Discover the journey of Rob Liefeld, an artist who, despite drawing badly, earned millions of dollars and stopped being a naughty boy
Anyone who sees the success of Deadpool today, a character who has won the hearts of even those who don’t even care to read comics, can’t imagine how crude and forced the creature was born. Coincidence or not, its creator, Rob Liefeld, was also a bit of a mess, with an ego disproportionate to his respect for the basic rules of illustration. O Canaltech tells the story of this particular artist, who “has aged well”.
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Rob Liefeld — pronounced “Láiféld” in English, though most people pronounce it “Lífild” — has been a comic book fan since he was a child, growing up reading about the superhero explosion in Europe. wonder Comics and DC Comics in the 70s and 80s, with works by artists such as John Byrne, George Pérez, Marv Wolfman, Frank Miller, among others, especially Arthur Adams.
Throughout his childhood and adolescence, Liefeld had financial and medical problems in his family, as his father spent years undergoing treatment for cancer. Although everyone around him already recognized his inclination towards comic art, the boy did not have the resources to study and develop his drawings and learn the basics. He began practicing at a local class while doing odd jobs to help around the house.
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In addition to promising sketches, Liefeld began to practice a variety of styles and artwork while in the hospital with his father, which led him to seek out his own signature. After sending his portfolio to several publishers and showing it at several talent screenings at San Diego Comic-Con, he began doing small jobs for Megaton Comics, DC Comics, and Marvel Comics.
Early on, the influence of George Pérez was evident in his features, as well as in his lines, poses, composition, and narrative that followed the oriental references of Arthur Adams’ work. Liefeld also kept an eye on the “extreme” style of Todd McFarlane, who was also just starting out and who attracted attention for his excess of detail and greater focus on explosive action: a flurry of splash pages, double pages.
Liefeld becomes a success and competes with “friend-enemy” McFarlane in million-dollar sales
In 1988, Liefeld finally got his first big break with a miniseries featuring two third-rate characters, Hawk and Dove. His style, focused on extreme action, cross-hatched lines, and aggressive characters, brought freshness to the superhero genre, which was already showing signs of creative fatigue.
The success of the series revealed a change in readers’ tastes, who also bought more stories drawn by young artists with a similar approach: excessively detailed pages and extreme action, with more violent and sexualized characters. Erik Larsen, Marc Silvestri, but above all Jim Lee and Todd McFarlane, presented works that confirmed this trend – and the massive increase in sales of their titles increased the hype.
Around this time, in 1989, Liefeld began spending a lot of time with McFarlane, who became his “friend-frenemy”: a friend who shared the development of this style and, at the same time, rivaled the million-dollar sales figures for the titles he drew at Marvel Comics. McFarlane began selling so much that he got his own title, which he wrote, drew and inked himself. Spider-Man #1 sold more than 2.5 million copies, an absurd figure that broke a record in the United States.
Liefeld began to gain attention, further enhancing the explosive narrative with exaggerations everywhere, ignoring the basic notions of drawing, such as anatomy and perspective. This did not exist at the time, and it hit the mark with young people who were just starting to read and found themselves bored with the style that had been going on since the 70s and was exhausted.
Liefeld began to show his claws when he began to ignore much of the script notes from screenwriter Louise Simonson, just to be able to tell the story in a more exaggerated way, focusing on the action. Simonson was forced to leave the New Mutants title because, due to the increase in sales, she was limited to writing things to orbit around the illustrator’s drawings.
After a good stint with the New Mutants, Liefeld got his own magazine, X-Forcewhich, in its debut issue, featured young mutant apprentices becoming soldiers under the command of Cable, a character created by the artist, as well as Stryfe and the extremist group Mutant Liberation Front. It was also in this magazine that Deadpool was born. X-Force #1released in August 1991, it sold no less than 3.9 million copies, which increased the rivalry with McFarlane.
These numbers will only be surpassed by Jim Lee’s X-Men, which reached the frightening figure of 7 million copies sold. Just to give you an idea, in all of Brazil the most popular magazines, like Batman, if they sell around 30 thousand copies, it’s already a success. Ok, there are some peculiarities of each market, but this gives you an idea of how much Spider-Man #1, X-Force #1 AND X-Men #1 sold.
The Fall of Deadpool’s Father
Tired of creating properties for Marvel Comics and not receiving royalties on them, Liefeld and McFarlane led a rebellion of artists, who left Casa das Ideias to form Image Comics. This happened in a not-so-pleasant way, with the duo speaking out against everyone, bragging about their numbers, and even insulting artists from past generations.
By this time, Liefeld’s ego had already taken over, and he had become a celebrity, but he ended up getting carried away and believing that the creator was more important than the creatures. Thus his Image Comics magazines, such as Youngblood, although they had started well, quickly collapsed.
What Liefeld didn’t expect was that his explosive style would also appear in hundreds of other titles from different publishers, which would cause rapid wear. Thus, what wasn’t very obvious began to stand out even more, such as the designer’s excessive mannerisms, the absurd flaws in the design of the almost non-existent hands and feet, and a perspective that was simply impossible for the reality of an ordinary human being.
The final straw for fans was his return to Marvel in the late 90s to draw his own version of the Avengers. He managed to succeed with each of the characters, and his illustration of an impossible chest in Captain America became memes in a time when memes didn’t even exist.
His rise was as meteoric as his fall. In ten years Liefeld went from being a poor and promising artist to an arrogant and millionaire celebrity. After that, he spent more than ten years doing nothing of note – and even made a comic book in which JESUS CHRIST FIGHTS ZEUS – seriously and without drawing feet, of course.
Deadpool’s Father Returns and “Redemption”
Well, around the time Deadpool was starting to take off, in 2016, when Ryan Reynolds’ first film was coming out, Liefeld, now more mature, was back to doing more sober and less lazy work. He also became quite vocal on social media, talking a lot to fans and even poking fun at himself and his inability to draw the characters’ feet.
Marvel hired him again to do some covers and specific miniseries, riding a wave of nostalgia that we experienced around the 90s in pop culture. Liefeld still can’t draw anatomy and perspective properly, but he shows that he can draw, especially with more time to finish his work.
While anatomy and perspective continue to be violated in his work, the character designs are better done, as are the poses and the finishing touches with colors and illustrations. Otherwise it’s the same Rob Liefeld, only now more mature and calm.
Today, at 53, Liefeld has been very vocal about artists’ rights, commenting on the production processes of the drawings, laughing with his followers about his anatomy mistakes, in short, you can say that the creator of Deadpool has really “aged” well. They say that we have to be assholes at some point in our lives to learn to improve: that’s what happened to Deadpool’s father.
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Source: Terra
Rose James is a Gossipify movie and series reviewer known for her in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the latest releases. With a background in film studies, she provides engaging and informative reviews, and keeps readers up to date with industry trends and emerging talents.
