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[00:05] Welcome to the Rob Liefeld Show, featuring Robservations. I bring five decades' experience in the world of comic books and entertainment. I am not some bystander watching the industry go by. I am a full-blown participant having contributed lasting, memorable works to the world of comic books that have informed the business and the art of this brilliant medium. If it's happening in streaming, in movies, in comic books, in games, we are talking about it. We're discussing it right here. Hey, everybody, and welcome to another edition of the Rob Liefeld Show. I am your host, Rob Liefeld, featuring Robservations. We are all over the place wherever you are listening to us, whatever platform, be it Apple, Spotify, Podbean, iHeartRadio, or our YouTube channel. We are so thrilled that you are joining us today. You guys, I just got to say thank you, as always, for being such incredible advocates for the show and being such tremendous support to the show. I love it. I love hanging with you guys. I love talking with you guys. Just want to take you all the way back again to the origins of the show. We are getting around to the 6-year anniversary. It's 500 and some shows. I mean, you got to understand, I never thought I would make it to 100 shows. This show is always a bit of a juggle for me. I don't mind telling you. It's a little bit of a struggle. Because it's not my job, because it's not something that I get compensated to do, I always am thinking of 100 reasons not to do it and not to roll up and not to talk. But it's because of you and the way that you guys reach out and the way that you have interacted with me since day one, since the beginning of the show and the encounters. And shortly when the pandemic was starting to lift, about six months after the show started, I got out and I went on the road and I've talked to you guys about this before. So forgive me. And I do have to mention, the show is gaining a tremendous amount of new fans from every single platform. We are just showing tremendous growth. So I realized that many times the viewers that have joined the show, maybe in the last few months or weeks are brand new. And so some of this, as they say, if you haven't heard it before, it's new to you. And for long time listeners, I know we're treading familiar ground, but when I first got out after six months of doing the show, when we started in May, June 2020 during the pandemic, and I would start to go to stores and sign the comics that I had out, I was just blown away by the length to which you guys wanted to engage with me about the show and talk about the history of the show. The show's starting off point was wandering into the comic book world with little Robby Liefeld at seven years old, and from the barbershop to the newsstand, and I haven't actually brought it up in a while, but the four corners, the crosswalk, the intersection of Magnolia and Broadway, and twice a year now, I drive back there. It's about a 35-minute drive, not easily accessible via freeway. I like taking all the side streets because I get to drive past the two homes that I grew up in. And along the way, there's going to be, there's a place where I go, I got comic books there. I got comic books there. How many of you guys literally identify, or how many of you guys use where you got comics as important checkpoints in your career? Well, I do. And so I'll be like, well, that used to be a stop and go out here in Southern California. Stop and goes were knockoffs of 7-Eleven, as was a chain called U-Totem. Okay. And U-Totem and in between U-Totem and Stop and Go and 7-Elevens. There's probably 15 of them in the Anaheim, Fullerton, Boynton Park, Huntington Beach, Garden Grove area that I would encounter frequent, especially during the summers when we would go to trips to the beach. My mom would drive me and my friends to the beach. My mom loved the beach. She wanted to go and we didn't have a pool. So again, beach was the great escape. And so we would pile in the car, but there was always a stop and go or a 7-Eleven that she would stop right before we got to the beach about five blocks from the actual sand from that final stretch so we can get snacks and sodas. And if you, I mean, I was grabbing comic books and I know all of the comics that I got at that Huntington Beach, the 7-Eleven. Avengers Annual 7, the Jim Starlin, the Thanos. I've talked about that. That was the magic. The issue where Aqualad, the fate of Aqual, not the fate of Aqualad, the fate of Arthur Curry's son and what happens at the hands of Black Manta. I got that. I've always thought like I got an aquatic comic book about the Sea King, right near the beach, right near the 7-11 at the beach. But I got to use a Marvel team up. I got X-Men, Avengers, just rich memories throughout. And that journey from 1974 through breaking into comics and becoming a professional, as I have done for the last 41 years, I was trying to think the other day, like, so I was born, I'm born. I was born into comics. I was born into comics and joined as a professional during Ronald Reagan's second term, his presidency. The Cosby Show, Family Ties, these were the big shows in 86, 87. So I mean, I literally, I always talk to you guys about all the editor-in-chiefs I've been doing. It feels like there's a new regime at Marvel that is going to get turned over again, that I'll be able to say, hey, I outlived them too. Because it's just funny because they come in, they move the furniture around, they make all their incredible proclamations, and talent like ourselves go, okay, next, who's filling that chair next? I was a teenager, I was 18 years old. And so I have been observing comic books, comic book stores, the growth of the market. So I took you on that journey in year one. So to be here today is crazy. But here's the focus. Literally, when I'm talking about the interaction with you guys, and you meeting me and telling me about that first six months, that first year of my show, as I walked through seven, eight, nine, ten, teenage years of comic books, then breaking in. The conversations that we have had about the show and the history of comic books, because that's what the comic books that the show exists for is to talk of, celebrate the history of the comics, the creators, the all-important comic creators, who I favor above even my favorite directors. I would give anything to have attended one more session, one more dinner, be in the Kirby's House one more time, hang out with Stan Lee one more time, have another dinner with Neil Adams, get more of his knowledge, ask him more about a certain period of time in his career that I didn't cover in our other conversations. I view and hold the comic book creative community above all else, especially those who were bold and brave and broke new ground and stood up for creators. And so those are my passions and we've shared them here. Well, like you, I attended conventions, I attended signings and I would talk to my favorite artists and writers and go to their panels. But I'm going to tell you, the best thing about the panels, when I attended comic book panels was the questions. There were a couple of writers, I'm not going to say who they are, but good God, they droned on and on and on. If you've ever been to one of my panels and you understand why I stand and maybe even walk out among the crowd, it's to get the energy going because there's nothing, it didn't stop me from buying their comic books, but some of my favorite talents, I'd go and they just drone on and on. You know what? I had questions. When are we going to open up the questions? When they go, oh, we have five minutes of it, it's questions. You just go, I mean, that's not enough. I'm not going to learn enough. We all have questions and you have questions. And today is the mailbag episode. And just like a panel where I open it up to questions for like the last 40 minutes, I try and do a 15, 20 minute, you know, precursor. And then let's go to questions. Let's go. Today is our annual mailbag. And the mailbags are always great. You guys sent your questions in to me from Instagram, from Facebook, from X. I may have some from Threads. I haven't checked yet. But we're going to get right into it. Because your questions are probably things that wouldn't always be top of mind for me. I have not done any previews. So please have patience as I'm going to encounter, choose, select these questions live. Okay. Let's start off. Now, I did check. Obviously, I wouldn't do the show if I didn't know that I had questions, if I didn't know that I was going to have a fair amount of great interaction from you guys. And I just want to thank you. For, for, for, for giving me, for, for, for, for, for, for, for giving me, you just never know what, what, what is waiting for you. I'm going to go first to the, the, the account and right on, right on, right on, right on. Uh, okay, we're going to start here. This is a great place to start. Rubber Jiggler from Rubber Jiggler. You guys, I don't make up the handles. You do. From Rubber Jiggler, he asked, what are your top five DC and Marvel superhero obscure heroes and villains? What are your top five DC and Marvel obscure superheroes and villains? This is easy. I can actually do DC quicker because they come top of mind. So during that barbershop era, one of the books that I was, because, you know, I was able to trade and get Fantastic Four 147, which which featured Prince Namor, Submariner, flying out of the water, battling the thing, a great comic, Rich Buckler. I don't care if he's got swipes from Jack Kirby. He was, you know, he understood the assignment. I didn't know anything about Jack Kirby at the time. I just knew that this stuff looked cool. And if he was siphoning from the great, great. It just thrilled me at seven years old. Prince Namor is going to be one of my, you're going to say, but he's not really obscure. I kind of feel like he still is. I'll get to him. But at that same time, because I would go to that barbershop for years with my dad, because it's where he got his haircuts. So I'd go in, guys, before we started on the haircut, I got a million cowlicks, OK? I got a million cowlicks. I got like, you know, the guys who actually used to cut my hair like, look at all different cowlicks. If you don't understand cowlicks, they determine which way your hair goes, which way it goes, even when you cannot. And so I stopped fighting it. So I've read all your crazy comments about my hair. I just want to let you know. I'm just so thankful I have hair, OK? Like you can guess on me till the cows come home. It's not going to be anything new. I'm just, who knew? When I was a kid, I'd be like, oh, cool. I just, you know, just having hair is fun. So I'm sorry it's not styled in the coolest, best way possible, such as life moves on. The barber shop, he had some obscure DC Comics, one of which was called OMAC. He had OMAC number one. OMAC, in case you don't know, stands for One Man Army Corps. And the minute I read that, I had a fan for life. He has a mohawk, blue-orange costume. OMAC number one is a head. I mean, it's trippy, headcase comic book. It is Jack at his most lunatic sci-fi. Jack Kirby wrote, drew it. It's fantastic. So this is the collected OMAC. And telling you about it isn't as good as showing you about it, right? But you're a kid. I'm going to say, at this point, I'm eight years old. This is the cover to OMAC number one, if you're not familiar. So there's the…that's not quite a briefcase, but that's like a container with body parts because they call them the body shop. And there you go. That's your page number one of OMAC. And as a kid, it felt a little dangerous. Felt a little dangerous to me. Felt like…is that…you know, is my Baptist minister dad going to even… you know, I hope he doesn't see this because he may be a little strict, a little stringent. Okay, then you get the double page when you see your warrior. And immediately, I love OMAC. I love how he looks. I love the high collar. I love the gloves. I love the boots. I think you've seen OMAC influences in my work. Buddy Blank…let me…I'm just going to tell you right now. This stuff looks rad. OMAC, my number one obscure character. I have four of five. I mean, just look at him. It's just him casually chatting it up. It's just so engaging to me. I wish I could have done OMAC. I tried to get OMAC. I asked for OMAC to do an OMAC series in 1998, and DC Comics said no and said, Rob, we wouldn't let Alan Moore do an OMAC comic. They were trying to make me feel better, but I'm like, you should have let me do OMAC. You should still let me do OMAC. You should give me that sweet, roll out the red carpet, sign me to OMAC, and never look back. That is my, except I would not sign. Here's why I wouldn't do it, because I'm now answering an offer that hasn't been made to me. So let's just continue the fantasy. I wouldn't do it unless I had complete control over the marketing, the budgets, the variance, everything. I'm just not interested in not being in 100 percent control. When you go and you get my latest and greatest from the column bookstore, hopefully this week, the new issue of Young Bud that I'm holding up right here. These books, now this has a signature on it. This has my invincible, I did an invincible Liefeld chisel right there. I have total control of these books. Everything about them are created and manipulated and produced with my guidance from head to toe, top to bottom. The letters, the colors, I write it, I pencil and ink it, I basically edit it. So, Omak is an obsession for me and he would be number one. Number two would be Comandi. Maybe you go, that's not obscure. To most people, again, you can't grab a guy off the street. You got a guy, if I go to the gas station on the corner, if I pull out of my neighborhood and get out to the main street and drive up two blocks and go to the gas station and I grab people at the gas station and go, you know who Spider-Man is? They go, yeah. You know who Superman is? Yeah. They know Deadpool, they know Wolverine, okay. They don't know who Omak is and they certainly don't know who Comandi is. Comandi is number two on my DC list. May all be, no it's not. It's mostly, it's mostly Kirby stuff. It's, it's Omak, it's Comandi. His story is fantastic. He's the longest running, most successful series that Jack Kirby had when he was at DC Comics. If you have not read Omak, just go. I mean, I'm sorry, Comandi. My omnibus is over here. It's too far to me for me to reach. But Comandi, so simple, so easy and you should just dive right in. If you read one issue, you're reading 10, period. I think the best thing that Jack wrote and Jack Kirby was just a phenomenon. And so Omak 1, Comandi 2, number 3, and you guys actually put a drawing I did of him in 2017. Let's go with Steve Ditko, another one of the Marvel greats. So you got all the Marvel guys who did Cap, Avengers, X-Men, Iron Man. You got these guys who birthed the Marvel Universe, Steve Ditko, Spider-Man, who is essential to the creation of Spider-Man. Shade the Changing Man, another 70s super spectacular, rad looking dude. Shade the Changing Man. I know they did like a vertigo-y shade. That wasn't my speed. I like the Ditko shade. I love this kind of aura that he would create around himself. Guys, shade the Changing Man. The fact that they are both nearby, I got this question. I want to grab the Omak. My shade is right next to these, because I've got all these really well-done on DC's part, the trade dress and the spine, and how identifiable they can be. Shade the Changing Man is number three. Also, you've got to realize, I had great success taking two really obscure, almost radioactive characters that no one had touched for almost 20 years and turning them into fan favorites with Hawke and Dove. That's how I started my career, identifying that I could contribute a significant portion of success that would become Hawke and Dove because I knew exactly what the female Dove needed to look like and move like, and I had to fight it, and even what you got was the most basic, toned down version of how I wanted her to look. But the editor, as I've shared with you on these, the genius, thank God he's out of comics. He was a complete and utter moron, made all the wrong calls. The only big success that he rallied around was one that was kind of forced upon him, and the creators around him created the success that we all know as Death of Superman. But I had to work with this idiot on Hawk and Dove, and he was abusive, cruel, just complete, and several of my friends worked for him. And we all have jobs of this tremendous bully, because that's what we call him. And he was like, no, there should be no hair coming out of Dove. She shouldn't have female hair. You know, she should have the same costume that the male Dove had. And I'm like, what? Like, then that's the male Dove with breasts. That's all. That's all it is. And I had tons of movement that I had intended with the hair. Carl Kiesel, no less, at the back, the author, along with his wife at the time, Barbara, of this series, because I wanted to do it based on a two-page pitch that they had written up. I envisioned the villain in my head very clearly, who I designed, Kestrel, and I very much knew how Dove should look. He writes in the back of Hawk and Dove the initial trade paperback. He goes, Rob was right. Because I think they were so intimidated by the editor, they were just going to give in to him, and I'm like, no, no, no, we have to have this. The Dove that you see is the concession. They didn't want any female hair at all, they being the editorial group, but the long ponytail, the blonde hair, I just had to fight for that. So I've had a great success with taking, I think, little obscure characters and blowing them up. They are far more interesting to me. I'm actually going to put in, I know this may be a cheat, but there are so many legion of superhero characters that people don't know. Like Polar Boy, like Timber Wolf, like Block, like Cosmic Boy. I'm going to put them as my number four on this list, the legion of superheroes. And then finally, because I think people are very unaware of DC's Challengers of the Unknown. So I got four Kirby's and a Ditko. No, three Kirby's and a Ditko in that answer. Challengers of the Unknown, Nomad can come in, you're all Ditko, or all Jack Kirby. Steve Ditko is Shade. And then the creators of Legion take a bow, because that was great. Again, I didn't research this. For Marvel, Omega the Unknown, in no particular order, Omega the Unknown came out in the 70s, part of a new launch of series. I would love to take a crack at Omega the Unknown. I would love to take a crack and did an entire 100 pages. I drew 100 pages that you've never seen of a book called Kill Raven, who is semi-adjacent to Commandy, a little bit like Marvel's Commandy, especially in regards to our approach. And that's probably never getting released. In the last year, Marvel has inquired about me coming back and finishing it twice. I've said no twice. They said no for, let me see, 20 years. They said no for 20 years. So now I feel like I'm not really interested, and I have no confidence that this regime would even know how to launch it and milk it. So Omega, the unknown character called Kill Raven. I'm going to go to Two Gun Kid. He was my favorite of the Avengers Cowboys characters. Two Gun Kid is one that I really dig. I'm going to go with, they're not obscure, so I guess to me they're obscure because they don't carry their own titles. Prince Namor doesn't have a current title right now because I don't think they've ever understood how to make a long-term successful Prince Namor Submariner. So is he my number three or my number four? So Submariner, Omega the Unknown, Kill Raven, Two Gun Kid. Okay, I'm almost out of this. And then, you know what I love? The Champions. I did an entire podcast, I think three years ago, because I'm like this, this canceled series was my favorite series when it was coming out in 1977. No, from 1975 to 1977. Hercules, Ghost Rider, Angel, Iceman, Black Widow were on a team together. And I loved it. And they were my favorite team. I preferred them to the Avengers. I preferred them to the Defenders. I preferred them to the Fantastic Four. The cover by Gil Kane with the Champions just blew my mind. So that's my answer. Thank you for that. Now, you know, you put me to the test. So that incredible question came to us from the, again, rubber jiggler. Rubber jiggler, thank you for that. Hope you enjoy that. Thank you. That was so much fun. Now, for our next, I got to move these trade paperbacks over here. So for our next, I'm going to go to our ex-accounts. Our ex-accounts were sending us questions. So let me go to those. And every single take that you're ever going to hear that I'm going to give you is one that I would defend, especially sports takes. But okay, so here we have some questions. I've pulled up X and if you could cast one actor as one of your Extreme Universe characters, who would it be and why? That's from Cool Comic Art. He gave that to me on X. Cool Comic Art. Man, you know what? If they, right now, in the interest of being of a, I believe that Austin Butler, who is waiting for a giant breakout role. And the reason it would be great for, look what Hawkeye did for Jeremy Renner. I think Shaft in Youngblood is a much more action oriented character. And I love Austin Butler. I think Austin Butler, especially with the electronic bow that works on magnetic reverse polarization with his arrows. There's no bow. We had to, every time people draw Shaft and put strings on them, we have to erase the strings. We've pretty much covered in the comic book that his arrows are based on reverse polarity. You know, how the magnets have the energy. And so it's super science. It's not explainable science. It's the same thing about unstable molecules. When's the last time you put on a shirt with unstable molecules? Like they said in Reed Richards. And you know what? The minute I read it, I understood it. Unstable molecules. Got it done. I'm there. I understand. Same with Shaft's Bow. Austin Butler as Shaft leading Youngblood. And you know what? As long as I'm doing Youngblood, I just want to get his name right. The actor who I would cast as Chappell, if you follow me on social media, you've heard me say this since the original Black Panther. And I would have Winston Duke as Chappell. So there you go. You got Austin Butler as Shaff for Youngblood, and Winston Duke as Chappell. And I think because Youngblood isn't like, what I tell people is Youngblood is a kind of a high-tech Delta Force or a super SWAT. They are not like the Avengers, but most people can't really get over the fact that the Marvel and the DC depictions, the heroes are all that they see. And the way you would see it, it's much more tech-heavy. I'd even go so far as to say, Youngblood is closer to what I would see as GI. Joe on screen than the Avengers. But so there you go. Austin Butler and Winston Duke would make my one-two punch of Shaft and of Chappell. I thank you for that. That was a great question. Let me get another question while we're over here on X. Eric Munez says, besides Youngblood and your comic book about bats, it's called the Acrobats, Advanced Chemical Research Operative Bats. Okay. Right here. Here's some depictions. The collector's version of this is only available online. Here's what he's talking about, the Acrobats. And here is the Acrobats. And the Acrobats are going to have their own number one comic, but this is the direct market edition of the Acrobats. And this is the one that you can only get off me from the Internet. So besides the Acrobats and Youngblood, so we have a brand new Evangeline series that I have seen all of issue one, part of issue two, colored, that I haven't shared with you. I've kept my lid on it. You know about Bad Rock with myself and Seth the Moose. And by the end of issue two, we are going to wild, crazy places that you'll understand by issue three. I love working with Seth the Moose. He's so ridiculously gifted. He's a fantastic storyteller. This guy understands. I would let him do and I've actually asked him to do some layouts for me. For me, that's the highest level of compliments. I have been fortunate to lay out for all manner of different artists, among them, Eric Larson, I'm sorry, among them, Mike Mignola. I have laid out for all the image guys. I have done issues for Todd. I have done layouts for Art to Bear. I have done issues. I have done all of Image United number one with Mark and Todd and me and Valentino Wills. That was all laid out by me. I love providing layouts and doing storytelling and blocking out panels and pacing a book and Seth is so damn good at it. He's so good. And I've only had a few people in my life where I've been like, lay out for me and he's so good. So Bad Rock is coming up, Evangeline, and right now we are cooking up Blood Brothers 2. Blood Brothers was a big event in the 90s. It pitted Bloodstrike, who is headed by Cabot Stone against his brother John Battlestone of the Brigade Corps. They have a long Cain and Abel relationship that we have depicted since the beginning of the Brigade and Bloodstrike comic book. So Blood Brothers 2, Marat Michaels has been drawing that. I've seen the first issue. It again is spectacular. I'm not sharing it with you because I'm more content to sit on this stuff. Is there more than that that I can name? So you answer a question, and I've given you Evangeline, Badrock, Blood Brothers. Evangeline, Badrock, Blood Brothers, and what did I brain fart on? But I thought I gave you, I think, oh, Badrock, Blood Brothers, Evangeline, yeah, Acrobats, Youngblood, and some more secret stuff that I'm going to be showing to you down the way. But Evangeline looks really good. I can't wait to share it with you guys. So thank you for that, Eric. Mooniz, thank you for that question. Okay, here we go. Here's where we got some questions. This was, will comic book inking continue to give up space to colorist, or can it become more valued again? By PrazerComFormatNHO. Whoa, I'm just going to call you Prazer, okay? Inking is a lost form because so much of it, and we're back to having certain books printed from pencils. I did that. I did that for about 10 years. Why did I leave doing pencils? Actually tightening up the pencils and making them so tight as to be scanned into the computer and then be leveled out as line art, so it was dark and clean, was taking more time than inking. And in terms of creating a comic book, you have to gear switch your brain. If I have to meet a monthly deadline, as I have on Youngblood, and it's not always fair to say, the Youngblood number one, giant size Youngblood, Youngblood number two, all of these books were 30 to 28 pages. Youngblood number three, I mean, 27 pages. The average monthly Marvel comic book is 20 pages a month. And I think that they base it on cost, on cost analysis and what they wanted to pay per book. And that helped them create a budget for writers, pencilers, inkers, 20 pages being the maximum. If I wanted to go beyond 20 pages, I really had to throw a fit. And I stopped trying. I just didn't have the energy. Because coming up, myself, Todd, Jim, the books that you got from us were 22 pages. So Marvel is actually giving you two less pages than they were in the 90s. And that's a fact. Deadpool team up, books like it. I was told, do not go beyond 20 pages. I think the first issue is 21, because I had to really, again, throw myself on the altar to get them to just let me get this one extra page. When you are producing that many pages, whether it's in the 20 or the 27 or 30, the inking, the process of inking, bringing on inkers helps with the production of the book, and you have to think of it as just, you are feeding the product line, you are all about the production mentality, not the refinement of the original art. I use a lot of digital inkers, which means that the pages that they ink, five, six pages every issue of Yom B'ot are not, they don't exist on paper. I only ink on paper, but when I need to invoke other creators, other creators have inked me digitally. But they're very talented and they're very fast, and they helped me with the production process, with meeting the deadlines, with getting the book out the door. And so, inkers are essential. And the ones that I have used the most in the last five years, Cory Hampshire, Chants Wolf. Cory inked a number of pages in Major X for me and in all of my Deadpool projects. Shelby Robertson inked a number of pages in my Deadpool projects, and is now inking Youngblood. Chants Wolf has inked every issue of Youngblood. Also helped me out on, so did Cory Hampshire on GI. Joe. Both Cory and Chants helped me out. Some of those pages don't exist. They're just, they're done incredibly, immaculately on an iPad, on a, you know, I had to escape in me, but on a digital tablet. And it's all trying to get the work done. I utilize and work with those three talents the best. And, you know, the other thing about inking is my fifth issue of Snake Eyes. I had an inker who backed out on me, who in issue four decided he was going to chase success with a different penciler. Good luck with that. And we engaged. I had to scramble. I didn't account. That left me in a real deficit in terms of time. And what I did is, oh my gosh, I am going to ask. And if you've never seen Snake Eyes issue five of Dead Game, Snake Eyes Dead Game, I asked Dan Panosian, Corey Hampshire, the late, great Ed Piscore, his fellow studio mates, Tom Scioli, Jim Rugg. I asked Philip Tan, Wills Portaccio, Ryan Ottley. Neil Adams. The last two pages Neil ever produced for a comic book was my spread. He went into the hospital shortly after that, and just tragically, we never regained Neil. He went home and passed away, and we have been lesser for it ever since. Neil was just, but the art of the inking, we'll call it inking continue. Each one of those, the Philip Tan over Rob Liefeld pencils had a certain twist. The Wills Portaccio had a certain twist. The Dan Fraga, the Dan Panosian, the Marat, the Corey Hampshire. It's fun seeing people jam on you. And when I was young, I wanted to very much adhere to my own style. I didn't want anybody else infringing on my look. But now, as you get older, I go and know what my stuff looks like. I don't need to be concerned with that. And it's more fun to jam with other people. And so I do not believe that inking is going to go away. I think it could have a resurgence. I think it needs to be shown a certain value. Certainly I, and I put out on social media, I would love to work with more finishers. I see some guys out there who struggle to pencil, but they are able to put this incredible beautiful sheen, inking sheen on the work. And so, and especially with how I am doing what I call manga editions where they're more gray scale. So the line art has a better chance of being retained. And you'll see that in those manga editions. I put a huge value on inking. And like I said, I'm getting the three guys who have been in the trenches with me, Chance Wolfe, Corey Hampshire, Shelby Robertson have just given me incredible lines that not only look cool, but they make getting the book into your hands essential. And so colors are definitely a value add on comic books. And the good ones are have never been better. And I'm also fortunate to work with incredible color artists. And I have added a couple new ones to the stable. Because you just never know, you just never know who's going to change path, career. I also value, when people leave me, it is never over. I just want to say this compensation. This last year, six, six, six fingers, different talents approached me and they gave me their page rates. And I could not in good conscience pay them their page rate. I had to go above and beyond. I had to pay them more. I'm like, that's not realistic. Someone leaked the Marvel and DC page rates the other day. And it's, it's, it's, I'm not sure how people get by on those. And I know for a fact, because I was at Marvel, I know that they have accessed real numbers. Those are real, miserable, awful numbers. If you're going to do work for me, color, pencil, ink, I'm going to, I know what that's like, that that's where being the person that puts the lines on the paper and participates in the production of comic books can bring greater empathy and I can afford to do it so I do. Okay, so that's a long answer about inking. I'm going to pivot away, go to our Facebook section, see what we got in the Facebook group. And very excited to show these, share these questions with you. So again, we're bouncing all around, getting, getting, getting all you guys, your different participations. And I'm so excited. You know, okay, here we go. So we're going to dive into these questions. I, okay, Jason Taylor asks me, Jason Taylor, thanks for these questions. Everybody has asked a question. Thank you so much. Jason Taylor asks, your style is instantly recognizable. How did it evolve in your early career? And were there specific influences or limitations that pushed you in that direction? So let's go to James Taylor, and I'm going to approach this from the way I hear this is, he's a little astounded that my style is so identifiable. In the early 2000s and in the infamous episode, or maybe I've shared bits of it along the way. I don't think I've ever done a dedicated episode. In 2002, I did not want to be seen. I wanted to go San Diego incognito. I've talked to you about how I got a wig. I thought it looked ridiculous. I didn't do that. I got a ball cap and lowered the ball cap to, I used to, my friends always say, you wear your ball cap so high. And I did. I turned it, but 20 years of wearing my ball cap so high since I was a kid, you know, in 2002, in my 34, so I've been in the business a while. I lowered my ball cap to right here. I put sunglasses on. I wore a dress shirt, a collar dress shirt. I put my bag around, big belt of the bag diagonally, which I've never done. I normally do it on my shoulder. I became a different person. No less than Jimmy J said, Rob, you're not going to fool me. I fooled him. He walked by me three times in the lobby as he came out to give me my pass to get me in. And then his mom didn't recognize me. And so I knew I had a good thing. I stood next to Eric Larson and I talked to him. He did not recognize me. I stood next to Nick Barucci of Dynamite Comics. He did not recognize me. There was a gentleman named William Christensen from Avatar Press. He had done a deal with me to publish stories with the Vengeline. He did not recognize me. An editor from Marvel Comics bumped right into me in one of the aisles. He did not recognize me. I was unrecognizable. I went and stood next to the editor-in-chief of Marvel at the time. I just had a hard time even saying his name. And he looked at the guy's drawings. And so my vantage point is I'm looking down at the table at this guy addressing the guy. I'm literally on the side of the table. For all the editor-in-chief knew, I was somebody's friend in the line. He said, you know what? This all looks a little too image-comic-y to me. Look, man, we don't want that. He looked right up and he said, we're not looking for that. We want life. We want comics drawn from life. Like Alex Ross. Okay. So I knew right then the barometer was, they don't want styles. They want photorealism. That's what Marvel wants. And I think if you look at what they were doing in the early 2000s, and the guy that broke through, and part of the reason he broke through, because he had been around for about 15 years prior, and Brian Hitch of Redcoat and Ultimates broke into the business as an Alan Davis clone. I could show you, he would tell you, this is not a, this is not, oh, Rob Liefeld, this is, he would tell you, as so many of us break in his clones of someone else. And he added a photorealistic nature to his work, starting on The Authority, but by the time he got to The Ultimates. But what worked is, and I used to tell Alex Ross, I was doing a Supreme book with Alex Ross in the late 90s. He ultimately pulled out, I'll be honest, it was going to be rad, because at one point in the story that he pitched for me for Supreme, his Supreme paintings, we're going to decide that they wanted to live in the real world, and he had a model that he had picked out to portray Supreme, that he used on his Supreme originals. And he pitched me and he said, Robin, the third issue, I want the model to punch through the panels and to be standing there. And from that point on for several pages, it will just be photos of the model as Supreme. I was 100 percent on board with this. But Alex Ross had a great idea. Alex Ross met with myself and with Jeff Loeb in Chicago Comic Con 1999 and said, I'm not doing it. I've just decided I'm not going to do it. And he didn't give us a good reason. And we didn't resort to begging. We understood like there really wasn't any changing of his mind. Why am I telling you this? During that period of time, I kept talking to Alex and his DC giant size books with Batman and Superman came out. And I said, as beautiful as these are, these are boring. You need to show violence and have Alex Ross bloodying people's faces up. And give me some action because with Superman, he was really giving us what we all hated about Superman Returns. Alex Ross's, my opinion, beautiful, beautifully drawn. No, no problem with that. Content of Supreme lifting things up is not going to ever do it for me, Superman, not Supreme. I want action. Then he did Batman a year later. And it's Batman scaring people out of the shadows and in the alleys. I want, I want contact, blood, violence. Give me some Frank Miller applications here. Brian Hitch did that. Brian Hitch took the realism that Alex Ross was so great at, and brought us that brutal, violent, adult nature to the realism. He's the only guy that has ever made it work great. But you kind of had, and the late great John Cassidy was kind of in that realistic mode. And so you had Hitch and Cassidy at Marvel, and Marvel wanted everybody to draw from life. And what they didn't want was distinguishable styles. Guys, John Byrne had a distinguishable style. When this guy says your style is instantly recognizable, John Byrne's style was instantly recognizable. This is what I grew up with. George Perez's style was instantly recognizable. Jim Starlin's style was instantly recognizable. He drew torsos and legs and figures that were very distinct. Howard Shakin was instantly recognizable. You got into comics to build a style. Your entire purpose was to build a style that people would identify. As you, George Perez, I say George Perez is instantly recognizable. Art Adams, I went very much in-depth on this show, and told you guys about how Art drew very short trunks and very long hips and legs. And I immediately emulated that, immediately implemented that into my work. I like the way he drew faces. I like the way he proportioned faces. I like the eyes, the nose. I was taking bits and pieces, but of course, I landed on what you would say is very identifiable, just like Todd. Todd is very identifiable. Jim Lee is very identifiable. Eric Larson is very identifiable. I am not alone in this. I don't need you to tell me that's an Eric Larson cover. I see it from 10 feet away. I know what a Mark Silvestri cover looks like. I know what a J. Scott Campbell art piece looks like. So, what I think this is reacting to is the blandness that was the 2000s when everything was supposed to be, hey, look, Greg Land did kind of the realism thing after Brian Hitch, so you can kind of go Mike Mahoe. There were realistic guys who really emerged, and the stylistic guys were pulled back. And I'll also tell you that one of the most successful stylistic guys who was blowing up in a big way, we lost him to cancer. And that's Mike Turner. Mike was rewriting the rules in the middle of the Brian Hitch, Alex Ross realism thing. Mike Turner did Superman, Batman with Jeff Loeb and exploded with hyper proportions, the most buff Batman until absolute, the most buff bodybuilder looking Batman, the most buff body looking Superman. Jim Lee was doing Superman at the time. Superman, Batman outsells everything at DC, including Jim's Superman and his Batman, because people are like, they're even hyper versions that his Supergirl was super long, legs for days, sexy, skinny. Mike exaggerated. He had a very exaggerated, but elegant style, but it was identifiable, instantly identifiable. So I am just trying to mash together the influences I like. And as I get older, I'm trying to retain everything that I liked about my work. I don't have to force it. This is the way that I wanted to draw. This is the style that I wanted to draw in. Because otherwise, I'm taking photos and I can go outside and take photos. The stylistic aspects that we all put in our work, make them instantly recognizable. They define us. And so I'm going to lean into that, not away from that. I also watched some of my heroes get sloppy. Portions, big heads, shorter bodies, sloppy layout, sloppy. And I'm like, I have to not do this. And they were doing this within 15 years of their career. When I was breaking in, some of my favorites were just falling apart. They wouldn't hold together. They had just decided to go in a completely different direction. And it was like, wait, what happened to the work that I fell in love with? Even this morning, one of the best anchors in the business showed some pencils of this guy in his peak in 1980. And these four pages of pencils on X, he was reacting to them. They had been shared by someone who already asked a question by Cool Comic Art. And you're like, look at that. That was instantly recognizable, brilliant, genius. I wanted more. But as he got older, he just abandoned everything that I loved about his work. And it became less recognizable in the way that it had been when it was the most commercial and the most successful. So thank you for that. Hopefully, I gave you some sort of answer. So this gentleman, Marvin Law, asked, has there ever been a definitive story talking about the creation of Die Hard akin to Project Rebirth for Captain America or Weapon X for Wolverine? And he talks about all the mysteries of Die Hard, the hardships, the pain, the... So I've purposely not given you that. I allowed for some writers to give what they believe to be their versions. But let's be honest, I'm the final say on Die Hard. And if I don't like it, I can make that a false memory implant. I have never given you the definitive version of Die Hard, because I think it was a mistake to tell us the definitive version of Wolverine. I grew up with breadcrumbs of Wolverine being offered to us, and being little morsels that, wait, is he immortal? Does his healing power means he's a lot older than he looks? You know, how do you get that adamantium skeleton? How do you get that adamantium skeleton? And then John Byrne, who we assign with the popularity of Wolverine, gives an interview where he states that Sabertooth is his father and raised him on a mountain in Canada. And then about eight years from that interview, Chris Claremont decides to do a version of that story with John Buscemi inked by Bill Sienkiewicz in Wolverine, maybe it's 10, 11. I forget the exact episode issue, but there's hints, but nothing definitive. Barry Windsor Smith decides, I'm going to carve out the definitive kind of story of what happened to Wolverine in the lab. And even then, that was mired in some mystery. We didn't find out everything, we got glimpses. But of course, they wanted to do Wolverine origin, and they're famous for saying at the time that they didn't want 20th Century Fox telling a bogus origin story that they could then say is the definitive origin. They wanted to get ahead of it. I don't really buy that. I think that was an excuse to try and sell a book that would have some heat. I'm not the biggest fan of Wolverine origin. I would erase some of that if I was in charge. There's a whole lot that I would erase. But no, there will not at this point be definitive. I want you to wonder. In my mind, you should be wondering, literally, which war was Die Hard created in, the Revolutionary War or the Civil War? Let me leave you there, because this guy's story goes back a very, very, very long time. You can think of steampunk dynamics and other aspects that you would apply to making him that old and making him that feasible at that age. So no, there hasn't been, and at this time, there will not be, because I like the mystery. I like that you don't quite understand from his appearances in Young Blood Strike File to this, that, the other thing, to some of the things that other writers did to him. I write it, I read it, I approve it, I let it go, because maybe I like that it feels a little like a read a herring and you're not quite understanding. Okay? So that's my take. Let me see here. Rob, the documentary, The Image Revolution is A++. Fantastic. When are we going to get a biopic, a movie about the Image Founders and the founding of Image Comics? It's a compelling story with interesting twists and turns. So I have a screenplay that I wrote, that I have talked to companies and producers about for the last decade. The closest I ever got, and I'm not going to tell you that I wouldn't change names. It is definitely a screenplay in the vein of air of the social network, except I'm not sure I would want to go to the mat and try to tempt fate. So there could be the possibility of names that would be changed. But I'm going to give you the straight up reaction to the stuff that I was being told. I had an executive at a big studio, say, I love it. Here's my problem. Who am I casting this? And he was joking and he said, so is young Rob Liefeld this actor? And he goes, the Todd McFarlane character, I guess I could get somebody in their 30s, maybe a name, but I'm not sure that the rise of this young Jim Lee, and he literally says, I'm not sure that there's, he specifically noted that young Rob Liefeld, he made a joke, am I casting your son for this? Is it a 20-something? Because there's not a lot of 20-somethings with theatrical draw or that I can guarantee will tune in for streaming. And I appreciate this guy, he was giving him, and he said, I don't know of a young 20-something Asian actor right now, that I could put aside a young 20-something unknown Rob Liefeld character. He said, Eric Larson, in his 20s, he basically said, who am I casting? And so at that point, it becomes, well, he was like, can we put Stan Lee more in this story? Because I can cast an actor as Stan Lee. And what you're getting from this is, he's thinking of who can I cast? And before you go, you can get Timothy Chalome. Timothy Chalome is in his 30s now, and certainly could pass for a young version of someone. But they are always thinking of sell, sell, sell. How do I get eyeballs on this on a streaming platform? Or how do I get this eyeballs as a movie? And he said, it's not like you guys were in your 40s, and we could get some of the well-known names. And over time, I believe John Totoro would have been a great Todd McFarland 20, 30 years ago. I think Christian Bale 20, 30 years ago would have been a great Todd McFarland. Certainly in the past, if we're going back to the late 90s, early 2000s, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, I've had told would have been great versions. I've had Will Poulton, is that his name? The guy who played Warlock? I've had people tell me he's a Rob Liefeld. But again, what it comes down to, and my counter is the movie is so cheap. It costs nothing to make this movie. It's literally about a group of guys following their dreams. And it takes some big swings. It has some creative licenses in regards to how certain things are depicted. There's elements of the screenplay that I pivot to animation. I believe it is ready to be made. I believe it is ready to be greenlit. But when I have gotten feedback, and he's not the only one. Another producer says, I just don't know who I'm putting in this role. Guys, this is how Hollywood works. Who can Callum Turner play? And no, actually, they say we need Callum Turner to break out. We need Austin Butler to have that big giant hit that is his own, OK? Right now, the guys in Hollywood who are the go-to's, obviously, on the male side is Timothée Chalamet. On the female side is Zendaya and Margot Robbie. And of course, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt. So none of them are going to be the characters that we're looking at. And so you asked this question, I am putting you in the room with me and the executive who very much wanted to make it happen, very much was like, how do we pull this off? Who could I get as Stan Lee that I could put on the marquee? Because otherwise, I'm filming this with unknowns. And so the studio, so then you're telling the studio, no, think of this as a really cheap super indie movie. And he's like, well, you didn't come here to get a super cheap indie movie. That's not all we do. So maybe it's up to me to find the financing and get it to myself. And that's certainly a possibility and not out of the realm of the things that I have investigated, but there is your answer. I also believe, yes, it would be a great story. Robert Colton asked me, what character book team have you ever wanted to draw, but you never had the opportunity? I will go, I will finish my career, not just with OMAC and Comandie, but I really, there was a point about 20 years ago, I felt like I would have been a perfect fit for Superman. The problem with that is that the press would not let me get off the map. It would be like Captain America. And here's the case in point, in case you've been wondering. The Michael Jackson movie that's coming out, I haven't seen it, but I'm going to see it. I'm going to see it in 24 hours. I'm sure I'm going to like it. I love Michael Jackson's music. I've got all his documentaries. I've got all the making ofs. I'm a giant fan. And yet the critics buried this. Not one of them said it was fun. They really wanted to send a message. They didn't like the content of this movie, that it didn't deal with some of the difficulties. Even though the movie cuts off in 1987, it does not participate in when all the controversies and the accusations started coming. So it gets out of this, but it's like everybody wanted that version. They wanted an R-rated, felt like more Scorsese, Wolf of Wall Street style depiction of Michael Jackson's life, and they didn't get it. In the same way that Wizard Magazine, RIP Wizard, wanted to make it very difficult for me to have success on Wizard because they really loved what Mark Wade was doing, is he couldn't get the book out of the 25,000 sales. They wanted to make it, you can tell when people do go, when a quarterback comes to your team that hasn't been winning, they put the onus on the quarterback and the team. They love to make difficult stories for all of us. They love to. The guardrails that are the obstacles, the guardrails, something like me doing Superman would be so controversial that it wouldn't even be worth doing it. I've talked about public domain and that's what I'm looking forward where I can do a version of Superman, do that character. And obviously, I have a Superman-adjacent styled in the same way of invincible is Superman-adjacent and Hyperion and Sentry. Everybody's got that kind of approach when it comes to Superman. And I've certainly had had had a character in that in that ballpark called Supreme. But Superman, somewhere, I had a great run and it was fun. Or maybe it was maybe it was wasn't so great. Sean Thompson asked, Rob, can you divulge anything about the scrapped X-Force movies that Jeff Wadlow or Drew Goddard were in? So since these are not going to happen, I will tell you in 2014, I ran home. I called Robert Kirkman as I drove back from Fox. And later in that day, I called the scripter to tell him to get excited, which is when he then informed me that he doesn't participate in any of those characters, other than the small taste that he gets from Deadpool. And I was like, huh? Okay. Like, man, like, you know, you're all going to have to negotiate your own deals. And I was a little like, wow. Jeff Wadlow had to stun Kick Ass 2. And I drove up to Fox. I had to sign an agreement not to divulge the details of that screenplay. And so what I do remember of that screenplay as to not divulge the details, but the ideas and the concepts, it took place in Texas, which was refreshing. It was mutants in Texas. That I can tell you. I know that Cable entered a facility with which to spring mutants that were being held as a result of a terror act that was blamed on mutants. And that's where he gathers his first few mutants on the team. Deadpool absolutely appears in the film. Twice he combats them. There are other X-Men characters I won't go into it. That is the broad strokes. And it was refreshing that it took place in Texas. I mean, it really, at one point, you're in the kind of the mountain regions. There was a giant conflict on the highway that involved Deadpool. But the depiction of Cable, the way he was introduced, basically he was put into the population of the mutant prison system. And had targeted mutants that he wanted to break out with that would help create this. So it was a really, really good script. I'm not going to tell you who the villains were or who some of the other complementary mutants are. But it was great. They felt that they were going to make either that or Deadpool. And I remember being asked by people on the Deadpool side, Rob, are you going to give your weight to that over this? I said, I don't have weight to give. I love them both. If whatsoever one gets picked, but I was told only one would survive, and I think they made the right call with Deadpool. It was the easier, most digestible version of an X-Men film that could really turn heads and create a new lane, which immediately, as you see, Logan followed into Deadpool 2, suddenly X-Men movies as R-rated vehicles was open. And I felt that had the Jeff Wadlow X-Force been made, it would have been one of the most favored. If that script had been shot, it would have been one of the most favored. I signed nothing in regards to the Drew Goddard, and when I was out to lunch, and then Josh Brolin said, hey, go to the gym with me. And I said, I brought jeans. He goes, that's okay, you can still lift in jeans. And we did. In Santa Monica about a month before the premiere of Deadpool 2. He told me how excited he was to play both Strife and Cable, and he had had some discussions with Drew Goddard at the Critics' Choice Awards in 2019 because Deadpool 2 in 2018 was nominated for awards, this was the first or second week of January. Drew Goddard was there, and I sat down with him, and I talked to him, and we talked about what a shame it was, because it was kind of a foregone conclusion that that was not going to be going forward. But rest assured, you would have gotten Brolin in dual roles as Strife and as Cable, and that would have been fantastic. So those are the most kind of safe, what do you call it, the safest aspects of that, that I can offer you. Now, here's the deal. We are going to do another mailbag real soon, because I did not know what you guys were going to ask me. And this has been really, really funny. I'm going to try one more. Neb Milborn, how are you doing, buddy? I know Neb, he says, if you go back and change any two decisions you made in your career, what would you change? Okay, have all eyes on me? Nothing. I've said this repeatedly, nothing. Guys, I know that there are voices out there in regards to, this is a show about comics, I'm in comics. This question is about me in comics. Let me be very direct. I have read about this guy, this Rob Liefeld, he's a loser, that he can't draw, he can't sell comics, nothing he does works. I don't know that guy. That guy is a myth made by haters who want to, who can't handle the fact that the real Rob Liefeld has been, has had such a great track record, has a resume. I love every aspect of my resume. There is nothing I would have done differently. And I fear had I done any one thing differently than all the other really, for sure things, because everything involves struggle. Guys, making comic books is hard. So, Young Bud 100 is actually the sixth issue, then just so. So, without covers, I have done 212 interior pages. That's Young Bud 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 is 100. And Giant Size Young Bud, which was out last summer, seven issues. So, that would be more than 10 monthly comics at Marvel, 10, 20-page comics. You feel it. You feel it. There's a reason why you're not getting monthly comic book work from so many guys in my age group. And I'm going to tell you why. It's a grind. You've heard me go, oh man, I'm doing so much work. I'm feeling it now. I'm feeling it now. I don't care if I'm not 88 years old. It is more of a task on my mental processing, making stories, the eye-hand coordination, creating the pages, the storytelling. Storytelling is fun, but it's also the math, the algebra, getting the right page, the right panel, cuts and lands and page turns. So that is very, very difficult to do. And some jobs are harder than others. And the wear and tear, you feel it. You feel it. It's tremendously fun. Nothing is more rewarding than finishing that page. Or maybe in the third panel, doing that face that you wanted to get to. It's terribly rewarding. And my family, who knows me the best, knows like, when is dad happiest? He is happiest when he is drawing a comics page and it's working. And that's pretty much all the pages I've been doing. Because I feel like they've all worked. They've all been tremendous fun. And I know that I'm not alone in anyone who's making the work and finishing the work. That what I just said applies to all artists who are finishing their pages, finishing their favorite panels. They're so excited. It's also hard work. It wears you out. And I'm in my advanced years. And as I said, guys, 41 years doing the same job. We have friends, many of whom, a couple of who have after being in their jobs for over three decades, have recently been let go. And it's very difficult to process that they gave 30 years of their lives. I'm at 41 years of my life in comic books. And I love it. And I wouldn't have changed anything. And so when I said maybe one decision change would make the other one less difficult. Yeah, because there were certain levels of difficulty with each and every job. Some came easier than others, but they all had a certain level of engagement and effort that I had to put into them. So I wouldn't change anything because I have had such an incredible, fun career that I was able to do things that I never believed I would achieve. The creation of, I don't want to pull them off because they're all going to collapse, but from Deadpool Cable X4 Shatterstar. I'm going to give you a challenge. And this is the crazy thing. Imagine if I never took over the New Mutants. Go look at the New Mutants. And do I have it? Should I do this? Let me do this. I think it's down here. I'm not sure if it has all of them. I'm not sure if it has all of them. La, la, la. La, la, la, la. Oh, man, I'm not sure it has all of them. I'm just, you're looking through an omnibus. So, here's a good example, this has enough to make the point. So, this is the book, you know, this is The New Mutants that I took over, okay? This is, when you put all these covers together, this is the New Mutants comic that I took over. Those kids in that corner box right there, what issue is that? That's, is that, 55, New Mutants 55, New Mutants 55. So, I come on the scene two years later, two and a half years later. No, it's 55, I'm on with 86 doing covers on 85, so 20 issues. And as good as this is, you know, that's a great drawing of Sam without his shirt off, flying through his room. He's got his rock star girlfriend. I'm not sure that this is what audience wanted, and the sales had dropped on this pretty ferociously. What I know is that they didn't want this. This is The New Mutants, okay? That's Birdbrain. But take Birdbrain out of the picture, and there it is. Yellow and black costumes, whether it's Rain, Moonstar, Sam, Roberto, they've all got there. This is the book that I replaced, because you want to know what this book has? This comic, this New Mutants comics, this page right here with Birdbrain and Rain, and this interaction. I don't know what he's eating. You know what's missing from that? There is no futuristic cyborg warrior commando. There is no mercenary. There is no double edged, double bladed warrior from another dimension. There is no wild Moorlach named Feral. There is no mysterious love interest to our futuristic commando. The aesthetic that I put upon X-Force may have changed the course of comics. If it didn't, it changed the course of my career. So, those were completely dependent. And please, let's get this really straight. I didn't co-create anything. I walked in with these characters, with their identities. If you scripted the book with me, you got a co-creator. Or if you were listed as the writer who didn't know who the character was, and when you left the book, didn't have any idea that the new armored villain and the new Futures to Commando were linked as I would eventually reveal because I wasn't telling anybody anywhere. I was sitting on that stuff. I didn't trust anybody. There was nothing that I co-created. It's the dynamics that allowed people on the creative team to participate in whatever coattails were being handed out by whatever significant member of the team. I knew it walking in. And if I really didn't want to share them, I would have made a bigger deal. I would have gone out of my way to do the scripting and the word blending, but I didn't because I was fine with that. But as the years have rolled through and the rewriting of history has been attempted, people have tried to shift that narrative. So there's my quick, my quick, I mean, really long-winded answer. I want to change the thing. No way, no how. You guys, this has been, I feel like I didn't get to enough questions. Look for a mailbag, part two soon. Send me more questions. I love answering them. I went in blind. I did not preselect any of these. As you saw, I grabbed from X, I grabbed from threads, I grabbed from Facebook, I grabbed from the Instagram account. Your questions are so great because it really does challenge me, and I had to make my list. I'm glad that I got it out there, that it shaved the changing man. It's OMAC, it's Comandee, it's the challengers of the unknown, and it's the legion in no certain terms, in no definitive order because all of those would bring a big giant fat smile on my face. My one great unrealized body of work will go down being Superman. All that stuff, we learned today together, and just wanted to say I appreciate you guys so much. Thank you for listening. You know that when I'm not doing the show, and that mailbag, we're going to have to revisit it. That mailbag, wow. When I'm not doing the show, I'm all over social media. Join with me on X at Robert Liefeld, R-O-B-E-R-T-L-I-E-F-E-L-D, blue check, that's me. I love reading your rage, your tweets, your replies, your mentions, your comments. I dig it. I dig it so much. So look for me over there at Robert Liefeld on X. I'm there all throughout the day. I'll draw, I'll pick up. Some days, you know, I'm really involved if I'm not picking up for hours. I'm really involved in that page because, guys, like I said, wake up, get on the bike between 6 and 7, finish. Showered, ready to go between 7.30, 8 o'clock. I'm drawing till lunch. If it's sunny out, I'm in the pool for an hour. I shouldn't tell you that, but I am. I'm rolling calls, I'm having fun. Then I'm back and I'm drawing all through the afternoon till about 6, 6.30. Then it's time for fun with Joy, fun with my wife. My name is Joy. Dinner, movies, friends. What keeps me company all day, days are podcasts, are social media. So X at Robert Liefeld. Guys, it is Youngblood week. And as I already stated to you, Youngblood is in the story. You get the sneak peek of acrobats. This acrobats, when you see it, it's like a Saturday morning jingle, just letting you know what the Saturday morning jingle of acrobats would sound like. I'm just sharing this with you now. Now, this cover, this is what I do on my live streams, my whatnot. Let's get to that. This is exclusive. I do live streams, whatnot, get that app downloaded, follow me, Rob Liefeld, hashtag Rob Liefeld. Follow me, Rob Liefeld. Give me a follow because then you'll be notified when I go live. And what we do is we offer all manner of, again, we're getting this specialty Young Invincible themed logo. Okay. And you get all sorts of sketches and remarks. And so this is a book that's only available from me on what I, it's never been in stores. This is a series I have called Last Blood. Look at all the embossment on this. I've never showed this on here before. But look at this. Look at this bad boy. Holy moly, okay? These are really specialty items of the highest form. So follow me on what not. That's my preferred live stream. I think we've done like 350 shows. We're on a lot. We have really dedicated. It's how I interact with you because I can't go to the shows. I can't go to your shows, your conventions. San Diego is dedicated. It's down the street. I go there every year, down the freeway. I love it. My kids love it. I've gone over it ad nauseam. So San Diego is like a giant shopping expedition as well as a comic book convention. But other than that, I have stopped. I can't get on planes and take those days because I'm making the work. I'm making the comics. So live streaming, check me out, what not. Follow me. We have signed comics, toys, Funko Pops. We have so much of it. So hey, thank you for following me on live stream. We have eBay stream that you'll get the links from when you follow me on social media, as you did at Robert Liefeld on X on Instagram. I'm at Rob Liefeld, R-O-B-L-I-E-F-E-L-D. Blue check. I do all sorts of commentary and contest. Pop the balloon. Who's stronger than who? Reactions. We love it. We love all your reactions to the stuff that we're putting up there. We appreciate you so much. I read your replies, your mentions, your comments, your DMs. I have met so many of you. I've met a ton of talent. So keep it coming. I love, give me a follow over Rob Liefeld, Instagram at Rob Liefeld on Instagram. Blue check on Tik Tok. I am real Rob Liefeld. Check me out. Real Rob Liefeld. I'm a real boy. Okay. Blue check again, popping balloons, comparing, reacting, contests, all of it. We're doing it there. You guys are having, it's so much fun interacting with you. I appreciate you guys so much. Continue to reach out to me. I love, I love talking to you. DMs, the replies, that's me. I'm reading them. I'm reacting. Real Rob Liefeld, Blue check at TikTok. We have a great group. It's on Facebook. It's called Rob Liefeld. Marvel, Extreme and Beyond. You should join it. Rob Liefeld, Marvel, Extreme and Beyond. It's a group. Myself and a gentleman named Terry Sala, S-A-L-A. We are the ones that will click you on through to the other side. You'll participate. We have great rousing debates about the state of the comic book marketplace. All manner of trends, movements, characters, talents. Each and every episode of this show is given a dedicated post, so you can weigh in and discuss on whatever you're feeling about what was shared here today. We would invite you, Rob Liefeld, Marvel, Extreme and Beyond. We have art contests as there's one being judged right now. We have great talent, great people, a part of our operations on Facebook. So we would ask that you would hop on over and join with us. We appreciate you so much. Guys, I think that covers it. Get Youngblood, it's in stores. Someday, I'll be able to do one of these and slip it in a box, and you'll be able to get it at your store. But right now, this is the kind of stuff that you get from me on live streaming. And here is the A cover, right? But again, online, this comic will never be in your stores. This is a Youngblood 5 available only through us on live stream. And here is the Acrobats cover that is exclusive. Guys, this is so much fun. I, as always, just ask and hope that you are in your best possible shape, emotionally, spiritually, physically, mentally. The world, literally, guys, since we started this, the world has gotten legit crazier, and I didn't think it could possibly. We are being told every day to be divided, not united, that we should be comfortable with all manner of dissent, no matter how damaging it is. I feel like there's a great unification of us as citizens in these beautiful, brilliant United States, that there is just a complete lack of unity. There is no seeking of unity. There is no middle ground. It's very sad. It makes me sad. It makes my kids sad, my family sad. Look, we just want the best we want. We want people to be loved, feel loved, give love, receive love. We're lifting you up. We're carrying you. Whatever burdens that you have, we want to just reach out and tell you that we're going through the same stuff. Kids in school, check. Kids in young marriages, check. 31-year-old marriage going strong, check, check, check. Concerns about the economy, check. Concerns about geopolitical landscape, check, check, check. I mean, it's all, we've got a shared burdens that we're all carrying. And I feel it. I feel you. I hope that you are able to get away. You know, the other night we went with our friends who we hadn't seen in a long time. It's exactly what I say to do here. We went to a brand new restaurant in Fullerton called Matador, which we loved. Oh my gosh, it may be my new favorite Mexican restaurant. But we just had the best time sitting around talking for two hours and enjoying. I drove about 35 minutes home and it just filled us up. Being with people, connecting with people, reach out, family members, friends, connect with people. I'm big on that. Liefeld, you sit on your couch, you sit in your beanbag, you're on your couch, and you draw what I do. But when I'm not on social media, I'm also rolling calls to friends. I'm connecting with peers. I'm doing what I preach and I came back so jazzed from my little Vegas escape. And you know what? We got a big vacation coming up this summer. I could not be more excited because I know it really juices me and gets me going. So guys, be good, take care of yourself, have that ice cream, have that favorite food, that hamburger, that taco. There was a guy handing out hot dogs at CinemaCon and I'm like, I'm grabbing it. Oh, I wolfed that down. So like who knew that at 3 p.m. on a Wednesday, what you really needed was a hot dog. Oh damn. Guys, food, fellowship, the arts, comics, movies, is what we need. Escape. I'll be escaping. But you know what? I'll be right back here, there. You're going to get me, you're going to pick me up, you're going to put me in your car, you're going to put me in your ear pods, pick me up right there. That's where I'll be. Under that tree, under that shade, we will most definitely, we will absolutely, we will inevitably, inevitably, we will talk again real soon.