Ladies Making Comics

darrylayo:

I disagree. Rob Liefeld can’t draw, but he is a niche product. In other words, Liefeld doesn’t deprive talented people of opportunities to work because the types of projects he is given are specifically tailored for him to do.

DC doesn’t look at Hawk and Dove and give it to Liefeld over (let’s say) Becky Cloonan. Rather, DC offers Hawk and Dove to Liefeld because it’s a low-priority title and they want him on the team.

Projects like Hawk and Dove or Deadpool Corps are given to Liefeld specifically for him to do, nobody else is being deprived of work on his account.

On the other hand, I’m more offended that Finch or Tony Daniel are given high-priority Batman titles, as those are not put out simply to showcase one person; in the case of “BATMAN,” good artists ARE deprived of work because Batman doesn’t live or die on one artist.

When Liefeld inevitably loses interest in Hawk and Dove, the book is unlikely to survive long thereafter because he is the only reason it is coming out. Batman, the opposite is true.

Hawk and Dove are currently members of Birds of Prey, which is to say, they are characters currently associated with and enjoyed by fans of Gail Simone.  They also had a prominent part to play in Blackest Night, and so have had some widespread exposure.  Right now their stock is not in Rob Liefeld’s niche.  Deadpool is in Rob Liefeld’s niche because he co-created him (though it was Nicieza’s take post-Liefeld that made him popular), Rob Liefeld’s association with Hawk and Dove comes from, as far as I can tell, a mini he drew in the late ’80s.  Not exactly something I would consider when trying to pick an artist for a new book about any characters— this isn’t DC Retroactive, after all, this is DCnU.

It may well be a low-priority book, but what I still can’t wrap my head around is why they want him on the team at all.  And while I understand that it wouldn’t necessarily go to a woman if not Liefeld—I do believe that any artist would be better than him, though—but that DC/Didio’s comments that they’re “committed to hiring the best” is a flimsy excuse, if they are actually “committed to giving Bob Harras’s old friends jobs”.