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Rob Liefeld (born October 3, 1968) is an American comic book writer, illustrator and publisher, who is one of the Modern Age’s most popular and controversial figures. Although a major superstar artist in the 1990s, he became the subject and focus of great controversy due to his departure from Image comics and his participation in Marvel comics Heroes Reborn re-launch in the mid-90's. Heroes Reborn gave unprecendented control over characters previously managed by Marvel comics, Captain America, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Avengers to Liefeld and collaborator, Jim Lee. He was born in Anahiem, California.

In the early 1990s, Liefeld became a superstar due to his work on Marvel Comics’ The New Mutants, and later X-Force. In 1992 he led the exodus from Marvel comics, teaming with Jim Lee and Todd McFarlane to create Image comics. Liefeld named the company, designed the logo and launched their flagship title, Youngblood. They rode the peak of their popularity to greater fame and fortune than anyone before them, resulting in millions of adoring fans as well as a growing number of detractors. The Image comic books were owned by their creators rather than their publishers. Liefeld’s high-profile line of Extreme comics from Image were among the most popular, along with Jim Lee's Wildstorm line.

Fans originally praised Liefeld’s artwork as energetic and action-packed, but his later work was regularly criticized by vocal detractors for excessive flamboyance, limited versatility, arbitrary use of cross-hatching, and anatomy ranging from the improbable to the impossible. Despite Liefeld's polarizing presence in the industry his success continued as he launched a new line of comics, Maximum Press, featuring new best selling titles such as Avengelyne and Warchild as well as an all new critically acclaimed continuation of the long dormant BATTLESTAR GALACTICA saga.

Biography

In 1988, at the age of 21, Liefeld completed his first significant published work, pencils for a mini-series featuring the superhero pair Hawk and Dove for DC Comics. After the success at DC, he was soon pursued by Marvel, who sought to add his popular talents to their struggling X-Men line of comics. In late 1989 he became the regular illustrator of The New Mutants (starting with issue #86), starring a junior team of X-Men. The popularity of Liefeld's art soon allowed him to increasingly take control of the series' story. He is often credited with creating a new leader for the team, the heavily-muscled, heavily-armed, glowing-eyed cyborg Cable, who instantly became a popular anti-hero; Cable would go on to star in his own long running series as well as several mini-series and spin off's.

Liefeld also created the wise-cracking assassin Deadpool and a group of immortal mutants called the Externals. Both were popular. Deadpool went on to star in several popular series for Marvel and is currently in development as a movie for Marvel productions and Lion's Gate Films.

With The New Mutants #98, Liefeld assumed full creative control over the book, pencilling, inking, and plotting, with Fabian Nicieza writing dialogue. He then transformed The New Mutants into the platoon-like X-Force. The 1991 debut issue of X-Force sold four million copies, an industry-wide record soon broken by X-Men #1, illustrated by Jim Lee. In both cases, variant editions were used to sell multiple issues to single collectors; but where X-Men used multiple variant covers, X-Force relied on multiple variant trading cards polybagged with the comic itself.

Liefeld, along with other young, popular artists, (including Lee) left Marvel in 1992 to form Image Comics, in a migration dubbed by some as "the X-Odus", since many of these artists had worked on X-Men related titles for Marvel). Liefeld's superhero team series Youngblood was the first Image comic to hit the shelves and contained many elements that became Image stereotypes: huge muscles, huge breasts, huge guns, huge explosions, and plentiful violence.

Liefeld established two imprints: Extreme Studios, which was part of the Image business structure, and the later Maximum Press, independent of Image. Once Extreme began publishing its titles, Liefeld's artwork appeared much less frequently. Liefeld claimed the delays sprang from his management responsibilities; less charitable observers atrributed them to the consequences of Liefeld's sudden acquisition of substantial wealth and lack of adequate supervision. He continued to plot and create properties, however, including Youngblood and its various spin-offs, the Superman-like Supreme and the femme fatale Glory. Critical approval of these characters was scarce; but Liefeld's wholesale sales to dealers continued to be strong.

Later that year, Liefeld and Lee returned to Marvel to reboot some of the company's classic series, an event dubbed "Heroes Reborn". Liefeld was contracted to write 12 issues of The Avengers and write (with Jeph Loeb) and illustrate 12 of Captain America, but after the management that hired Lee and Liefeld were removed during Marvel's difficult bankruptcy period in the mid-90's, Liefeld's contract was renegotiated. Liefeld left after completing his first Captain America story arc. Marvel gave the balance of the two series to Jim Lee who sought an extension for a second year. Following the completion of Heroes Reborn Year one, Jim Lee's contract was terminated and Heroes Reborn, despite achieving tremendous sales benchmarks under Lee and Liefeld was canceled.

In 1996, Liefeld left Image Comics, after disputes with his partners led Marc Silvestri to temporarily break away from Image. The comics press variously reported underlying issues: the effect of Liefeld's erratic lines on the company's reputation; Liefeld's supposed misuse of his position as Image CEO to unfairly benefit his publishing efforts; and the poaching of artists employed by his Image partners, a violation of their informal agreements.

Meanwhile, Liefeld hired acclaimed comic book writer Alan Moore to revive many of his creations, which had sharply declined in popularity. Moore wrote a few issues of Youngblood and Glory, but his most lauded work for Liefeld was on Supreme, which played on the character's more generic traits in a clear tribute to the Mort Weisinger-era Superman.

In recent years, Liefeld has returned to his former characters in the X-Men franchise, providing pencils for the occasional cover and/or interior of Cable and X-Force. These books had continued to be somewhat popular properties until the early 2000s, when both were cancelled.

In 2004, he reunited with Fabian Nicieza for an X-Force miniseries and illustrated the early covers for Nicieza's Cable and Deadpool. In that same year, Liefeld formed Arcade Comics and once again announced plans to revive Youngblood.

Liefeld's new website was launched in May 2005 at Rob Liefeld.net. At about the same time, new work for DC Comics was reported.

Artistic Criticism

Below are common characteristics of Liefeld's artwork. Some are idiosyncratic, while others were fairly widespread trends in mainstream comics of the 1990s. Although all these criticisms have been made of Liefeld's art, he was still a huge draw as an artist in the early 1990s, and retains some degree of popularity today.

• Limited facial expressions, generally ranging from barely-restrained anger to sheer "constipated" look (see X-Force covers above)
• Bizarre proportions such as tiny heads, wrists, and ankles and oversized breasts and muscles (see Captain America above, who appears to be several feet thick), as well as the occasional swipe with female face and breasts layered onto an obviously male figure
• Obvious panel-to-panel inconsistencies in costumes, backgrounds.
• Poses that appear to be both illogical (in the context of the plot) and anatomically impossible, or at least uncomfortable
• Skewed perspective: often a picture will be began in one perspective then be finished in another. (See Captain America again, clearly started in profile view then switched to three-fourths perspective, which would make him look like this from above)

While Liefeld's artwork, particularly in his earlier efforts, manifested a striking design sense, his shortcomings were initially covered up by strong, experienced inkers. As Liefeld was able to exercise greater control over the form in which his work appeared, those shortcomings became conspicuous, and defined the public perception of his work.

Trivia

• Liefeld was featured in a television commercial for Levi's "501" jeans, directed by Spike Lee.
• Liefeld marketed the action figure of Youngblood's archer character, Shaft, as "Rob Liefeld's Youngblood: Shaft: 7 Inches, fully poseable,".
• Mark Waid and Alex Ross based Magog, the anti-hero who replaces Superman as the premier superhero in the futuristic DC Comics graphic novel Kingdom Come, partially on Liefeld's Cable.

Reference

Fiore, R. (Aug. 1992) "Funnybook Roulette". The Comics Journal #152

External Links

• Rob Liefeld's official website
• Extreme Genesis - a Rob Liefeld fan site with many samples of his artwork
• Rob Liefeld - a list of Liefeld's work while at Marvel Comics
• Official Rob Liefeld forum

• 1967 births
• People from California
• Comic book publishers
• Comics artists
• Comics writers