Can't Do It...

I was fully prepared to do a Rob Liefeld styled piece tonight when I sat down to draw this weeks topic.  I even started one.  I was going to create my own Liefeld character, chock full of pouches, shoulder pads, guns, swords and cross hatching.  While I was looking through pictures of his and drawing the piece I got to thinking about Rob and his place in comics.  I started collecting comics a little before the great Marvel exodus to start Image and among the comics I read was X-Force, drawn by none other then Mr. Liefeld.  When Image started, you bet Youngblood was on my shopping list.  I loved all that image stuff and bought it all including the Liefeld Extreme stuff.  Youngblood, Brigade, Blood Strike, Prophet (more on him later) and the rest.  In hindsight, sure that stuff was bad.  The writing was bad, the art was bad but Liefeld was a product of his time and most of the mainstream stuff fell into that hyper detailed, cross-hatchy kind of style because the demand was there for it.  While I am not a fan of his today, I sure was as a kid and I would have to say those comics were crucial to my comics experience as a kid.

Then I started thinking about what it must be like to be Rob Liefeld.  He isn't oblivious to what people say about his art and either he is just so ego maniacal he thinks we are all crazy or he just doesn't let it get to him.  Following him on Twitter gave me a little more insight into Rob.  I am not going to defend his recent statements about the comic industry and other professionals but that dude, at least via Twitter, has an unabashed love of comic books.  He goes on about them and it is clear the dude really loves comics.  So if Rob is anything it is a geeky fan who got lucky in an industry he loves.  We should all be so lucky.

Rob made comics on his own terms, helped jump start the independent creator movement and is (until recently) still working in comics despite his art style and I think that says something and I couldn't bring myself to mock him.  Sorry guys :)

One of my favorite comics out right now is the new Prophet series based on the Liefeld character from the 90's.  It has got to be one of the best Sci-Fi stories I have ever read and if you like weird, french/Mobius style Sci-Fi you should check it out.  I decided to do a drawing of one of the Prophets from that series.

And just for reference here is the Liefeld drawing I started: