Rob Liefeld interview on Robert Kirkman’s Secret History of Comics: Part 2

The second part of our interview with legendary Image Comics co-founder Rob Liefeld on Robert Kirkman’s Secret History of Comics.

In part 2 of our interview with Rob Liefeld, we discuss the Image Comics hotel meeting scene and the 90s comic book speculator crash on Robert Kirkman’s Secret History of Comics! We didn’t want to spoil one of the best parts of the documentary prior to its first airing… But now we can talk about the infamous meeting! If you missed the epic season finale of Robert Kirkman’s Secret History of Comics, you can watch it at this AMC link. Check out part 1 of our interview at this link.

UndeadWalking.com – Nir Regev: 
There was a segment during ‘The Breakup’, where you took a hotel room right next door to where your Image Comics partners were having a meeting about you. Did it take everything not to burst through the door and quit right there when they were badmouthing you?


Rob Liefeld: 
We were laughing! Noooo. I don’t know if the show makes it clear but Matt Hawkins is with me. I watched the episode a while back. No, look man, I mean I was having a lot of fun. They want to give it more seriousness. But the publisher of Image Comics, Larry Marder, had a resignation letter from me for a year, and he kept begging me not to act on it.
 My time at that juncture, with those guys, I felt was done. And so, I just rented that room like I didn’t trust those bastards! You know, I was like, I’m going to do this. And I’m going to experience this first hand. I was just having fun with it.

But you understand, again, I swim in facts. The next day, I’ve got all these documents. I had pulled my Image Comics and solicited them through another company that I had formed called Maximum Press. I had been publishing a lot of licensed comics to Maximum Press, plus another comic I owned called Avengelyne. I had kind of had it, and was ready to do my own thing 100%. And in the August catalog, not for products coming out in August but products coming out in November, like last week the catalog that came in every comic store is for products in February.

You’re always looking at a four month window of ordering in advance. The catalog that arrived in August, in comic stores, showed my books were all coming out with Maximum Press in the month of November. Youngblood,Supreme, Glory, some of the staples of the early Image days and the launch book of Image, Youngblood.


That doesn’t just happen. To make it into the August catalog and you have to hand your material in July. You have to have planned it in June. This is not something you can just haphazardly pull together. And I’ve got all the ads from those catalogs. And so the August catalog had landed and I have my letter from Todd scolding me, “That I’d better bring them back or actions will be taken.
” I just didn’t care at that point! They needed to make it seem like a bigger deal. You know I was like, “Just let me leave without drama.” It was like I was told specifically, “It looks bad if you just walk away from us.” And so that created years of animosity but I knew at the same time that Jim Lee was planning the same thing.

It’s part of the hubris of that era. And look, we had big egos and we had big competitive ideals.
 We were all trying to conquer the world man, and recognized that there was only so much pie to go around. So, I love talking about it. I remember it as clear as day. That hotel story is funny, I’m surprised I pulled it off. But no, there was never anger, there was drama that I never truly understood why other than… The only disservice they ever do to me and they they try to get away with it is when they go, “Oh, it was when Jim [Lee] left. You know, we were really hurting.” No, no, no, no, no. It’s when Jim left after Rob left because Rob left when I was producing 22 books a month at that point. Paying into the office, forty thousand dollars a month.

I was told this by the guy, who was the publisher at the time. “Rob, we can’t survive if you pull your books. We’ll have to restructure because we’re financially set around you delivering this much product!” And so you [Image] were barely holding on. Because look, when I left Todd’s doing two books. Two books. Image doesn’t take a percentage of sales Image takes fees. And I think at the time, Image was probably receiving 65 titles a month and receiving the fees. Two thousand dollars times sixty-five, figure that out, that’s what they need to run.

I think they said they needed to like at least a base of 80,000 dollars to run the office. So when I left, it got them down to the base. When Jim left, “Oh crap! we’re running at a deficit.” And that’s just business. But we created Image to be able to do our own stuff.
 The great thing about the company today is that you can still bring your content and you can control it. And you can determine whether you have a matte finish on your trade paperback cover or whether you want to a glossy finish and you can control the weight of the paper. How many covers, if you want your book to be 32 pages of story and art, that’s your call. You know what I mean? The beauty of Image is it remains as we intended it. You own what you walk in the door with.

Thank God, I was able to walk away with my stuff, when I did. Thank you for bringing that up! it’s so funny. I think it’s a great story.

UndeadWalking.com – Nir Regev: It’s one of the best parts!

Rob Liefeld: I just couldn’t resist telling it. I’ve wanted to tell this story for so long! And said, hey I’m telling this story. I don’t see why something that happened 22 years ago could be an issue, it shouldn’t be. Hopefully, everyone will not be angry over it.

UndeadWalking.com – Nir Regev: When you mention the different covers, I remember there was that section about the speculator crash that Todd McFarlane discussed. How part of it was variants [different covers], that Image Comics was ‘as responsible as anyone else in the industry’. Since there’s still endless variant covers today, could that still be damaging to the current state of the industry?

Rob Liefeld: My answer is consistent with what I have believed my entire life. Brother, when Frank Miller was doing Daredevil and John Byrne was doing X-Men or George Pérez was doing the Titans, those were like the big books in my age, if they’d come with… Truth, be told I would have preferred that they come with three covers because that just meant more Titans, X-men, and Daredevil for me to consume.

I never looked at it like oh crap, how am I going to afford this? I definitely would have dropped a lesser title because there’s always books that you go, “Ehhhh, I’m just buying this because I’m bored.” Look, dirty little secret, I have a Facebook group that celebrates only Bronze era comics. So it’s like really we only talk about books that were published like 1972 to 1986 and firmly in the Bronze Age. And I do a daily feature, sometimes the other day like December 6 was such a busy day in history in Comics in the Bronze era.

I do a daily feature that shows you what was on sale [on that day]. And right now the first group of books that I’ll put up is from 1980 to 1982 and there were going to be about 7 Marvel books I put up that day. And so I do this every day. So I get to relive what I was thinking when I was making these purchases or if I bought them at all. And also, I’m not going to demean the books. There are always books down the ladder like I’m only buying this because I’m bored. I’m only buying this because my favorite comic didn’t come out. There are some weeks, you say this is a horrible week, none of the comics I like came out that week.

So like I bought these other four comics because you know, my favorite titles or my favorite creators weren’t available to me. So, I would’ve always preferred more of the stuff that I liked. And really that’s what they’re variants are more of the stuff that you liked. And you can either buy it or you can’t. Look, first of all, I think it’s a mistake to blame variants. Variants is not why the speculator market crashed. Horrible comics is why the speculator market crashed. No one wants to embrace that notion. There was a company and it does me a disservice because I forget their name. In 1993 they were fly-by-night. They existed for six months. They had hired some midlevel Marvel and DC talent but they had a giant set up in San Diego and I’m like, “Who are these guys? Where’d they come from?”

But they decided, ‘Hey, there’s money in the comic business we need to get into the comic business’. And their books looked like Image Comics but done by mid-range DC and Marvel talent and I’m like there’s no way this is going connect. And they didn’t because there was no passion there. You know was this desire to cash in on a craze and there were a lot of companies that upped their output. I can tell you that I had to find the right spot for me. 22 books was not the optimum spot for me, in terms of the talent that was available. I should have got comfortable putting out 14 books. They looked better because I realized, if you have five great comics and 15 not so great comics… You’re going to be defined by the 50 not great comics not the five great ones. It’s a numbers game.

But there were a lot of comic companies that were putting out really bad quality. I mean god awful. I mean, I remember, I don’t think think they’re around anymore, I think Harris Comics. Their claim to fame previously when I was growing up was a beautiful black and white Vampirella magazine. And they did some horror magazines, they figured well, comic books is the way to go. We have no name, Harris! Harris Comics. I thought almost all the Harris comics were half-baked and poorly conceived. They took up space on the shelves. They took up numbers in the orders and they’re just one of many that I’ll pick on. Are we guilty of maybe not creating the best content in mass? Yes. And so was everyone else in equal measure. And that is what killed.

If anything, I think variants help retailers because when there is a craze and a run an on those variants, it brings more money into them. I’ve seen it. There’s a reason that all the companies do it. You know, everyone wants to think they’re the pure company that’s not doing it. That’s not true. I mean I actually have a friend in DC, who when Marvel announced they were doing lenticulars [variant covers that have image shifts], and mind you this is a great capsule of what the comic business is all about. So, in the last year DC has done a bunch of lenticular covers. They did them on those Watchmen comics, I think they were called The Button. And my buddy at DC, obviously DC being in Burbank I know a lot more people in Southern California that work for DC personally.

And he was like, “Ugghhh, I can’t believe “Marvel is doing this 
lenticular stuff”. I’m like, “Oh yeah, because lenticular that’s so sanctimonious you would never want to do a lenticular cover, you know.” And he goes, “Oh well, they’re doing way more than we did!” And there is the ticket. They’re doing way more than we did. It’s always the other guy. He did five more than I did. You know what? Since then, I think like every issue of Superman has had a lenticular cover on. And I’m like okay, so clearly we are in the lenticular era of comics. They are the storm. Is everything going to have a lenticular cover on it? I see retailers complain and yet I see them filling up my shelves.

So dude, bad content kills this industry, crappy comics hurts. When the books are good it doesn’t matter if there’s variants on it. I’ve seen the industry burn itself down into horrible ordering of bad content. Large stores in Orange County went away and in around the year 2000 there wasn’t a single comic store within like a 15 mile radius of me. And then slowly I saw a couple of them, you know rise up. I’ll tell you what I told I was really concerned about these new stores and I said, “Please, don’t go overboard buying statues and toys.” Because the last stores that went out there they drowning in statues and toys that no one would buy. I’m like, “Why do you keep ordering statues and toys? Your comics sell all this merchandise is killing you!”

But the comics industry, the comics scene in Orange County is really healthy again. There’s like five great stores. And you know, they’ve all realized now, that they’ve all survived the wars of the 90s. And I think they would all tell you, I mean they’re all ordering variant comics. Bu you want to make a noise now you’re gonna have to prove yourself. Show that you’re good over 10 Comics.

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I’ll sell out those 10 comics if there’s demand for 15, I’ll order five more. Okay. “Oh man I need 15 of that too? Son, you know what, you showed me your books good and people want it.” I mean that’s how it always is. You gotta prove yourself in this industry. So that’s my really long winded answer. I don’t buy the variant thing [hurting the industry.] Bad content hurts everybody. Same with movies. You have a summer of bad movies, you’re gonna get bad box offices. So there you go.

Rob Liefeld’s Official Website

Go to Rob Liefeld’s official website RobLiefeldCreations.com to purchase autographed collectable items and more!