Robert Liefeld (born October 3, 1967) is an American comic-book artist. His unique style (exaggerated anatomy, pouches, excessive hatching, pouches, panel-bursting splash compositions, and pouches) is widely recognized.
He is also credited as a pioneer of the '90s Anti-Hero. Many stylistic advents in superhero comics of the 1990s are inaccurately attributed to Liefeld, such as the sharp, thin-lined Crowquill inking style that he (and others) cribbed from contemporaries such as Dale Keown, Todd McFarlane, Art Adams, and Jim Lee.
As with the confrontational splash pages, Liefeld's approach to character and costume design was shocking excess in the wake of a fairly conventional period in superhero comics. This initially impressed comic-book readers as a powerful creative energy many likened to that of Jack Kirby (some still do, infuriating others).
Unfortunately, efforts to quickly develop numerous properties for Image Comics to compete for shelf-space with the established mainstream publishers resulted in a glut of Liefeld-style designs and many artists suddenly working in the Liefeld/Lee/Silvestri "Image Comics" style. It was too much. Contrasting Liefeld's own crude work to that of so many (often more polished) artists working in similar styles stripped the wunderkind of his mystique.
That most Image Comics titles also eschewed using dedicated writers didn't help matters. Though there were exceptions, and writing quality varied, the rottenest apples are best remembered.
Massive Hype Backlash followed, which gave Liefeld the distinction of being one of the most influential and successful comic artists, and one of the most broadly disparaged. Suffice to say that in recent years he is heavily parodied
◊ and mocked
.
Despite this notoriety, several of the characters he created have gone on to become long-running mainstream A-list properties (most notably Cable and Deadpool), and he continues to find (or create) regular work in the comic-book industry. In 2018, there were also reports that Netflix had acquired the rights to a number of Liefeld's creations, including Brigade and Bloodstrike, and hired Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind, Titans, I Am Legend) to develop a cinematic universe for them on the streaming service. However, the next year, Liefeld said the deal was no more and that he had taken the rights elsewhere.
Tropes exhibited by Liefeld and his works:
- Author Appeal: Aside from his love of drawing highly deformed women, this also extends to male characters. For example, this◊ picture includes a rather prominent bulge in the main character's pants.
- BFG: Another hallmark of his artwork involves characters wielding a large futuristic gun.
- Boobs-and-Butt Pose: As usual for the period, his female characters fall into the BadGirlComic trope: sexy (anti-)heroines that pose provocatively for the "camera". Examples include Avengelyne, Glory, Genie (from Re:Gex), Vogue◊ (from Youngblood; shown here in an alternate cover for her mini-series).
- Captain Ersatz:
- Deadpool: Co-created with Fabian Nicieza, the character began as one for DC Comics' Deathstroke the Terminator for the Marvel Universe, both being mercenaries with similar designs (though Deadpool had more of a sense of humor than Deathstroke). Liefeld himself states that the similarities to Deathstroke were initially an unintentional coincidence and were pointed out by Nicieza during the plotting phase, so they gave Deadpool the name "Wade Wilson" to reference Slade, as a joke. However, Deadpool changed substantially when he was handed to other writers, notably Joe Kelly, and grew into the loon we know and love.
- At one point, Liefeld made two of these in some way inspired by Captain America, using unpublished art from the Heroes Reborn Captain America book after he was taken off the initiative. At first, he planned to buy the rights for Fighting American and use him as the main character. A creator-owned character, Fighting American was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, the original creators of Captain America, for a different company when they got unhappy that Atlas Comics (the company that would later become Marvel) had started a new Captain America book without them. The character started out as a pretty straight pastiche of their original version of Captain America, but went satirical after a couple of issues when they started giving the otherwise-interchangeable Communist spies names like Hotsky Trotsky.
When Kirby's widow and Simon wanted more for the rights to Fighting American than Liefeld was willing to pay, he created a new character, Agent America, as a stand-in while negotiating to bring the price down. Liefeld eventually got the rights to Fighting American, but the new book resulted in a lawsuit from Marvel, in part because the artwork had been made for one of their projects. The lawsuit also concerned the changes Liefeld made to the character's design that made him look too much like Captain America, such as giving him a helmet with an eagle on the forehead. The character's shield was especially emblematic of this since Fighting American never had a shield. This was resolved by the court ordering that Liefeld change the costume and forbidding him from having Fighting American throw his shield. - Newmen: Similar to original X-Men squad. Here we have an austere mentor, Proctor (a Professor X/Doom Patrol's Niles Caulder expy), and his five teenager students: Kodiak, a large furred monster; Byrd, a youth with bird wings under his arms; Exit, the resident teleporter; Dash, the only female and speedster, and Reign, who can shoot pink beams of energy from the horn/jewel stuck on his forehead. Among their enemies - Proctor recalls in a thought balloon - are "Quantum" and "The Brotherhood of Man".
- Doom's IV: This four-member supergroup has been argued to resemble Fantastic Four, from Marvel Comics. Drawn similarities would include the powers of Brick (the Big Guy of the team, made of "sand and silicate" and looking like The Thing) and Burn (a woman with fire-manipulating powers, but does not become Wreathed in Flames, unlike her proposed "source of inspiration", the Human Torch).
- While he was illustrating and writing the story for X-Force at Marvel, Liefeld started working on a creator-owned comic that would be published by Malibu Comics (the company that published The Ultraverse) titled The Executioners (stylized with the 'X' highlighted). Described as being about a group of "rebel mutants from the future come to destroy their past", it caught Marvel's attention when a press release came out. Seeing the obvious similarities to the characters Liefeld had created for X-Force, both in concept and character designs, they threatened to sue if the title was made, so the project was cancelled.
- Rob Liefeld's admitted that Youngblood (Image Comics) was simply a rejected Teen Titans pitch, right down to the redheaded archer Shaft being Speedy/Arsenal and Diehard being a S.T.A.R. Labs android. Under Alan Moore's writing direction, the team's expy-ness became even more pronounced (along with Moore's Supreme, an Expy of DC's Superman).
- C-List Fodder: He created so many characters during his early New Mutants and X-Force run that it was inevitable. One-note characters like Sumo were killed quickly, while most of the Mutant Liberation Front were either depowered or killed over the years.
- Dark Age of Supernames: Liefeld's character names and book titles often have some form of "blood," "death" or "kill" incorporated.
- Darker and Edgier: While not the first to push the envelope when it comes to comics, he did not shy away from some darker and edgier content in his work (YMMV if it was a success or not):
- In Youngblood's debut issue, in the flipbook story, one of their members telekinectically pops the head of a Saddam Hussein stand-in on the page, and the panel only shows blood gushing from his head.
- A more drastic example occurs in Youngblood #10: Chapel confronts Spawn (the man he killed) about the latter's pact with devil-like Malebolgia. Then, in the next pages, Chapel shoots himself in the head, blood, brain matter and bone fragments exploding forth from his head.
- Guns Akimbo: As a comic book artist, in many action scenes he drew, there is always one dual-wielding character either firing one gun or both at the same time.
- Heroic Build: Liefeld has the noted tendency to just throw muscles everywhere, even by the standards of superhero comics.
- Nineties Antihero: His output as a creator included characters developed during the early 90s that fit the mold of non-classical, Silver Age heroes.
- Punny Name: Some of his creations have names like this:
- Psilence, a play on "silence" and referencing her psionic powers and the fact that she never speaks.
- Warwolf, a play on "werewolf".
- Heavy Mettle, a super-team that includes Supreme.
- Shoulders of Doom: As part of the heroes and villains' ensemble, they often wear two shoulderpads (sometimes, only one).
- Stripperiffic: The female characters he drew and/or created wear what basically amounts to a bikini. Some examples include Glory and Avengelyne. A more explicit case could be made for Celestine, who wears a very fetish-y purple outfit.
- Super Hero Packing Heat: One of his signature elements, which he helped popularize for the '90s Anti-Hero. Many of his creations do have superpowers which they use, but they became associated with heavy artillery.
- One particularly egregious example comes from Youngblood (Image Comics): Chapel, mercenary◊ extraordinaire.
- Even when he was the artist for X-Force in the early-1990s, its members were drawn with guns (on this cover, Cable, Domino and Shatterstar - granted, Cable is a soldier from the future, and Domino is a mercenary, but Shatterstar's characteristic weapons are a pair of swords).
- One particularly egregious example comes from Youngblood (Image Comics): Chapel
- Too Many Belts: Many of the characters he designed have a large amount of belts and pouches on them.
- Xtreme Kool Letterz: Another trait of his creations, aside from violence-related codenames, is their names' unusual spelling. As such, he created the female New-Men Byrd, killer Bloodwulf, and tyrant Darkthornn.
