Originally published September 27, 1996, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1193
I’ll tell you, I’m sick of people complaining about the level of writing in comics. Stop complaining, folks: Instead, go out and do something about it. Blow off some steam. How? By writing some yourself.
Better still, do it with art that other people are also complaining about. This way you can find value in art you were previously brushing off as worthless.
It’s easy, it’s fun, and you can do it at parties. Just grab a hot comic book off the stand, slap stickers over the word balloons, and write your own dialogue. You don’t have to know what’s going on. In fact, it’s better if you don’t.
I cheated slightly. For convenience’s sake, I got an ashcan edition of Rob Liefeld’s Captain America. It’s black and white with no word balloons at all. The ashcan artwork you see here are the genuine pencilled and inked pages; some changes and/or fixes may have been made by the time it sees print, although I’ll bet there won’t be enough. But, hey, all the better if they weren’t made. More fun for you.
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I know parts of this are hard to read, but I didn’t have a better-quality copy. I almost didn’t run it, but the parts you can read are just too funny. You can right-click and view each image on its own page to make them larger.
That’s why I never liked Liefield as an artist.
The guy saying “Sure go ahead.” could be anyone from Peter Parker to Steve Rogers to any generic teen mutant ever.
Ah, I remember this one well.
Rob Liefield…sigh…We shouldn’t even know his name. He/This should never have happened. At least this drek isn’t in vogue anymore. I apologize for spreading the negativity–I haven’t seen any of this garbage in a long time. To this day, I’m still shocked by the damage Liefield and his hack-Image cohorts brought to comics…
I remember Peter’s column being much funnier than the actual comic book itself (if that’s even possible) 🙂
Other than the “classic” Cap cover, and the recent Infinite cover where the character is having a stroke, has Liefeld ever produced worst “art” than in this comic?
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There are times when I think that Rob Liefeld’s work gets slagged on a little too much by fandom and the industry press. But then I either see work of his that I’d forced myself to forget about over the years or see some new shined turd that he’s put out for public viewing and decide that Rob’s work doesn’t get ripped on enough. He may well be a nice guy, but, dámņ, what in the hëll happened to the standards of Marvel’s art and of fans in general in the 90s that allowed this stuff to ever be seen as good, let alone printable.
Well, Mr. Liefeld seems to be not merely back in the good graces of the Image gang, but to be one of the go-to guys at nuDC, with three, count ’em three!, ongoing writing assignments coming up. I was discussing this with some of the staff at my FNCBS and we came to the conclusion that either (1) Rob’s personal charisma is such that when he sits down with an editor, the poor editor can’t help but give him work (I’ve only seen Rob up close and personal about once in the past 20 years, so I can’t vouch for this one way or another,) or (2) he’s got really good blackmail files on Bob Harras and Jim Lee. You make the call!
Better that he uses his pencil to write and not draw. (At least by doing that, one can always ignore the funny letters passing for “words” and look at the pictures. And we all know that Liefeld’s fans–all seventeen of them–don’t actually read the words in any books that Liefeld draws.)
I remember meeting Rob on the “Deathmate” tour at the shop I ran then. He seemed like a nice guy-too bad his art style isn’t as nice.