Yikes! I guess we can put “self-awareness” in the same category as “ability to draw feet”.

Yeah, I’m going to take the word of a liar and a cheat.

How many times did Rob promise projects that never got off the ground? How many feuds has HE been in over his unprofessional business practices? Kurt Busiek, Mark Silvestri, Erik Larson, Todd McFarlane and countless others.

Where can he get off talking about Alan Moore and dropping projects? How many Youngbloods has Liefeld restarted over the past five years only to find it’s more of the same…one issue and then nothing.

I don’t even care that he’s an atrocious artist and a blight on the medium as much as I care he’s a liar and basically a thief, stealing people’s money for projects that will never see fruition.

That guy standing on the cliff hurling stones through his glass house has balls too.

Not much else. But balls.

Am I the only one that giggled at the tag for that blog entry?

rob-liefeld-shoots-on-alan-moo

Probably.

“I have no intention of working with him again.”

Don’t think that’ll be a problem.

“And if it’s too hard to give the Black Sheep of Comics the benefit of the doubt, how about this? What if he’s not 100% bang-on, but in the ballpark?”

Hey may be 100 percent right. Who knows? I certainly don’t know. I wouldn’t believe Rob Liefeld as far as I could throw him though. Alan Moore certainly is probably tempermental. He probably did want to get work in order to get money. He also has more talent in his little fingernail than Rob Liefeld has in his entire body.

“Would it be easier to believe that Moore is cranky, strange, and fond of money if Jack Kirby’s ghost said it, as opposed to a guy like Rob?”

Yes. I don’t doubt Moore is a hassle to deal with on some levels. Do I believe Liefeld in that Moore is just a harsh businessman who craves money? No. Liefeld has no principles. Say what you want about Moore, but he has principles. He could be making boffo bucks for Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and all the other money he has turned down. Liefeld might be upset at the fact Moore slagged his art and could be making all of this up. Would it surprise me? Not in the least.

“On the other hand, whenever I read about Rob Liefeld falling out with creators and not finishing projects and what not, I still kinda like how he comes across.”

Yeah, he might be fun to have a beer with. Just like the guy who tells you he used to play guitar in Black Sabbath or that he caught the biggest fish ever or that he has 30 holes in one. Guys like that are often fun to be around. Doesn’t excuse his behavior though.

“Alan makes deals, then decides later that it wasn’t good enough, torches the previous deal, pouts and goes back to his corner.”

As opposed to you, who promises things and never delivers?

“He killed the Watchman toys that DC had set to roll 10 years back….for what good reason? He said he would bad mouth them so DC backed off and killed all the merchandise.”

This has been documented. DC stated it wouldn’t censor his work at Wildstorm. It did. So he nixed the Watchmen toy deal. Later he left after they did it again. Immature maybe, but he had his reasons.

“Anyways, I’m perfectly satisfied with all my Alan Moore stories and look forward to future collections and perhaps having his earlier Supreme issues re-drawn. ”

Sweet. Will this be coming out before or after the 800 Youngblood comics you’ve started and never finished? After you started on Bloodsport, I was less than interested in anything Youngblood (other than Moore and Skroce’s awesome run). However, I gave you credit in that you seemed to be trying way harder than your earlier work and that you had learned from your past mistakes. Whoops! I love Joe Casey, but I’m not setting foot near anything you produce/market/promise until you actually manage to prove you’re halfway reliable. And I don’t believe a word you say about anything.

“He hides behind principle while he has his hand out for more control and or more money than he previously negotiated.”

Yeah, I’m pretty sure he knows he’s not going to get Watchmen or V back. Yet he still refuses the money. That’s principle. 90 percent of people, myself included, would take the money. He doesn’t.

Is he a harsh businessman? Maybe. Would you consider yourself A businessman of any type?

Ad hominem rules!

wow

I kind of agree with Liefeld.

Never would I thought this day would come.

At one point Erik Larsen offered to draw the annual, but I guess nothing ever came of it.

Rob, Alan only became a magician when he was 40… however, even then I don’t see him claiming any clairvoyance.

Also, he seems fine working with Avatar, Top Shelf, Knockabout… and the only issue with Wildstorm came from DC, otherwise he’d probably still be there.

And Steve Moore wrote some lovely Tom Strong!

“If he didn’t do brilliant comics as often as he did, he’d be out there with the other prima donnas, wondering why they don’t get more work.”

Yeah, but that’s kind of the thing, isn’t it? He does do brilliant comics with some regularity, so who cares if he’s hard to work with? For all I know, Liefeld could bring donuts to his collaborators every morning, but his comics suck. Well, when they come out they do.

Heh, this reminds me of Pulp Fiction… “if a pig had a better personality, he’d cease to be a filthy animal.”

Sure, but he’d still be a pig. Just a charming one.

It’s kinda disturbing to me that people will forgive jackassery as long as the jackass makes them happy. The minute that happiness ceases to be (say, when a promised comic is late), then out come the knives. Look at all the bile heaped on Jim Lee and Frank Miller over All-Star Batman! Sheesh.

Who knows, one day Moore might offend comic fandom in such a fashion, and then Rob’s comments will suddenly rise like cream in people’s eyes.

Alan Moore’s work on Supreme and Youngblood is the best thing that Liefeld ever managed to publish and now he’s complaining about him? WOW. o_O

All I’ve ever witnessed Alan Moore is stand up for himself and stick to his principles. And as Nat stated, there are very few creators in the business who can actually do that and get away with it.

Marvel first screwed with Moore’s work on Marvelman/Mircaleman, then his UK published Captain Britain. When Marvel finally got to a spot with Moore to collect the Captain Britain work again, they once again pulled some hokey work on the accreditation and shot themselves in the foot on future standings with Alan.

DC did their best to subvert the royalty rights of Moore and Dave Gibbons on Watchmen merchandising and led to the initial falling out between them. Alan Moore stood up and called foul, WHEN HE HAD EVERY RIGHT TO, and stood by it no matter what DC waved in his face. The Wildstorm deal fell through after Jim Lee sold the company to DC, they swore not to interfere with Alan’s ABC titles on any level, and then proceeded to pulp and edit the parts that made them nervous. The Scientology parody in Tomorrow Stories springs to mind, a story that DC legal team cleared but Levitz pulped anyway. The 15th Anniversary of Watchmen figures fell through when DC once again started playing fast and loose on the deal with Moore and Gibbons.

He has stated a number of times he doesn’t want his work adapted by Hollywood and has retracted himself from credits and monies paid in those deals.

Throws stones if you want, but Alan Moore is one of the few cases I can think of in modern times where an artist has retained his integrity. And Rob Liefeld would arguably be the man at the other end of THAT particular spectrum, so take it all with a grain of salt I say.

Alan Moore vowed to never work for DC ever again and then after Awesome folded he accepted a deal from Wildstorm which was owned by DC. Oh yeah, there was a “firewall” right. Gimme a break, he needed an option and changed the parameters of his vow in order to
facilitate his need.

Then he cried foul when the company that he vowed to not work for which owned the company that he was working for interfered with his work.

Wow. Didn’t see that coming.

You can worship him if you’d like and he is certainly a great writer and I’m proud of the work we did together but to not see what a whack job he is, then you’re not paying attention.

Again, I don’t see an answer to my question.

Next up, Greg Land stops by to educate us all about copyright law.

The ABC line launched with DC owning Wildstorm. Did you ever consider that a prime reason DC purchased Wildstorm at the time was because Wildstorm set up their deal with Moore?

DC owns Wildstorm, therefore DC made money from Alan on ABC comics. How is that not working for DC? Look you can be an Alan Moore apologist and or a homer but his history of temper tantrums alone is certainly entertaining.

No one ever said his work was flawed.

I just think he’s a nut among other things.

Sorry, man. You’re wrong on that one. ABC was already being published when the official announcement came down that DC was buying Wildstorm. I have no idea that the talks over this sort of deal happening didn’t happen over night and was maybe one of the reasons Moore had to have a special deal arranged to keep him onboard (as I figure he also realized that he was brought into Wildstorm without being informed of the impending buyout). I’m not denying he was working for DC after this deal went down but it was a special circumstance and led to some of the thaw toward the Watchmen anniversary edition, for which Moore and Gibbons had even filmed a promo/interview/whatever to be shown at conventions before the whole thing crashed and burned due to DC’s meddling.

Sheesh, where’s Rich Johnston to back me up on this?

I’m surprised more people didn’t beat Rob up as a kid.

I was just wondering why is it that SOME comic book creators feel that they can dish shit about other creators in public forums…Makes the whole profession seem…unprofessional and petty.

Is it possible Mr. Moore is hard to deal with? Probably. Most true artists are. However, why Liefeld felt the need to trash him is beyond me. Would he not be opening himself up to a lawsuit? At the very least this is immature gossip/posturing.

Mr. Liefeld, I know you have some pretty big accomplishments in the comic business, but instead of wasting your time bitching about other people, actually do something like finish a book on time?

Rob Liefeld has now officially become the Sean Hannity of the Comic Biz. Rinse, lather, repeat… doesn’t make it true. And by the by, when did Alan Moore come out and state that it was shitty to work with Liefeld? In most of the interviews I read, he comes across as a rather self-effacing guy. Is he dificult to work with? Oh, I have no doubt about that. People who know their shit always are, because they won’t bow to “I have the suitcases of money, kiss my ass” folks.

There are enough grounds to criticise Moore on, in terms of the later works’ quality, I do think that, but to smear somebody who did damn good work on characters that are ALL a direct rip-off of other corporately owned characters, that is just bad taste. And whiny. Especially when the next sentence is something like “i can’t wait to have some of the earlier Supreme scripts re-drawn”. You, Sir, are still leeching off the work her did for you, then.

And gosh, he wanted money for his work! How DISGUSTING! DREADFUL! What a jackass he was for that! He wanted MONEY.

Like others before here said: it is a well-documented fact that Moore gave the movie money to the artists of the original work. How DISLOYAL of him! Even most of his criticism of the movies is tempered with “well, the original book is still out. This is a movie. It is bound to be different”

And yes, in the cases of LOEG and FROM HELL, he sold the movie rights, TOGETHER with the artists who co-created those things. I have my doubts that he would have sold them, if he were the sole owner, but when you’re in a partnership, these things get decided together.

What I also found funny is the acknowledgement that Rob Liefeld and his stable of artists were incapable of drawing from that unknown Moore script, because, AWWWW, it is too complex and complicated. Dave Gibbons could. Brian Bolland could. Eddie Campbell could. And yes, all of them came out later and said something to the effect that it drove them crazy. Sure enough, Bill Sienkiewicz did in a recent interview. Jacen Burrows on his blog states the script he has is by far the most complex he’s ever had, and yes, it is intimidating.

But to NOT be able to do it, sheesh, more a reflection of your artistic abilities than Moore’s prententiousness. And to state that, oh, we will probably publish this in script form, that is so indicative of somebody who pisses from up high and then turns around and wants to make money off the guy he just pissed on.

That. is. pathetic.

Thank you, Neil. I hadn’t read that. I stand corrected on that one point. However, I find myself agreeing with that statement.

Like I said, there are lots and lots of things Alan Moore can be critized for. I personally e.g. consider LOEG Alan Moore’s “fan fiction”. It’s on a very, very high scale and the allusions are such that it almost feels like showing off his literary expertise, just for the sake of showing off. Also, one can make a valid point, as in a debate between Rich Johnston and LOEG producer Don Murphy, that Moore is slightly hypocritical in his assessment of what characters are fair game for him. All those would be valid criticisms. One can agree with them or disagree with them.

But what Liefeld is doing is just pissing, while at the same time trying to milk the stuff that Moore wrote for him.

“And while he continues to work with small press publishers, such as Avatar, really has he produced any substantial body of work for any of those publishers on par with Watchmen, Supreme, Swamp Thing?

No.”

Um, I guess there was some super-obscure thing with Jack The Ripper or something in it. The title escapes me at the moment.

Oh, and it had no color, either.

“And while he continues to work with small press publishers, such as Avatar, really has he produced any substantial body of work for any of those publishers on par with Watchmen, Supreme, Swamp Thing?”

You mean like Lost Girls, From Hell, or Miracleman?

Really, Rob.

If you ever felt that Alan was failing to live up to contract, you could of course use legal means to try to hold him to it. But if your complaint is that over time, he found he wanted more, that’s actually quite a reasonable thing. Looking for raises is hardly a rarity, hardly improper. We are not committed to working all of our life under the terms of the very first deal we made. Alan Moore wanted something, asked for it… and wrote more issues of Supreme than you bothered to publish, so he couldn’t have caused you that much friction.

Lost Girls certainly is not the same level of WATCHMEN, SWAMPTHING, or SUPREME. There is such a fine line between high art and kiddy porn on that one. I’m sure Michael jackson could clarify it’s genius.

I type this, being a big fan of Alan Moore. I just think most of his recent stuff is unreadable. i can’t stand the Avatar garbage as it seems like they are publishing hand written notes on cocktail napkins, just to use the “alan moore” NAME.

Miracle Man was the best thing he wrote IMHO, with Watchmen as a close second.

The Magician has just lost his marbles, at least for this reader.

Of course i might just be a a jilted fanboy waiting for Big Numbers to resume.

Moore worships a snake gods, has multiple wives and ‘open-marriages’, probably smokes three packs a day, and writes freaky books about teenage girls.

On the hand, man can he write! Liefeld owes him a lot for what he did on Supreme and the Awesome books. Sure it didn’t work, but they had a quality to them that could of been something, a real potential.

I never really thought I’d see the day that Rob Liefeld had the nerve to argue Alan Moore’s relevancy in a public forum. It’s as hilarious as it is hard to watch.

Just another quick reality check…
Alan Moore: will be long remembered as one of the masters of the comic artform along with the likes of Will Eisner and Jack Kirby.

Rob Liefeld: was in a 501 Jeans commercial and once drew Captain America with man-boobs.

And I really, REALLY hope you weren’t insinuating that Moore transposed your characters onto his ABC line, because if so, man you missed the whole point on that one. Jamie Coville was right, Tom Strong was closer to Doc Savage than Supreme. The whole “science hero” point was to go back to the pulp archetypes that influenced superheroes and bring them to the present. And with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen he went even further back to the original characters of early fantasy fiction that served at the prototypes to the pulps. So yeah, it went a little deeper than anything that had to do with the rip-offs at Image.

What exactly IS your point again, Rob? What is it you are getting at with all this besides getting some attention? Moore is a shrewd businessman? Shrewd as in smart you mean? Did a deal go badly between you? Did he try to change a deal you’d agreed on and it made you unhappy? Is there some genuine point of contention here for your animosity toward Moore other than just random poo-flinging?

“I had no problem with Alan’s work and am quoted as saying we stayed out of his way. But it was never lost on me that he merely re-tooled the Awesome library for his own purposes, in much the same way I re-tooled some of my favorite childhood characters, and set them up at a label that was transferred to DC comics prior to X changing to Y.”

Considering you seem to have no concept of creativity or storytelling, I find it amazing you’re making these comments. Tom Strange is not Supreme. Top Ten is not Youngblood. They’re not even close. The only thing similar to Supreme is the tone of the stories in both harken back to an earlier age of comics, and that’s not bringing characters over whole cloth. It’s just a style of writing. Similar to how you and all the other Image partners wrote in the same “tone” as your previous work. To compare this with your noted work habits of say, swiping Thing and making him a little shorter is ludicrous in the awesome universe or drawing people with Wolverine’s haircuit, or reusing your old Captain America pages in your Awesome work, or creating 800 versions of Cable is silly and distorted, . Which is not too much of a surprise coming from you. Of course, you’re the guy who pretty much admitted in this interview that you didn’t even know a book you published was full of teenage superheroes.

Rob is a below mediocre artist with a horrible track record as far as work is concerned. He is unwilling to learn and progress as an artist and his work looks no better than that of a art student who is currently in his first year in art school. Him making commentary on a talented writer is not only meaningless but also XTREMEly irrelevant.

Dear Rob Liefeld,

Please spend less time making badly-informed arguments about Alan Moore, and get back to drawing comics about cyborgs with cyborg left eyes and ponytails who have to stop the future from being horrible, and maybe they’re all named after awesome crap from the 80′s like They Still Call Me Bruce or Wang Chung or the Wang Chung song “Dancehall Days” or Fraggle Rock! The world needs more of that unique thing only you can bring to it; leave attacking Alan Moore to people whose time is less precious.

Also, please bring back the Rub the Blood covers. I missing rubbing the blood.

Thank you.

How ASS of you Mr. Liefeld. You have nowhere to stand attacking someone who consistanly puts out good quality work that people want to read. Put him on any book, sales will increase. Put you on a book and sales decrease.

Your track record is astonishingly terrible in the comic industry and we fans scratch our heads that you can still continue to get work.

Your track record is a testament of what not to do.

Do not attack Alan Moore in a public forum nor anyone else in that matter. Even if you some how become the best thing to happen to comics, your past history with comics is more than enough to disqualify you from any credibility.

Oh, and while I’m at it, if you do get hired to draw something else, could you please draw at least one character that doesn’t look like you?

Also, with all these accusations flying back and forth, why are there no citations?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Rob_liefeld

That’s 40K for Top Shelf’s LOST GIRLS book from print runs 1-3 only. And it is not available in the UK till, what, next year? Add in foreign editions and you’re definitley not looking at a cult project. Plus, Borders carries it too, which I find slightly worrying, as I doubt they carry much prose pornography and may not realize what they have sitting next to LONG HALLOWEEN.

That Rob Leifield is a real character, eh? But I see no need to resort to name calling, you mean bastards.

rob’s the worst kind of person; he made some money and think that justifies everything. it’s ashame, if you’re into compassion.

and for a guy who is so respectful of the great jack kirby, well, kirby would fucking loathe a guy like you. you think you’d take something from your idol, rob. that’s usually how it works.

the saddest thing is, you could make fun comics if you gave a shit. but you think you’ve ‘done it’ all already.

Just adding my $0.02:

If Alan Moore is a bit of a diva these days… well, honestly, the man’s earned it. His body of work speaks for itself, and even if his current level of output isn’t anywhere near his prime, he’s still got a long way to go before squandering the goodwill he deserves.

Rob Liefeld, having never done much of anything to deserve any similar goodwill, is – of course – entitled to his opinion. But I don’t think implicitly holding himself to a higher standard than Alan Moore was the right way to go about expressing that opinion, because, really, all that does is invite comparisons. And while I hate to pull a Darth Vader, “I find your lack of feet disturbing.”

“..since we are comics readers, I would expect some level of literate behavior.”

Ho ho ho.

“This entire thread puzzled me, because few if any of the replies dealt with the merits of Liefeld’s claims. Rather they address Liefeld ad hominem.”

Actually it has been on both fronts. One side saying that Rob has no right criticize given his dubious history in the industry, and more importantly to do so against Alan Moore as his work for Rob will be one of the few things still paying his bills twenty years from now. So a debate about character would surely call into question the character of the originator of the discussion, yes?

And I do believe most of Rob’s criticisms of Moore has been discussed and rebutted here. That’s no easy task either if you read the original linked article as Rob contradicts himself repeatedly.

At once he says Alan Moore is brilliant, that he’s proud to have worked with him, and claims that his Awesome stories are his “last great work”. On the other hand Rob claims that Moore is a hypocrite, either crazy or a self-aggrandizing showmen, a shrewd businessman who was writing stories for them just to get paid, that he ripped off his character for ABC, and that Moore cares nothing for the artists and other creative folk he works with.

I have to disagree. It has been pointed out quite clearly and correctly that Mr. Liefeld is talking out of his ass. For whatever reason we can only now speculate.

“This entire thread puzzled me, because few if any of the replies dealt with the merits of Liefeld’s claims. Rather they address Liefeld ad hominem.

I mean, it’s a comics forum, not a debate, but since we are comics readers, I would expect some level of literate behavior.”

Yes they have. So far discussed are Liefeld’s incorrect portrayal of Alan Moore’s Wildstorm, his claims Alan is mostly in it for the money, etc.

Also included in the discussion is the fact Rob Liefeld is the source. A known liar and a terrible businessman telling stories about Moore and his business practices. Reliability of the source is extremely relevant in a “he said/he said” discussion.

This sounds interesting.

Feet aren’t easy to draw. Look at all the comics and you’ll see that. Just thought I’d put my 2 cents in on the feet issue.

I’ve recently been a passionate admirer of this web site for a while and not really offered a single thing back, I am hoping to change that in the future with more talk.Thanks for another great inclusion to the website.

Wow, what an amazing article! Thank you so much for your fantastic writing, i’ll be reading regularly from now on.