Nerdalogies 1 - Rob Liefeld
Author: Stephen Gerding
April 30th, 2008
Rob Liefeld = ________
Steve: Uwe Boll is basically famous for turning out movies that sound like they’d be pretty cool on paper, yet end up lifeless at best, tediously dull and incompetent at worst. Transfer that magic from film to paper, and you’ve got Rob Liefeld in a nutshell. Much like Boll, Liefeld is arguably utterly talentless, yet manages to constantly land projects and make money from them. Both are able to convince quality people from their respective fields to work with/for them on projects, despite a history of churning out virtually nothing of any discernible quality. Ergo, Rob Liefeld is comics’ Uwe Boll.
Andrew: It is deeply difficult to argue with Steve’s well-reasoned assessment, especially considering both Liefeld and Boll — two people who are successful in two fields notoriously difficult to even make a moderate living at — somehow lack three important things: talent, self-awareness, and dignity. Indeed, it’s been suggested that the combined egos of Liefeld and Boll wouldn’t even fit in the Mariana Trench.
I was actually going to suggest that, since long, long ago he seemed to have some iota of talent and a natural instinct for the over-the-top theatrics of superhero comics, Liefeld was more akin to Joel Schumacher, who jumped into prominence with the once-stylish and trashy-but-still-watchable Lost Boys. But Schumacher, as remarkably awful as he can be, seems to have at least some small sense of humor. At the end of the day, Liefeld and Boll are really more snake-oil salesmen. Wild West grifters, well-dressed and charismatic with a suitcase full of cure-all tonic that’s actually distilled donkey piss. They’re kind of William Castles for our time — except without the acknowledgment that what they’re doing is, for all intents and purposes, crap.
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6 Responses to “Nerdalogies 1 - Rob Liefeld”
May 1st, 2008 at 11:58 am
While I agree on most of these points, if you break his creations down, Liefeld actually did have some good ideas and/or concepts*. I just wish he would’ve left the actual execution to others more qualified.
* - Note that his most recent X-Force miniseries is not included in this as it was a whole new exercise in pain tolerance.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Steve- Excellent job on the two-for-one skewering!
My only exception to your comparison is that, while Rob Liefeld is vile and talentless, he could stop spewing out his artless hackery and I’d be fine with that whereas Uwe Boll not only needs to stop “directing” movies but also needs to be skinned alive and stomped by the Budweiser Clydesdales on Pay-Per-View.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Thanks John - wait until we really get rolling and work the bugs out of this feature. Andrew and I already disagree on our next subject, and at the same time, I can’t argue against his reasoning.
Uwe Boll actually entertains me more than Liefeld, though. Liefeld’s a hack, but Boll’s genuinely psychotic, and that’s pretty fun for the public meltdowns!
May 1st, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Crosspatch -
Early Liefeld showed promise, but break down his “creations,” and most were just repainted versions of ideas that had already been done. Not saying that everything has to be totally original, but generally Liefeld’s way of adding his twist to things was to draw some pouches on costumes and add extra violence.
May 2nd, 2008 at 5:55 am
You’ve got a point there. I’d love to see some major comeuppance for Uwe but honestly, I think I’d miss his hijinks if he left the crappy movie business. I’m just disappointed that he won the boxing match. Of course the win just fueled his psychoses.
As for Rob, the less I see and hear from him, the better.
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:47 am
Hi guys!
I swear I didn’t go looking for this but here’s a new bit of Uwe Boll lunacy to kick off your weekend.
http://kotaku.com/386426/bay-vs-uwe-boll-round-3-bay-agreed-to-fight-%5Bupdated%5D