Thursday, February 02, 2006

A four-color Ed Wood

You have to appreciate a man like Rob Liefeld, a self-made entrepreneur from southern California who took (severely) limited draftsmanship and the inability to ever follow up on anything he's claimed he would do to create a minor empire in pop superhero comic books. From his humble beginnings at DC Comics to stardom at early-90s Marvel Comics to finally setting up his own shingle in the mid-90s, Rob seems to have done it all -- his way.

The best part is that his artwork is terrible, and his creative faculties seem to only allow for swiping well-tread ideas from obvious sources. But never mind that -- I'm obsessing over a single panel of his art:

This panel is great: Steroidal monstermen who have no anatomical relation to anything in real life; wasp-waisted women in barely-there leotards (seriously, her torso is about five-feet long); landscape and buildings with seventeen different perspectives; and no feet. Everything you could want from a four-color huckster, you'll find in this panel. I love the fact that these guys' bodies seem to be a mere assortment of closed polygons, bearing no faint resemblance to a ribcage or a bicep. The real gincher of this thing is the hooded-guy's face, totally shrouded in black behind a 3-inch cowl -- yet his teeth and eyes glow.

And of course, who needs a giant battle-axe (that you somehow hold on to via a simple sling) when you have a massive machine rifle? Also, I love the fact that you're not a man in the Liefeld-verse unless you have a panoply of leather belt-pouches.