Let's talk Rob Liefeld.
Don't hate on the guy. No I'm not defending the guy. But he has got to be the most hated early 90s artist that I know of. I swear I think people love to hate the guy and his "art". I'm not sure where I stand with his stuff either, quite honestly. I mean, there are times when I look at some of his earlier work, especially his run on New Mutants 87 through 100 & X-Factor 1, and remember those days when I did actually pick up an issue or two to follow the story, characters and art. Then... I remember why I don't have any of his art in my collection now... when I look at the out of proportion human anatomy, the strange page layouts (ahead of his time?), and the strange looking "women" he draws. How many freakin muscle bulges can an arm have anyways? I'm not a doctor but damn I didn't know an arm could do that.
But to me, Liefeld will be best remembered as the guy who first drew Cable (who is a proportionally challenged character anyways), and the fact he had a Levi's commercial back when it was hip. Let's not forget Youngblood did sell many issues too. Someone bought them. And dude is still selling comics today.
Art is subjective. The reason I want to "talk" Rob Liefeld was that there was an interesting auction that ended today. It was a recreation to his New Mutants 87 cover by Rob Liefeld. And when you look at the cover, this is very representative of those early 90s. It is to me. His art style when he worked on New Mutants 87 was strong with period details including cross-hatching goodness and such. That was a good time to be collecting comics if you were a kid back then. But what intrigues me about the piece specifically though, was that someone asked him to specifically trace the cover because they liked his art the way it was back then. Apparently there were at least a dozen other people (bids) who also liked it and the auction realized over $500.00. Say what? Yes $510.00 for a Rob Liefeld cover recreation! I thought his art sucked. So my question is, did it get as much as it did due to the art or was it due to the significance of the issue/time period? Is this a good sign for Rob Liefeld original comic book art fans to get their cash ready?
Open the door already. Could there be a revitalization on his earlier style/art that put him on the comic book map? Maybe it was "only" a $500.00 auction, but I know that the interior art from X-Force 1 changed hands earlier this year and I can imagine the transaction was not cheap. Plus I'm pretty sure there will be a price jump on his art should any more of his stuff becomes available, especially pages/covers/art that hadn't been on the market previously. Like representative pieces. Nice ones. Those closet Liefeld fans are already wondering where is all his art and who is hording it all --New Mutants, X-Force, and didn't he do an issue (cover) of Uncanny X-Men long ago? I would think there is potential to make some money by setting the market price for his art. That seems inevitable.
In the meantime, if you have a representative Liefeld New Mutants cover or splash for sale/trade, shoot me an email. I might be interested. ;)
