Great. Now I need a new computer.
Passing/ Creator: Al Williamson, a legendary comic artist has passed. Honestly, I believed Williamson had been dead for years, but... oh, well.
I know him from his work on Flash Gordon, but he also did this one short story I read in a book about the realities and speculation around space travel entitled "Rocketship". I was shocked to see a page from that story included in the gallery (image #11).
The story is basically about how man's attempts to reach the stars will be doomed by our inability to leave our most basic human failings behind when we hit the intergalactic highway. Reading this story in middle school made me believe we'd never truly achieve our potential as a species.
Batman/ Pornography: Comics Alliance posts a review of the very adult film, "Batman XXX". The review does nothing to diminish my curiosity, but I am unwilling to risk divorce for a cheap laugh (sort of). The review is NOT SAFE FOR WORK (or M-i-L or The KareBear), btw.
From the review:
...but seriously, they look like they're having fun. And why shouldn't they? I mean, Dale DaBone gets to be Batman and a porn star at the same time.
That dude is straight up living the dream.
Memes/ Keanu: Likely you've heard of this by now. It makes it no less... awesome. The Signal Watch also really hopes things pick up for Keanu by the weekend.
Liefeld/ Comics: Did you read comics in the 1990's? Well, then you likely remember oddly proportioned men and women carrying enormous weapons and smothered in dozens of pockets. This whole scene was developed by comic artist/ writer, Rob Liefeld, who now embodies the excesses of comics in the 90's to many comic fans.
Well, nothing is crueler than a comic fan with a web site and a long memory.
Two Liefeld links of note:
1) A reminder of what not to do when they give you the Captain America assignment
2) Liefeld Rulz! - tribute artists pay homage to Rob Liefeld's style
special thanks to MikeF. for the links!
Aquaman/ BP: I think Randy and Simon send me this. So sad.
E3/ Interviews: I'm not actually linking to anything here. I'm just saying: there is seemingly nothing more pointless than an E3 interview (except for maybe interviewing pop stars).
Movies/ Comics: I'm gonna buy this comic of the upcoming Machete! movie.
Confession time. Rob Liefeld got me back into comics. I was at a local corner store in my home town one day in 1991 when I spied the cover to New Mutants #100 drawn by Liefeld.
ReplyDeleteThe art really made the book stand out as it was like nothing I'd ever seen before. Plus I was trying to figure out how Thunderbird came back from the dead and who was this reverse Longshot guy with swords.
All of those things made me want to buy the book on a lark and from then I've been back to buying comics.
I recall a friend showing me the Liefeld stuff from that era, declaring it "great", and so I remember being very excited. But I also remember thinking that Liefeld's stories were simply awful. I didn't recognize then that he knew far more about creating new characters (sort of) and had no concept of plotting, cause & effect, character, etc... I would always think I missed something when I was reading X-Force, because people were incessantly fighting for no discernible reason.
ReplyDeleteI do think the fan community is unnecessarily hard on the guy, but I also remember buying that Heroes Reborn Captain America and feeling it was just about the worst thing ever.
I can't honestly say that I loved X-Force but I was intrigued about the Shatterstar character as I'm a huge fan of Longshot and the Mojoverse. I was one of those people who enjoyed Longshot's time in the X-Men but I can honestly admit that nothing compares to his original mini-series by Art Adams and Ann Nocenti.
ReplyDeleteI have to credit Liefeld for getting me back into comics but it wasn't long before I was branching out into other better work. I didn't pick up any of the Heroes Reborn non-sense at the time and I can honestly say I've never read an issue of any of the titles.
There was always some promise there. I remember being kind of intrigued by Cable at one point.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember much about Shatterstar other than "oh, hey, look, he's tied to Longshot somehow!". But I didn't read long enough to find out more.
I picked up the Cap and FF Heroes Reborn first issues, that was it. In fact, I recall giving my roommate money to pick up the comics for me, which makes me wonder if I would have owned them had I actually browsed them in the store.
It is amazing how fandom has turned on Liefeld. Let's all be honest, he learned to draw the sweetspot that engaged the synapses of 12 year old adolescent comic readers back in the day. The gun fetish, the paramilitary gear (goggles, things!), pouches and gigantic swords all were what we thought were kick-ass at the time. It was dynamic and really got your attention.
ReplyDeleteLiefeld's problem was that 1) he was an awful writer, right there with Todd McFarlane for putting just crap on the page; and 2)his art never...got...better!
Look at Jim Lee, one of his Marvel contemporaries. Jim Lee's art is fantastic now! Liefeld's work just stayed static and never improved until it descended into almost parody. He never mastered things like feet, perspective or anatomy. I can't blame the guy for making a buck though. If Marvel asked me to write and draw Captain America and X-Men, you can bet the lottery I'm going to jump all over it regardless of my hack skills.
-NTT
I think you hit it on the head. It was something that worked for me at some point, and then... didn't.
ReplyDeleteHe almost seems to be enjoying some odd resurgence of ironic-popularity at the moment, spawned by some jerk who posted a video of himself demanding an apology for Liefeld's work to his face.
What's really interesting/ weird is that DC is now pushing the Magog Liefeld parody from Kingdom Come.
@NTT I started to have a problem with Liefeld when his books stopped coming out on time. That's really where he lost me as a fan.
ReplyDelete