "Jeffy Pop"/Denver
Posts: 3,038
Likes: 0
Received 2 Likes
on
2 Posts
Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?
Originally Posted by John Rozum
All of my ideas and suggestions were met with disdain, and Scott McDaniel lectured me on how my method for writing was wrong because it wasn't what the Robert McKee screenwriting book he read told him was the way to do things.
08-23-12, 11:24 AM
#383
DVD Talk Hero
Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?
I probably harp on this too much, but the DC editorial team has stunk it up far longer than the new 52. It's one of the reasons I wasn't confident that the new 52 would be any better than the old DC Universe: the editorial staff who made all the decisions in the old regime were still doing the same thing here, but perhaps with more outside interference.
They put Alan Heinberg and Terry Dodson on Wonder Woman. Pretty cool concept, Donna Troy taking the mantle, except it was plagued by delays and eventually the story was dropped from the regular book and finished in an annual much much later. IIRC, this was not the only book that was so plagued by delays that they needed a separate annual to complete the story.
They put JMS on Superman and Wonder Woman. The Superman "Grounded" story was wretched. Wonder Woman had a costume change and was taken out of the DC Universe altogether. JMS didn't even bother to finish either series, leaving his notes for others to finish.
They gave Teen Titans to Felicia Henderson, a Gossip Girl writer, for perhaps the worst arc I've ever read.
They put Mark Bagley and James Robinson on the Justice League, advertising an all new lineup which didn't even last two issues due to outside interference with the characters. What should have been one of the premiere books in their lineup had been run into the ground after years of being directionless. They did the same thing to another once-popular team book, JSA.
The absolute crappiest of my memories of the dying old DC Universe was the Countdown to Final Crisis series. This was a weekly series that ran for a year, a concept that DC had done well with in 52 and not so well with in Trinity. But it didn't lead into Final Crisis. It had a bunch of stories that were vaguely connected and padded out. It completely ruined some characters (Mary Marvel). This and Death of the New Gods completely contradicted Final Crisis. Here's what Morrison had to say about it:
http://www.newsarama.com/comics/0806...risonFC01.html
In short, they ran their sales into the ground and started over, but with the same people guiding the ship. I'm not surprised that creators are getting fed up; I don't think that they even focus on promoting creators on their books with the exception of Johns, Lee, and Morrison. It's like they feel they're all interchangeable.
They put Alan Heinberg and Terry Dodson on Wonder Woman. Pretty cool concept, Donna Troy taking the mantle, except it was plagued by delays and eventually the story was dropped from the regular book and finished in an annual much much later. IIRC, this was not the only book that was so plagued by delays that they needed a separate annual to complete the story.
They put JMS on Superman and Wonder Woman. The Superman "Grounded" story was wretched. Wonder Woman had a costume change and was taken out of the DC Universe altogether. JMS didn't even bother to finish either series, leaving his notes for others to finish.
They gave Teen Titans to Felicia Henderson, a Gossip Girl writer, for perhaps the worst arc I've ever read.
They put Mark Bagley and James Robinson on the Justice League, advertising an all new lineup which didn't even last two issues due to outside interference with the characters. What should have been one of the premiere books in their lineup had been run into the ground after years of being directionless. They did the same thing to another once-popular team book, JSA.
The absolute crappiest of my memories of the dying old DC Universe was the Countdown to Final Crisis series. This was a weekly series that ran for a year, a concept that DC had done well with in 52 and not so well with in Trinity. But it didn't lead into Final Crisis. It had a bunch of stories that were vaguely connected and padded out. It completely ruined some characters (Mary Marvel). This and Death of the New Gods completely contradicted Final Crisis. Here's what Morrison had to say about it:
http://www.newsarama.com/comics/0806...risonFC01.html
GM: What mattered to me was what had already been written, drawn or plotted in Final Crisis. The Guardians didn’t call 1011 when Lightray and the other gods died in Countdown because, again, Final Crisis was already underway before Countdown came out.
Why didn’t Superman recount his experiences from DOTNG ? Because those experiences hadn’t been thought up or written when I completed Final Crisis #1. If there was only me involved, Orion would have been the first dead New God we saw in a DC comic, starting off the chain of events that we see in Final Crisis. As it is, the best I can do is suggest that the somewhat contradictory depictions of Orion and Darkseid’s last-last-last battle that we witnessed in Countdown and DOTNG recently were apocryphal attempts to describe an indescribable cosmic event.
To reiterate, hopefully for the last time, when we started work on Final Crisis, J.G. and I had no idea what was going to happen in Countdown or Death Of The New Gods because neither of those books existed at that point. The Countdown writers were later asked to ‘seed’ material from Final Crisis and in some cases, probably due to the pressure of filling the pages of a weekly book, that seeding amounted to entire plotlines veering off in directions I had never envisaged, anticipated or planned for in Final Crisis.
Why didn’t Superman recount his experiences from DOTNG ? Because those experiences hadn’t been thought up or written when I completed Final Crisis #1. If there was only me involved, Orion would have been the first dead New God we saw in a DC comic, starting off the chain of events that we see in Final Crisis. As it is, the best I can do is suggest that the somewhat contradictory depictions of Orion and Darkseid’s last-last-last battle that we witnessed in Countdown and DOTNG recently were apocryphal attempts to describe an indescribable cosmic event.
To reiterate, hopefully for the last time, when we started work on Final Crisis, J.G. and I had no idea what was going to happen in Countdown or Death Of The New Gods because neither of those books existed at that point. The Countdown writers were later asked to ‘seed’ material from Final Crisis and in some cases, probably due to the pressure of filling the pages of a weekly book, that seeding amounted to entire plotlines veering off in directions I had never envisaged, anticipated or planned for in Final Crisis.
08-24-12, 01:19 AM
#384
DVD Talk Legend
Join Date: Sep 1999
Location: Building attractions one theme park at a time.
Posts: 10,800
Received 82 Likes
on
49 Posts
Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?
Rob's burning some bridges:
My greatest triumph at DC was getting an inept editor fired. From that point on that I had put a target on me. Next guy wanted to show me.
Even if it meant standing up for mediocre talent that phoned his work in and missed deadlines by a mile.
And in case you are counting, I haven’t missed a deadline on a non-ensemble assignment in 4 years. Hit all my marks.
Did anyone else do 13 consecutive comics since the 52 launched? I’m out of the loop. HD #1-8, Dstroke #9-12,0
Funniest part is every week, with every new “direction” or “adjustment” from editorial, I’d be like, are U really giving me this much GOLD??
Even if it meant standing up for mediocre talent that phoned his work in and missed deadlines by a mile.
And in case you are counting, I haven’t missed a deadline on a non-ensemble assignment in 4 years. Hit all my marks.
Did anyone else do 13 consecutive comics since the 52 launched? I’m out of the loop. HD #1-8, Dstroke #9-12,0
Funniest part is every week, with every new “direction” or “adjustment” from editorial, I’d be like, are U really giving me this much GOLD??
08-24-12, 08:40 AM
#385
DVD Talk Limited Edition
Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?
08-24-12, 02:14 PM
#386
DVD Talk Hero
Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?
It sounds more like DC editorial, or someone above DC editorial (corporate overlords possibly), are pushing many of the individual character decisions now. The writers have clearly little to no control much of the time, which is possibly why DC hired so many artists as writers for the new 52. Unless you are a writing superstar like Johns or come from outside the comics field, don't expect to have much control of the comics you write at DC.
08-25-12, 03:37 PM
#387
DVD Talk Legend
Join Date: Sep 1999
Location: Building attractions one theme park at a time.
Posts: 10,800
Received 82 Likes
on
49 Posts
Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?
Rob's on a warpath this weekend. There's too much to post so follow the links if you're interested.
Rob vs. Tom Brevoort - "Sorry they passed you over for EIC Tommy B. Get over it."
Rob vs. Scott Snyder - "Get over yourself you pretentious prick."
Rob vs. Tom Brevoort - "Sorry they passed you over for EIC Tommy B. Get over it."
Rob vs. Scott Snyder - "Get over yourself you pretentious prick."
08-25-12, 06:20 PM
#388
DVD Talk Legend
Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?
So if I follow this correctly, Rob rants that DC only cares about the Bat books, and then targets Synder?
Sorry but Court of Owls is so damn good, I cant even believe Rob would try to go toe to toe.
Keep it up Rob. Maybe you can get yourself black listed.
Sorry but Court of Owls is so damn good, I cant even believe Rob would try to go toe to toe.
Keep it up Rob. Maybe you can get yourself black listed.
08-26-12, 11:24 AM
#389
DVD Talk Hero
Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?
I love Greg Capullo's comments. He totally keeps it cool, but would start kicking ass if someone ever stepped up to him.
08-26-12, 02:06 PM
#390
DVD Talk Special Edition
Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?
It sounds more like DC editorial, or someone above DC editorial (corporate overlords possibly), are pushing many of the individual character decisions now. The writers have clearly little to no control much of the time, which is possibly why DC hired so many artists as writers for the new 52. Unless you are a writing superstar like Johns or come from outside the comics field, don't expect to have much control of the comics you write at DC.
09-11-12, 09:03 PM
#391
DVD Talk Hero
Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?
So Marvel solicited an X-Force omnibus with the end of the New Mutants title and the initial run of X-Force, all by you know who. As I have fond memories of the title, I think I'm in...
09-12-12, 07:20 AM
#393
DVD Talk Godfather
Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?
09-14-12, 03:20 PM
#394
DVD Talk Legend
Join Date: Sep 1999
Location: Building attractions one theme park at a time.
Posts: 10,800
Received 82 Likes
on
49 Posts
Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?
Rob has finally reached the top of hack mountain - He's swiped an entire comic!
Deathstroke #0 vs. Tales of the Teen Titans#43 #44:
Oh and there's more!
Maybe it's an "homage?"
Deathstroke #0 vs. Tales of the Teen Titans
Oh and there's more!
Maybe it's an "homage?"
Last edited by The Valeyard; 09-14-12 at 08:22 PM. Reason: REASON: Wrong Issue #!
09-14-12, 04:18 PM
#395
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Bay Area, California
Posts: 8,939
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?
I was just gonna post this. Too funny. And even when he is directly taking someone else's art as reference, look how often he still has to hide feet and hands. What a hack.
09-14-12, 05:20 PM
#396
DVD Talk Hero
Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?
Is that a fake? A Google search for Tales of the Teen Titans #43 turns up a completely different book.
http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Tales_of_th...itans_Vol_1_43
http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Tales_of_th...itans_Vol_1_43
09-14-12, 06:41 PM
#398
DVD Talk Hero
Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?
I think it's Tales of the Teen Titans 44, which has the origin of Deathstroke
http://www.comixology.com/Tales-of-t...omic/ICO002233
Considering Liefeld was also doing an origin of deathstroke, this has to be intentional, no way he was trying to hide this. Whether or not it's legal: DC owns the rights to the artwork, and Liefeld is working for DC, I'm not sure who's going to sue him...
http://www.comixology.com/Tales-of-t...omic/ICO002233
Considering Liefeld was also doing an origin of deathstroke, this has to be intentional, no way he was trying to hide this. Whether or not it's legal: DC owns the rights to the artwork, and Liefeld is working for DC, I'm not sure who's going to sue him...
09-14-12, 10:08 PM
#400
DVD Talk Hero
Re: Rob Liefeld (or Sal Buscema?!?!?!?!) - Worst comic book artist ever?
Well, if you are going to rip something, at least picking a classic tale to rip off is better than having bad tastes. There is still no excuse, but at this point nothing should be a surprise with Liefeld.