[00:00:01]
The video opens with an introduction focusing on Rob Liefeld, a celebrated but controversial figure in American comics and culture, particularly renowned for his influence in the 1990s comic book scene. The host, AKA Padraig, frames the discussion as a deep dive into Liefeld’s career, both his achievements and criticisms. Liefeld is described as a “7 million-dollar man at age 27”, highlighting his early commercial success. The program, “Extreme Mondays,” centers around Liefeld’s work and his Extreme Studios label, placing emphasis on the era’s creative explosion in comics.

[00:00:46]
The host shares a personal connection and lifelong admiration for Rob Liefeld’s work, referencing being present “at ground zero” when X-Force Summer 1 was released. Despite nostalgia, the host signals a more mature and critical analysis of Liefeld’s art and legacy, promising an honest look at both the “good and bad” aspects. The tone balances respect with thoughtful critique.

[00:01:26]
A significant moment occurs with the arrival of Rob Liefeld Sketchbook Volume One, an artifact the host has eagerly anticipated. While unboxing and previewing it, the host references prior audience discussions about Liefeld’s credit on Cable issue #4 and shows early sketches crafted on a longstanding drawing board from his youth. This sketchbook is positioned as a valuable resource for understanding Liefeld beyond just his published comics.

[00:02:02]
The sketchbook, originally purchased for very little, represents a form of reuniting with a nearly lost perspective on Liefeld’s creative process. The host reflects on how this work was largely overlooked at the time but reveals a vision of what could have been. The year 2004 is pivotal—the host contextualizes Liefeld’s career as waning in the mainstream comic world (“deader than disco”), but claims this era represents “Rob Liefeld 3.0”, a creative high point compared to later declines.

[00:03:37]
The discussion situates Liefeld’s sketchbook work as superior within the genre of 1990s comics art sketchbooks, compared to contemporaries like Dale Keown, Marc Silvestri, and Jim Lee (with a new Jim Lee sketchbook forthcoming on the channel). The host emphasizes a recurring problem: many commentators undervalue Liefeld due to widespread bad faith and biases targeting him. The sketchbook is used to challenge common negative assumptions about Liefeld’s artistry.

[00:05:04]
The video highlights an early sketch in the book showing a mother figure, resembling Abbey Chase from Danger Girl, holding a baby. The host stresses that drawing children is particularly difficult, something many critics overlook or misunderstand when denouncing Liefeld’s work. This insight is used to elevate the technical skill and challenge inherent in some of Liefeld’s art, especially when dealing with tricky subjects like children and animals.

[00:06:30]
Fashion and design are noted as intriguing aspects of Liefeld’s sketches. The host compares Liefeld’s drawings of high-top sneakers and collar designs to contemporary fashion trends, suggesting some elements were ahead of their time or innovative. A character named Shaft, originally intended as a promotional image for Youngblood Bloodsport at Arcade Comics, is analyzed for its distinctive visual elements, particularly the collar design, which impresses the host despite concerns about reusing artwork.

[00:08:22]
The importance of comprehensive character illustration is underscored. The host recalls how Liefeld’s clear and complete character renderings, rather than just stylized poses, helped him revise his own approach to character design for client and personal work. This focus on distinctly selling the character influences the host’s own portfolio development, highlighting Liefeld’s impact beyond his direct creations.

[00:10:19]
The video explores Liefeld’s studio workflow, noting his use of small thumbnail sketches that were photocopied and blown up to full size for inking by studio assistants like Marat Mychaels. Visual touches like green arrows and highlighted areas demonstrate Liefeld’s hands-on involvement with form and composition. The host admires the tactile, textured look of these sketches and acknowledges the industriousness of the Extreme Studios team.

[00:12:04]
Liefeld’s process is further detailed with close-ups of sketches from various projects, including Suprema (also spelled Supreme), which entered complicated narrative threads when Alan Moore became involved. The host uses this to illustrate how Liefeld’s interest and skill extended beyond just comics, tapping into a broader illustration and storytelling practice.

[00:13:23]
The sketchbook features Rejects, a project the host reveres as Liefeld’s potential masterpiece that unfortunately never reached its full impact. The sketches reveal heavy influence from Jack Kirby’s bold design style, including gigantic hands and dynamic readouts, capturing a unique blend of old-school superhero aesthetics combined with Liefeld’s trademark extremity. The host expresses disappointment that Rejects wasn’t fully realized, seeing it as a fabric where the Kirby legacy and Liefeld’s vision could merge powerfully.

[00:15:47]
A pitch in the sketchbook presents a sci-fi reinterpretation of Old Testament stories, showing Liefeld’s ambitions beyond superhero comics. Notably, some concepts were intended for prominent figures like Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith. Detailed page layouts demonstrate Liefeld’s use of mixed media including whiteout and layered comic pages to render dynamic, textured artworks with reflective leather and other tactile materials, signaling a mature, experimental approach.

[00:18:41]
The host points out that this period represented a nadir for Liefeld’s mainstream comic career, with Marvel distancing itself from some of his most iconic characters (Deadpool, Cable, X-Force) and Liefeld’s Maximum Press and Arcade Awesome Entertainment ventures fading. Despite this, Liefeld’s commitment to drawing and his illustrative mastery remained intact, suggesting that regardless of commercial setbacks, Liefeld’s identity as an artist was unshakeable.

[00:20:09]
A detailed look at the Samson and Delilah pitch highlights Liefeld’s narrative and figurative skills, directly influenced by Will Smith’s physical proportions during his Ali film performance. The page composition and inking reveal Liefeld’s nuanced approach to different levels of detail, focusing on faces and important features while economically detailing less critical areas like gauntlets and feet.

[00:22:09]
The host acknowledges Liefeld’s widely debated reputation—especially critiques regarding anatomy and deadlines—but urges a balanced perspective, showing how this work measures well compared to contemporaries in a competitive era. The host laments that much of this mature work was overlooked and discredited, obscuring Liefeld’s true potential and artistic talent.

[00:24:15]
Further examination of new character designs demonstrates Liefeld’s iterative creative process, utilizing photocopies and color overlays to develop detailed concepts. This process was influential on the host’s own earlier collaborative efforts, such as Infinity Ink with Robert Kirkman, although those projects had limited runs.

[00:25:39]
The sketchbook contains preliminary ideas for various projects including True Danger, a female spy drama with a child protagonist fitting into the early 2000s “bad girl” comic trend. Liefeld’s archival notes show collaboration with longtime studio artist Marat Mychaels, affirming continued teamwork despite broader industry challenges.

[00:26:17]
Other projects include collaboration with the music group N.W.A. and Eazy-E, showcasing a culturally cross-over element of Liefeld’s work that resonates with hip-hop aesthetics. Several character sketches like New Jack, Spike, Ricochet, and Captain show the range of Liefeld’s design repertoire. The host emphasizes that character design often evolves over time, reflecting both artistic growth and pacing considerations.

[00:28:18]
The host draws parallels to sci-fi properties such as Galaxy Girl, described as highly reminiscent of the 2015 film Jupiter Ascending—a story of a young woman with galactic importance struggling for survival. Liefeld claims a Paramount Pictures release for the property, but a noted typo (“Paramount ictures”) raises questions on the project’s status or polish. Still, it shows Liefeld’s grand ambitions beyond comics.

[00:29:33]
The host relates his own experiences with early inking experiments inspired by Liefeld’s work, which helped him gain professional illustration clients while balancing a parallel corporate career. A specific project, The Mark, intended for Paramount, is analyzed as Will Smith’s analogue to Green Lantern with possibly Lensman influences, indicating Liefeld’s cross-media vision during the early 2000s.

[00:31:27]
Despite Liefeld’s relative obscurity in the comic industry at this time, he produced significant work such as Rejects and collaborated with notable creators like Mark Millar. The host posits that had these series received full continuations, they might have elevated this phase of Liefeld’s career. The 2004-2007 period could have been a renaissance moment had it reached the public more fully.

[00:33:23]
The broader conclusion emphasizes how the sketchbook serves as a window into the missed creative trajectories of Rob Liefeld. Instead of merely holding onto a dwindling legacy of Deadpool, Liefeld showed consistent invention, character creation, and passion. The host calls for critics to contextualize their criticisms within the fuller scope of Liefeld’s career and potential.

[00:34:38]
The video closes with the host reaffirming the channel’s unique deep focus on ’90s comics, especially the “Extreme Mondays” series devoted to Rob Liefeld and Extreme Studios. This focus extends into complementary series on Marc Silvestri and Jim Lee, ensuring an ongoing, detailed exploration of the era’s most influential creators. The host invites viewers to engage with this specialized, highly detailed retrospective content.

Key Insights and Highlights

• Rob Liefeld’s career phases: Celebrated early success (“7 million-dollar man”) → creative peak (~2004 “Rob Liefeld 3.0”) → decline in mainstream → resilience in personal illustration.
• Sketchbook as rediscovery: The 2004 sketchbook reveals a mature artist experimenting with storytelling, character design, and innovative textures rarely seen in his mainstream work.
• Challenges of drawing children and animals: A significant technical skill often underestimated by critics.
• Influence of Jack Kirby: Heavy aesthetic borrowing merged with Liefeld’s extremity, especially notable in Rejects.
• Industry struggles: Loss of Marvel characters, unsuccessful studio ventures, yet continuous creative output.
• Multi-media ambitions: Pitches blending biblical stories, sci-fi, celebrity-inspired characters, and collaborations crossing into music and film.
• Critique of Liefeld’s legacy: The host urges reconsideration, balancing negative online reputation with evident talent and influence in a competitive era.
• Channel’s unique content focus: Dedicated to 1990s comic book culture with in-depth analysis of Liefeld, Silvestri, and Jim Lee.

Timeline Table of Key Career Highlights and Sketchbook Themes

Glossary of Key Terms

00:00:01
[music] [music] >> Rob became a 7 million-dollar man at age [music] 27. >> AKA Padraig, if it’s Monday, that means it’s extreme Monday, the celebration of Rob Liefeld and Extreme Studios everything 90s. Now, here’s the thing. Sometimes we go outside of the 90s, sometimes we go in the other direction, the way of the 80s, but the focus is Rob Liefeld, his career, his collaborators, and his overall contribution, not just to American comics, to the American culture. Now, here’s the kicker.

00:00:46
I loved, admired, appreciated Rob Liefeld’s career for my entire life. AKA Padraig, I was there at ground zero the day X-Force summer one dropped. I had to have all of the trading cards, but hey, hey, hey, we’re adults now. We can look at things. We can be critical. So, it’s Rob Liefeld, extreme Mondays, the good and the bad. ROCK AND ROLL. >> [music] >> GOOD MORNING, AKA PADRAIG. I I don’t do this often. I I never reveal my shooting order, but I’m so excited. Uh I just I just got

00:01:26
this in the mail, Rob Liefeld sketchbook volume one. Sometimes I do an unboxing to prove >> [laughter] >> that I got something in the mail. I don’t really care in this case. I was so anxious to lay my eyes on this. Uh I literally just shot this video where uh and thank you for the comments. We already got like a slew of comments about this Rob Liefeld credit from Cable issue four, and I kind of previewed a little bit of my my cardboard pizza pizza round drawings. Excuse me. So, what do we have here?

00:02:02
This is I’m so relieved to be reunited with this. I know that’s something a lot of you don’t associate with Rob Liefeld. Let me say this. The reason why I’m reuniting with this is I had a stack of these This has two covers. There’s also a Genies from Rejects cover. I had maybe like seven to eight of these that I bought for a dollar back in the day at the comic shop. No one No one bought this. We We dined it out. I picked them all up. And I remember going home to look at this. And believe it or not,

00:02:49
my first time flipping through this was at a was at this drawing table, like on this board. I’ve had this drawing board since I was 7 years old or since I was in the seventh grade. My apologies. Seventh grade. And just being blown away at what could be, like what was coming. Here’s the amazing thing. This time that this book came out, and let’s just get into the year, 2004. In 2004, Rob Liefeld was deader than disco. He was washed up. I believe at the time doing his his best work. He This is Rob Liefeld 3.0. We’re We’re

00:03:37
We’re We’re right now in Rob Liefeld 5.0 because post this era his detail, his ideas, his art direction, his forms, his shadowing, it degrades. It It less and less and less. What we profiled on this channel. So, I I thought I would like share and and maybe try and recreate a little bit of that experience when I first flipped through this. Cuz of all of these sketchbooks, and Dale Keown has one, and we already talked about the Marc Silvestri one, you can look that up on this channel. >> [cough]

00:04:23

Uh Jim Lee, we have a Jim Lee sketchbook coming. Uh that’s going to be on WildStorm Wednesday. Of all of the sketchbooks, aka padders, this Rob Liefeld one is the absolute best. And I know there’s a couple YouTubers there out there that they’ve done videos on this channel, and they have headlines or titles like God help us all, right? Because for some reason, it’s really hard for a lot individuals, commentators, follow creators to give credit to Rob Liefeld. I want [snorts] to show you

00:05:04
what I saw in this. And we open up with just on the inside cover, an idea that I had never seen before. This looks like Abbey Chase from Danger Girl with a baby. And yes, drawing babies, drawing children is one of the hardest things you can do. You can always spot a low-level commentator by them not saying that about drawing children. Low-level commentators and low low-energy individuals will pretend it’s easy to draw children. Drawing children and drawing animals are two of the most difficult things. I’ve

00:05:46
been to museums around the world. I spent hours, endless hours in museums. I go there and I see my friends. A lot of these the friends are are the works on the wall. Going through the history of all of art, you will find this problem time and time again. You will find difficulty in rendering an animal or a child. But we get this idea like this and I always liked the socks with the with the high tops. And in a way, Rob Liefeld has done a lifted, right? It’s a it’s a high heel high top that like I guess like in the last 2

00:06:30
years these died off. These were huge recently. Like the fashion world recently caught up to this. Uh you couldn’t buy the the high heel high tops. I don’t know if that’s what he was trying to do. He could be misdrawing something or not caring or just drawing something to get the idea. I don’t know. But in in my view, oh here we go. In my view, it it’s innovative. And then we get Shaft. This illustration of Shaft was originally intended to be used as a promo piece for Youngblood

00:07:05
Bloodsport. So he’s it’s Arcade Comics. He’s drawing Bloodsport. Bloodsport in a way, in my view and and Arcade Comics, it’s an SCAM. We have a video on that. But his work and we see so Now, I’m not crazy about just reus- reusing page work because these are from you know, a couple pages of Bloodsport. I’m not crazy about using the like your actual work for a sketchbook. Uh as a for a sketchbook, I want what’s on the left. And this design for Shaft, especially like the collar.

00:07:44
Like this blew me away. Where I’m just like, man, like he’s drew So, this is what clicked. Yeah, and even for my own site, AKA Pad always visit akapad.com /work or /draw /character. You know, I’ll put that link right here. Recently [snorts] on akapad.com, I’ve been building out my character design section. And a lot of the work I was doing at the time where I was picking up a lot of work through social media. Uh you know, I was in like a little bit of a network of producers. And

00:08:25
yeah, I was I would get asked every now and again to do some illustrations for character designs and character drawings. And I never really like turned the key until like you know, like that that key in in my head. It really never clicked until this illustration, which is when we draw our characters, if it’s for ourselves or for a client, draw the character in the most complete way possible, which is like we we get it here. Right? Now, you might say, well, one’s intended for promotion, one could be a pitch, one

00:09:01
could just be for fun. It doesn’t matter. Like to me, the quality of these three character shots are almost equal. You know, they’re not quite equal. But the idea of illustrating the character in a space where we can fully see it. We’re not drawing cool poses for the character. We’re strictly trying to sell the character, period. That revelation, AKA Pad, in 2004, when I saw that, it literally turned the key in my head. And if you go through all of my work, you will see you know, where I get

00:09:45
from doing sloppy character drawings to detailed character drawings. And then I leave it up to the publisher, the writer, the collaborator. You make your decision at that point. And it kind of releases me, too, because I feel like all the ideas are out. There’s no more back and forth, and we’re kind of done. But we get some, you know, we get some young blood. Uh pages here. We get some, you know, Rob Liefeld is notorious. He draws like super small thumbnails, and he blows them up on a photocopier,

00:10:19
uh and effectively like traces on back on to the board. This is where he got a little bit of his studio system, the guys like Marat Michaels, uh who’s who’s been with Rob since the beginning, almost. Uh they were they would be his little worker bees that would get this on to like a full-size page so that they they could ink it. But again, too, like I love the green arrows, a little bit of the green highlight here. So, some of like Rob Liefeld’s marker skills, uh just the the textile fashion um of the

00:10:54
reproductions here, like really again here, too. Just like they’re clipping just a lot of stuff, right? And you know, like we get all of these on the page, but I like how it’s like yellow. And And it’s because like now like they’re these could be super light, and it could be also be on tracing paper. It could be on uh you know, like maybe like a very thin uh sketch paper. And you know, like just you scan it in, and you try you you know, like within Photoshop, you do your best to get the

00:11:28
detail. To you know, and I think one of these I think this is Martin Luther King. Yeah, cuz that’s what they do in Bloodsport. Yeah, and then here we go. Where it’s just Rob Liefeld sketching and drawing. And it we all know exactly what what like what he’s working through with this. And this is why a lot of this led to my movement into like all my efforts into akapad.com because I have drawings like this. And I always said to myself, “Well, what if we just knew more? What if we knew the thought

00:12:04
process? What if we knew uh maybe the time of day and and how much time it took and what was going what else was going through your head and and did you have time to work on this?” You can only do that as an illustrator, as an artist with a website, with a dedicated blog. Like that’s the only vehicle to unlock that for the outlook of like your audience or your your fans. >> [snorts] >> But this Suprema aka Supreme, but right I forget what version this is in cuz once Alan Moore starts writing Supreme, it’s

00:12:40
multiple version threads that is really tough to keep track of after one point. And I don’t think it’s possible. Then we get Rejax. And again, aka paders, you have to remember at this time Rejax rocked my world. It was this like reunification I had with Rob Liefeld where it was like this is the Rob Liefeld that we were teased when we first saw the preview images of the Executioners, when we first saw Youngblood. The the level of like it’s hard to describe, but there’s like a level of cool.

00:13:23
There’s just things that make no sense. But we’re also looking at characters that can move cars and and they seem like they they’re of that world, that they’re they’re tough and invincible and and weathered and they’re just kind of like beat down. >> [snorts] >> And here for Skywarp, see these little like readouts? I mean like look at this Kirby built. But these like readouts where it’s like a little squiggle line, AK patterns, I was so obsessed with this

00:13:57
that I so put these in my illustrations to this day. But this is where like we kind of I in my view, like these look at the giant Kirby hands. Like this was Rob Liefeld and Kirby. Like they just coagulated. They formed together. And again, just talking about this, I’m just recalling how tragic it is that Rejects really never became Rob Liefeld’s opus. It seems like it has all of the groundwork to do exactly that. I mean I love I mean look again, just like the this is just all Kirby, but this is this

00:14:39
is what like we want from Kirby, right? Like we kind of want want want the Kirby design aesthetic in like detail and with texture and just with lines and roundness. I don’t know, right? It’s just it’s so hard to describe and pinpoint. But we would get these like right like some good character shots, but yeah, like we we right that became a cover, this became a promo piece. >> [snorts] >> So like we’re not like out of the woods yet. Here, look, sketch final. >> [laughter]

00:15:14

And they they know they they throw in that dude because I forget his name. But either way, it’s still right like the Rob Liefeld process we we’re this is like the first time ever we’re seeing it where in interviews he would talk about drawing small and blowing it up. And we never quite got it. I remember people uh you know when I used to buzz around comics they used to tell me that they would print this they would blow this up and they would they would tape it to a window. And then they would put the Bristol

00:15:47
board over that and then like draw it. But then here we go. This is where everything changes for Rob Liefeld has a pitch in here of him reimagining the stories of the Old Testament. He’s up updating them. He’s giving them a science fiction edge and and one of them here too seems to be a pitch to Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith. But in a very weird way would be if they made this movie we’re about to see it would be amazingly relevant in everything that we know about Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith or is it

00:16:29
just Jada Pinkett now? So [snorts] some of this that shook me was this like loose line work like see like these the the blue here but it just looks like it’s brush but it’s like bleeding into the paper and it’s it goes from darker to lighter and you just see how like quick it is. And then you know Rob Liefeld using whiteout here. And look look we see the page split. So these are two comic pages taped together. But then nowhere here and the whiteout and this like it’s hard to describe reflective leather texture

00:17:11
but just the work here on the pouches. Right look very mobius here with the headpiece. But the way Rob like like the that’s what I mean about tactile. Like there was a an application of the materials that I would never anticipate from Rob Liefeld that in my view and let’s turn the page. Here we go. That comes off as absolutely masterful. And I saw this and I just said to myself this guy like this is what he does that we don’t see. The comic stuff is just another thing for Liefeld to draw. Liefeld is an

00:17:59
artist. He’s an illustrator. He just wants to draw. And at this point like like I said it was like the release of this was it was almost like it was a little bit divine for me because in the comic book world he was really done. Marvel took away Deadpool they made Agent X they took away Cable they made a soldier they took away X-Force they made X-Static. And every and the scamminess and the weird distribution they had for Arcade Awesome Entertainment fizzling out. Uh Maximum Press which was supposed to

00:18:41
be his big pivot away from Image fizzles out. The like he I think he’s at an all-time low. And this is what we see from him. And it was like a little bit of this idea that the money meant nothing. You make money, you build a family. You you know you get on TV, you’re on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Right like VHS series, 501 commercials, you’re on with Dennis Miller, all of that means nothing. You just need to sit down and draw. And no one can take that away from you. Yes, I got all of that

00:19:25
from this. But look at like the the Noah with the floating pyramids and look the chariots. >> [cough] >> Excuse me. The again, like this as a part of a pitch was like this is this is how we illustrate our ideas. This is how we pitch something. Uh don’t do it half-assed. Like half-assed. If I can if I can say that. Right? Like go go into it. Like like be aggressive on what you’re illustrating. Cuz it’s your idea. They can’t take it away from you. So then we get this one. We get Samson

00:20:09
and Delilah. Delilah. Where Rob says here, this is I mean this is based on the Will Smith proportions he had for Ali. Watch Oscar bait movie, right? We we all were expecting uh Will Smith to get get that Oscar. And he says like you know like I drawing this I thought of Will Smith, I thought of Jada Pinkett Smith. And then we see like you know like this is it’s a illustrated comic page. So a little bit different than these other ones. These ones run vertical, this is horizontal. But this is like one page.

00:20:49
And we see like just the level of inking. And it’s him inking. Like how you know? You always know when it comes down to the feet and like some of the details that don’t matter. Like see here like the gauntlets. Where they’re just like quick quick little lines, but then yeah, like the eyes, the hair. Right? Like you focus on on on that stuff. But again, just like this is visionary level work. Now, the the color side of it, okay, but I mean, look at what he tries to do just just with the

00:21:22
coloring. See, like the top panel here, right? It’s like daytime, right? We have clouds, it’s blue. And then when he’s picking up the door, right? Like we have the moon and we have like stars. Right? Like I mean, this is visionary work. Like he’s he’s giving us like three scenes, two characters. He sells the idea. And then, oh my god, this one. He says he he’s not sure if Goliath here would stay camo, but holy David, Goliath, look at this thing. And you and like you’re telling me

00:22:09
that this guy can’t draw feet, you’re telling me he’s missed a deadline here here or there. Like all of that is valid. >> [laughter] >> But you can’t you you have to take everything I just said with this and then tell me if the guy measured against his contemporaries is not one of the best of a highly competitive era. So, there was like a little bit of you know, like a little bit like you know, a little somber. Where looking through this for like the first time, you like you kind of realize that

00:22:50
we’re losing something with the Rob Liefeld criticism. We’re losing something even at this point. Spinner rack. Rob Liefeld gave himself a bad reputation online that he has yet to live down to this day. People think I pick on him. I have to breach that. I have to speak on that because it’s not fair otherwise. But you kind of look at this and you just say, man, like if he like a couple things he he needed like a couple things to get behind Extreme Studios. And he not quite there, but he’s capable

00:23:33
of it. See, we see what Liefeld is capable of and for some reason, right? This we only see this in a sketchbook and AK Padders. I mean, look at the I mean, this texture like splatter, I don’t know. Like the hair here, I would say again, we see the white out. Look, he’s inking it with like a nice bold outline. Just again, like techniques that we are not familiar with Liefeld, but this is him working on things like on his own. New character idea, futuristic design. He’s just photocopying

00:24:15
one template, applying color, going back and forth. I love the boots here. But again, like your idea should be as formed as possible for people to see it. New character sketch. I mean, I like this red boy and blue one here. I mean, you got to give a lot. So, a lot of like this went into Infinity Infinity Ink that I was working on with Robert Kirkman where uh I thought that series like, you know, was going to have veins in some of this. And you know, we we never got far with it. What what was that? Two three issues?

00:24:59

I think that was like a 12 Was that an eight-issue Force mini-series or 12-issue? So, here we go. We get to True Danger here that we saw on the inside cover. True Danger sounds a lot like Mr. & Mrs. Smith. She’s a spy. The industry’s not letting her go. Right. Uh she has a kid and now she’s caught up with a bunch of stuff. And she’s got to fight her way through it, save the kid, and yeah, get on with her life. Sounds like a It sounds a little formulaic, but uh of the time though. Like we were kind

00:25:39
of still in the bad girl era, too, even at 2004. Like girls in comics could sell. They they could sell. Here he says they they have this cataloged or inventory. They have like all the work done with Marat Mychaels, who’s right here. Yeah, he goes, “Me and Marat, we’re done this. Uh you know, hopefully you get it. Expect the the release in the near future.” >> [cough] >> And the book is called A True Danger. So, I mean, it’s it’s a clear nod to Danger Girl. And I just think again,

00:26:17
there’s so much bad faith around Rob Liefeld at this time. I will say if it came out, uh yeah, I think people would just compare it to Danger Girl and it would just like hurt his reputation a little bit more. Uh yes, there is such a thing as bad press. Various projects. This is the first time that we saw his Eazy-E N.W.A. collab. And yeah, I believe these were print I forget where they were printed, but they were just maybe like small, but like now like good good scans of these. We can Yeah, we can see it. New Jack,

00:26:51
Spike, Ricochet, Captain. And at one time, like see this is I think a little bit of Rob Liefeld’s character design and character work should echo your own evolution. See at one time, like just draw draw the idea out so you know what to do on the comic book page. But then you become a better artist, you become a better illustrator. And what the time that it takes you to do this, you’re actually doing something like Skywarp here. Like this is, believe it or not, probably the same amount of

00:27:26
time. Maybe a little bit more, right? But you kind of you know, like you put the time into it and this is the evolution. >> [snorts] >> So that was cool. And then we get look, NWG, Nuns With Guns. This is another book that he claims is done. So expect that. Galaxy Girl. Which sounds eerily similar to uh what’s it, Jupiter’s uh Jupiter Ascending? >> [sighs] >> This movie eerily sounds similar 2015, Jupiter Ascending. Where we have a girl on Earth. She has a uh like a galactic legacy.

00:28:18
They send people to Earth to kill her, someone to save her, at the end she becomes the the Galaxy Girl or like the princess of the universe. Eerily similar similar to Jupiter Ascending. Rob Liefeld claims this is coming soon to look, Paramount Pictures. And it’s we look, but we have a type typo. It’s Paramount ictures right there. Of course now it’s still Rob Liefeld. The girl’s name is Tara. Look, see? They even say collect I mean, literally the plot of Jupiter Ascending. That movie

00:28:51
comes out in 2015, by the way. And this is the shot of Terror when she becomes the princess. Rob says she gets pink hair. And then this is So, this is what happens with me on this. I I believe I have it on aka a pad.com. So, this was one of my first attempts to print something out in blue line and ink it. And I used this as an inking sample, and everyone I knew in comics at the time got the before and after of this. And it got me a good chunk of work. Uh I was almost I I was like phasing out of the

00:29:33
comic shop at the time. Uh I was working with this other guy, a public adjuster. Uh yeah, like a co- corporate-level job. Uh and I was basically working for the public adjuster and then doing like decently paid illustration comic book work based on my inks on this. And what is this? This is The Mark in development at Paramount Pictures with Will Smith. So, this is uh a little bit So, we hear about like Tom Cruise meeting up with uh you know, through Paramount, but Tom Cruise meets Rob Liefeld called Rob

00:30:15
Liefeld draws uh Ethan Hunt in the cover of the Paramount Comics Marvel Comics Mission Impossible. We we profiled that on this channel. Tom Cruise writes a thank you letter right, you know, for Rob Liefeld for that cover for the Mission Impossible comic book. And then we heard about The Mark. And The Mark was, in a way, like Will Liefeld version of the Green Lantern, but it’s to me it’s maybe a little bit more of Lensman. If you guys are familiar with Lensman, also profiled on this channel.

00:30:51
But that this is what they were doing, aka Padders. So you go through this and look, it has a blank cover for Rob Liefeld sketches, which you go through this and you say like this guy is relatively out of comics at the time. And he has his opus here. He has his greatest work ever, Rejects, right? >> [snorts] >> And you’re like, okay, he’s doing Rejects and he’s doing Mark Millar with Youngblood and and Bloodsport. And you’re like, all right, like in in the comic book world

00:31:27
he’s doing his best work. One of his best collaborations. I do feel like uh Youngblood Bloodsport would have been like crazy to read. If you got that thing for six or eight months straight, however long it was, that Bloodsport just seemed nuts. And you know, like two different of the Youngblood that we like, but I think people would have read it and I think it would have carried on. With all of that you’re almost just like once he’s done this you know, maybe like at the height of his illustration and then he would

00:32:05
you know, like do something with this Testament stuff, right? Which is uh Ridley Ink. There’s right here. Ripley. See, Testament. So I’m not familiar with Ripley Ink. That could be another like Liefeld company, not 100%. Maybe he’s like with a producer on that and they’re they’re trying to push something through. Common, very common. Right, he’s still giving us new characters. We have True Danger. We have Galaxy Girl. We have Nuns with Guns. And And these are all things we’ve seen before.

00:32:41
And then he’s got Will Smith and The Mark. And you just want to say this guy is what he came from, what he’s doing with popularity and what he’s doing with just the ability to draw and people to draw things for within the business side, within the consumer side. The possibilities of 2000 Right? 2005, 2006, 2007. Right? You would just be like this sketchbook. I thought was going to become this like ground zero where everyone would flock to this sketchbook and see all of these future properties

00:33:23
come to fruition and say this is where he showed us everything for the first time. This is where it all started. And this was the true career path of Rob Liefeld. Meaning he burned out through comics, did a lot of good stuff, lot of bad stuff, fought everyone online. But this was his path and his path was And then to get none of this, aka Patters, and to and get him desperately holding on to a Deadpool legacy. Uh yeah. A K So when when I critique Rob Liefeld, I want you guys to know where a lot of

00:34:01
it is coming from. But still, one of the most influential works I’ve ever encountered. And I feel like I found this or it found me at the at the right time. Because yeah, we were making good money uh drawing, gaining clients, uh running a little bit of a of a makeshift studio in South Jersey. Yeah, really good stuff. I I’m so happy to be reunited with this. All right, aka Patters. I love you guys. Get yourself some coffee. Cheers. Rock and roll. We’re going cut right in there, aka Patters, for a quick reminder.

00:34:38
If you love ’90s comics, you have found the channel for that. No other comic book channel in the history of YouTube, in the history of all of the internet, goes into ’90s comics as deep as this. And on Mondays, we focus on Rob Liefeld Extreme Studios, Extreme Mondays. Tuesday, Marc Silvestri and everything that comes with him, including Michael Turner, Top Cow Tuesday. And Jim Lee and his dominance and and his rise into the DC executive suite. Jim Lee and WildStorm Wednesday. Monday, Tuesday,

00:35:11
and Wednesday, nothing but that ’90s content drip for all of you. Now, back to the video. >> [music] [music]

PETER A DELUCA AKAPD

AKAPAD is a versatile thinker known across Philadelphia, Europe, and even in the vast Multiverse as The Electic One. By day, he excels as an IT Mastermind, assisting individuals, both big and small, with a wide range of simple and complex solutions. In contrast, he is also a talented illustrator, a passionate comic book enthusiast, a creative content creator, and an active live streamer. Additionally, his podcast, “AKAPAD The Film Buff Podcast,” boasts an impressive catalog of over 500 episodes available on nearly every major platform.