Most of what Rob is infamous for didn't happen until after the dark age when he couldn't admit it's over and his ego had inflated to the point that it's at today. The Dark Age page as a result is more positive, or at least more neutral because of who he was at the time. The page just on him spans his entire career including the more current bad parts.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
When I last read Liefeld's page, there were a few parts that I thought were... bothersome, but not bothersome enough to want to make a thread about it right away.
Some of trope examples listed ARE pretty subjective (So Bad Its Horrible, anyone?), and quite frankly, the details about how his reputation and style have become unpopular in the time since they both fell out of fashion could be written in a much more neutral tone then they currently are. After all, is it really any of our business pointing out that some other website compiled a list of his 40 worst drawings?
Zzzzzzzzzz
The subjective tropes like So Bad Its Horrible should be moved off the main Liefeld page and onto the YMMV page for it. If there isn't one, go ahead and make it.
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
Disasturbator
Moved the subjective.
New theme music also a box
I know why we are, and I don't object to it, but sometimes I wish we didn't always have to be so neutral.
BLOODPOUCH: THE ARTICLE is a much more interesting read.
Ah, well, I'll see what needs trimming or editing.
Disasturbator
I had an idea to remove the examples from the page entirely,could it be done?
New theme music also a box
Helterskelter, I'm in favor of being able to say on this wiki that someone's work is bad—as long as it doesn't gloss over the less-bad things, and says so without bile. We don't expect Wikipedia-level research but we should strive for accurate articles nonetheless...and I think here the accuracy may be suffering. If Liefield's Dark Age stuff is important and influential and he became infamous after the Dark Age, the current article gives no indication of that. (Disclaimer: I didn't read the trope list, I'm going by the description alone.)
edited 29th Dec '10 6:23:57 PM by Elle
Teutonic Tomboy T-Girl
If Liefield's Dark Age stuff is important and influential and he became infamous after the Dark Age...
That's pretty inaccurate, actually. He was both important/influential and widely derided during his heyday. For whatever reasons (and I don't think anyone's quite figured it out to this day), Liefeld captured the zeitgeist for the adolescent male comics audience of the time, while at the same time baffling and repulsing most older comics fans.
In other words, he became "infamous" as soon as he was "famous."
Another thing people sometimes overlook is that Liefeld seems to be a genuinely nice guy by virtually all accounts. Untalented, but genuinely enthusiastic.
Jet-a-Reeno!
The Other Troper
I half expect 90s Kid from Atop The Fourth Wall to show up.
"Duuuuuuude! Did someone say Rob Liefeld?"
I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.
That's true. Liefield in his heyday was a pretty nice guy. He's gotten kind of crotchty in his old age as he sees people 'pervert' his characters. I know that there was a big to do about how upset he was about Rictor and Shatterstar hooking up. Still, even his moments like that are more because he's far too into things than because he's actively evil.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
The Other Troper
I can even agree with that one, since I'm not a fan of Suddenly Sexuality, and it comes across as Character Derailment just because some fans liked the thought of it.
I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
As the page itself notes, there were hints. I think we got rid of the Subtext To Text Upgrade trope, but that would be it. It wasn't out of left field at all.
Renamed Relationship Reveal.
Yeah, that had been planned out almost a decade before it was actually revealed. It wasn't sudden. A bit of a surprise if you didn't know that characters previous interactions, but it wasn't sudden.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
So he's a "comic book 'artist'", eh?
Look, I'm all for a measure of honesty, but really.
The Hatedom is so pervasive it's hard to even discuss fixing the article. So I just jumped in and tried to balance matters.
Balance! The current state of the entry retains all the same negative reference and links, but downplays or removes much (not all) of the overzealous character assassination.
I'm surprised it's gone a day without complete reversion, tbh.
edited 16th Jun '11 12:30:50 AM by Piledriver
I took the liberty of locking the page in its current, more balanced form.
That One Troper Guy
Could we lock this discussion? It's pretty much been resolved.
Do loafing!
Compare the following two pages:
Rob Liefeld
The Dark Age Of Comic Books (the two and a half paragraphs about him therein)
The later describes Liefeld as an influential figure, without much swing torward better or worse (but a bit torwards positive). The former starts out by calling him an "artist" in scare quotes and goes downhill from there.
The truth, I suspect, is somewhere in the middle. I'm qualified to know bad artist anatomy when I see it (and that page image, ladies and gents, is bad) but I'm not really qualified to write on the history of comics.