Lets Talk Comics!
Ok, break time from blogging is over and there’s been so much going on lately I figured its time to talk about it. The 'IT' being comics. This is gonna be another one of my rambles as I'm prone to do, so I'll begin with the first topic in my head, and that’s Rob Liefeld. A guy who depending who you talk to is anyone from a great guy to the worst thing to happen to comics. Now let me start out by saying a few nice things about the guy cause I know he gets a ton of flak as it is. My experiences with Rob are very few and very far between and its always been in passing at a con and from that little bit, and following his Twitter feed I can tell you he does seem like a genuinely nice guy. He’s always genial and open to his fans, something a LOT of other creators would do well to take note of; the guy knows his fans are his bread and butter so he treats them as such. He also seems to be a devout family man and quite religious, so really on a personal level I have NOTHING bad to say about the guy. Now here's where you're likely to say 'ok so you have nothing bad to say about him so you must be talking about his art', and the answer to that is yes AND no. See Rob gets ripped on cause, well aside from being very dynamic, his artwork is 'technically' very poor, and by technically I mean, everything you've ever heard an editor or anyone in comics hierarchy say NOT to do, Rob does. From dad anatomy to lack of (believable) backgrounds, over rendering of faces etc, it’s all there. We've all seen examples of it from Captain America with the DDD boob job to the latest nightmare with Deadpool and Cable, where Deadpool is missing his forearms while he’s carrying Cable, to Cable growing two feet from one leg. The examples are too numerous to mention and a simple Google search will show you what I'm talking about.
Now you’d figure if this guy were such a terrible artist how is it that he keeps getting assignments? Simple, the guys name sells books. Say what you want about him but his fans are loyal and will scoop up anything he does, doesn’t matter what it looks like. And you know who knows this? Editors, the guys in charge of getting books out there. Again, you'd say but the editors are the ones at the cons telling us to work on our anatomy, make sure the backgrounds are believable, yadda yadda yadda. And you're right about that, but first and foremost comics are a business and those books need to get sold. So whether the editor adores Rob's work or hates it with a passion, he or she knows that the guy is money, he puts asses in the seats as it were. And much like the big blockbuster directors that make those crappy popcorn movies full of big explosions, gratuitous sex, and lots of ‘whiz bang’, Rob delivers the "In Your Face" and that my friends sells books.
Now keep in mind the time that Rob came into the industry, this was a little over 20yrs ago, when the trend in comics was shifting from a balance of story and art to being really art heavy. At that time he was this 20 year old wunderkind that just exploded out of nowhere, and once that jeans commercial dropped, well, he could do no wrong. Then Image and Youngblood happened and a million copies later he could pretty much shit on paper and move 100,000 copies of it. Fast forward 20 years later and those fans that rabidly snapped up those copies of Youngblood and New Mutants as kids are all grown up and most of them still love Rob's work.
Before I go any further let me just add that I too was one of those kids, 20 years ago snatching up everything Liefeld, and I still have bagged & boarded copies of Youngblood and New Mutants laying around somewhere but I'm no longer a big fan of em. The reason why is as a creator I was one of those guys in line at the cons getting told by editors and creators to work on my anatomy, work on my storytelling, backgrounds, etc. And it was through all those critiques that I began to look at my own work, and Rob's in a different light. So I worked hard on all those things, and I’m still working on em today, but while I HAVE to do that Rob doesn’t. He doesn’t because he's a proven commodity. See if I put out a book that sells a couple hundred thousand copies, nobody’s gonna tell me what’s right and what’s wrong either, they'll just wanna work with me cause I sell books. And unfortunately, that’s the hypocrisy of it all, the rules in this biz do NOT apply to everyone, and what matters more than being good is being commercially viable. As I said earlier, the game has changed in comics and its more of a business now more than ever, and as long as those books keep flying off the shelves Rob will stay in business. As long as anyone proves they can sell books like hotcakes they’ll stay working, whether the books are late or look like crap on a stick, its all about the dollar folks.
All that said, what it boils down to is this, don’t hate on Rob, its silly and pointless, its not like he punched your mom or kicked your cat. There’s room in this business for everyone and the fact is he made a lot of people, some really talented people, want to get into this business, and that’s a good thing. The more people are buying comics; even his comic’s means that’s there’s still going to be jobs in some fashion for the rest of us. Hate on the fact that comic’s aint about the funny books anymore, that it’s more about the corporate bottom dollar than it is about always putting the best product on the shelves. But don’t just hate it, DO something about it, and that something is go out there and make the best comics possible yourself. Write the best story, draw the most fantastic art, publish it through print or the web or however, just get it out there, cause lemme tell you what happens next. Next you'll develop a following, especially if your work is good, after you get a good following you'll find publishers will come knocking and when they do, they'll be hiring the best artist or the best writer thus ensuring the best product winds up on the shelf.
Whew! That was a mouthful! Well I was gonna talk about some other topics but I've got an artboard staring back at me waiting to be penciled so I'm gonna follow my own advice and get to creating the best art I can! But before I go I did promise a lil art update tonight so here's a sneak peak of the Little Red Riding Hood story I'm doing for Digital Webbing, enjoy!
Hello 2010!
What. Up. 2010! Wow has it really been a month since I last updated EJAYRUSSELL.COM? Doesnt seem like that much time has past, and yet here we are all this time later. Now you might have noticed the links on the Pencils page were kinda screwed up in December, well I'm happy to say those links have now been fixed and everything should be back to normal. Also back in late '09 I kept mentioning that there was a project I'd be working on in early 2010 and though I mentioned it on both Facebook and Twitter, I hadnt dropped the news here on my own site (sheesh!) so here it is. I'll be part of Digital Webbings next anthology series, Future Fairy Tales, crafting a story around Little Red Riding Hood. While it would seem appropriate with my last image I uploaded, I actually created that pic to lobby for the gig, and that lobbying paid off dividends. I'll post a few teaser images later on next week, but I cant give away too much, just wanna give you guys enough to get as excited about the project as I am. Of course, due to this gig I'll be unavailable for commissions until February, though you can still send in requests - I just cant get to 'em til February.
Aside from that I hope you guys have had a great holiday season; it was pretty awesome for me, so I'm wishing everybody else's was just as great. Also late last year I was able to interact with some of my site's visitors (I'm going against using the term fan, cause hey, who am I, right?) and one in particular showed me a image she drew which was kinda similar to my Villians at Play pic. I promised her then I would post the pic on my site for all to see since art is about sharing and I love to promote the artists of tomorrow (especially when they dig my stuff 
) So here's "Christmas A la Arkham" by Samantha Normand! Keep your eye's out for her in the future, she'll be one of the big names in the world of art one day.
