Rob Liefeld sucks

A friend sent me a link a few weeks ago pointing to this entry at Progressive Boink that provides a scathing yet very accurate critique of comic book illustrator Rob Liefeld's work. My friend sent this link to me because he knows that I think Liefeld is the worst popularized illustrator in the comic book industry. The worst. I can't emphasize that enough. The. Worst.

In the early 90's Liefeld began in moderate obscurity until Levi's was running their campaign "What do you do in your Levi's" or something like that in which Liefeld appears in a commercial directed by Spike Lee. There he is in his Levi's with a white t-shirt and a backwards baseball cap sitting at his drawing table talking about drawing comics in his Levi's. During the commercial he proudly states that he's never had a drawing lesson in his life. The irony is, it shows. Even now, nearly two decades later the only real improvements in the comics he touches is what the colorist can do with Photoshop.

I will say that I laughed myself silly reading the critique. Nearly all the bases are coverd except the X-Men #245 cover in which Longshot is drawn with five fingers. Longshot is an alien who has only four fingers. It didn't take a die-hard fanboy to know this, just a decently skilled and talented illustrator who knew how to do his research. That cover was the early tale-tale sign for the legacy of illustrative style that is Rob Liefeld.



There are many more that can be found on this Google results page. As you can see, it's no secret that he sucks. His continued popularity (diminished as it is) is still a mystery to me, but I suppose there's no accounting for bad taste.

After several years with Liefeld at Image Comics, Todd McFarlane even came out and said (paraphrasing here) that he'd "never work with that kid again." Lovely.