Sometimes Liefeld is like that food you don't really like but can't help yourself in eating.

Like that sauce they have at the Outback for the Bloomin' Onion-I don't like it, but there's something about it that makes me come back for more.

It must have horseradish too-it has a kick.

anyway, I always cut it with ketchup-but then I love me some ketchup

QUOTE: Ultimately, these is no way short of years upon years of artistic training and hard work to tell whether an artist is good, bad, or indifferent. It all comes down to "I like it".

It's true that there's no such thing is pure objectivity, but lest we kick back and say, "S'all good, baby," we might at least look to those who do have training (or accumulated knowledge) for a preponderance of evidence for or against a thing:

Eisner serves up a quote to promote early issues of BONE...gotta figure he's got an eye for quality.

Every clean-line artist from hear to Timbuktu mentions Alex Toth or Milt Caniff as an influence...probably worth listening to 'em.

Every artist who's ever talked about the great anatomists in the biz mention Gil Kane...no doubt they're onto something.

Nothing's hard and fast, but just as any trade has agreed-upon methods of judging a final product, I think we can bring into play some mildly objective standards. A preponderance of taste among the knowledgable, that's basically what I'm aiming for. That's a standard I could get behind.

" A preponderance of taste among the knowledgable, that's basically what I'm aiming for. That's a standard I could get behind."

Good luck with that.  At the Baltimore Con a couple of weeks ago, there was a steady line for Liefeld of about 200 people whenever he was signing.  Meanwhile, at Walt Simonson's table - you had about five or six guys.  As long as Wizard promotes 'hot" over artistic fundamentals, that's the world we're gonna live in.  Same thing with excusing lateness and unprofessional behavior from artists and publishers by telling us we're lucky to get what we get.

WO

Quitely and the guy who painted that muddy Star Trek page above use page upon page to get across what those guys would do in a few panels. 

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I may be wrong, but doesn't the writer (at least in full script) determine the number of panels/pages?  I saw a few scripts in some of those Director's cuts and they seemed pretty specific.

Liefeld keeps finding work, but I think he's become infamous in the last half decade or more.  A lot of fans can't stand him, from what I've seen.

Do you think Liefeld is becoming Hitleresque?  Before you jump on me, what I mean is... it seems that any debate carried on for long enough eventually finds its way to a Hitler reference (which immediately means the debate has "jumped the shark").  I'm not saying the All Star Superman thread has jumped the shark, but I do find it interesting that in time, Liefeld's name got worked into the topic.  Does that make sense?

Wow, excuse some of those here in this thread who have a) been burned by late books, b) been burned by late books by a creator who is now working on ALL STAR SUPERMAN, c) aren't as forgiving as some who would take what Morrison has to say with a smile and say "Golly, aren't I lucky?"  You're right, Shaenon.  People have no right to be wary at best due to their prior experience.  Everyone should just shut up and be happy.

Please.

Dave-

Thanks for taking the time to reply to me in such a polite manner.  You have convinced me to modify my talk about Kordey. 

I do not like Kordey's art because I personally do not feel it fits into traditional superhero comics . There, is that better?  :)

I have read Kordey's statements on X-Fan and I think even he would agree with this.  He likes to jokingly call superhero costumes "diapers" for example.  If you like Kordey you should check out the X-Treme X-Men arc "Intifada".  That was my favorite arc that he worked on.  God Loves Man kIlls II was alright.  The rest of his X-Treme X-Men work, especially Arena was frustrating to me.  I would see one or two cool panels complemented by muddy, bizarre looking faces or faceless background characters. The fight scenes looked unconvincing and confusing to me.   And as for "Arena" there was some subject matter in it and some implied activities that I thought were crazy, but most of that is due to Claremont's story.

I don't need to see "glammed up" charcters.  But at the same time I don't like to see too much of the ugliness and awkwardness of real life imposed upon superheroic fantasy stories.  But I can appreciate someone like John Byrne's recent work, which is not so glammed up, but still shows some superheroic ideals in it.  Not to mention Byrne's superhero fight scenes are THE archetype in my opinion!