Hey, Liefeld!

[Venkman]

ROB LIEFELD IS NOT A DICKWEED!!!!'n


You're a dickweed, dickweed!

Dickweed!!!!!!

[Rollo Tomassi]

No better place to stick this, and Rob already has seven too many Topics devoted to him.

Youngblood had has 71 issues?!?

That's horrifying.

[vynsane]

Youngblood had has 71 issues?!?

That's horrifying.

no, it hasn't... it's apparently the first issue of a new series starting at number 71 for some reason:

It’s the 20th anniversary of the comic book that launched the Image Revolution in 1992! ROB LIEFELD’s YOUNGBLOOD returns bigger and better than ever with an all-new look at the next generation of superheroes, courtesy of screenwriter JOHN McLAUGHLIN (Black Swan, Parker), up-and-coming artist JON MALIN and YOUNGBLOOD creator and Image founder ROB LIEFELD!

In this first issue, a young reporter is embedded in the Youngblood team. Her assignment is to gather enough information for a humiliating puff piece, but she quickly discovers Shaft, Vogue, Lady Photon, Die Hard and Cougar are a team to be reckoned with. Badrock would be part of the group too... if he wasn't in a coma with wounds that have nearly pulverized his otherwise rock-hard hide.

so, basically, they've failed to relaunch this title multiple times, and now since it's been 20 years since the first issue came out, they're numbering it as though it's been running consecutively for just under 6 years? that makes no sense. if it ran monthly for 20 years, it would be up to issue #241.

[anarky]

Not trying to be a snide asshole (though it's tough not to when Rob's involved), but does their revisionist numbering include only the ones that were made, or does it pretend that all the unfinished miniseries were actually finished?

If the former, how is this going to play to any new readers (I know that's unlikely, but bear with me) who want to get a complete run, especially if they put them into paperback? Are they going to get pissed at all the aborted relaunches and reboots and give up? If the latter, well, are they going to finish them (or at least pretend they will).

The only thing that I find cool about this Image relaunch (minus the titles that have actually been successful) is that I read at least one title that's re-starting at something like #12 is still going to use the "Image of the Future" issue #25 as canon and work up to it. Though that could cause consternation when it looks to most like they simply skip #25.

[Rollo Tomassi]

I was looking at the various Youngblood series over the years at comicbookdb.com
One series went to issue 10. One went to issue 14(but inexplicably jumped from 10 to 14). The rest only had one or two issues.

The 71 must be a randomly assigned number.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Liefeld draws feet!!

Congrats, Rob. Only took you 25 years.

[vynsane]

no, he still hasn't drawn anything that actually resembles a foot, therefore he's still yet do have drawn feet.

edit: i take it back, they actually look kinda like feet on the "hawk and dove" cover. robot6 made me look for it, though, instead of actually showing it to me, so it doesn't count.

[anarky]

The comments section on the article you linked to is frickin' priceless.

[anarky]

Oh.

Yes.

http://www.progressiveboink.com/2012/6/ ... d-drawings

[anarky]

“The trailer was literally just the song,” he says, “and the dot bounced on a black screen to the lyrics‘From the—town of—BED-ROCK!’ And I go, ‘Oh, I’m screwed.’” The character was almost renamed “Budrock,” but Anheuser-Busch threatened to sue.

You go, Anheuser-Busch! I always wondered, though, seriously, why the guy who fucking ripped off every X-Man out there thought that a character in a team book was in danger of being sued by a cartoon company because of the name of a fictitious city. This really made no sense to me. I'd be more worried about the other comics companies suing. I guess I'm just nuts that way. ("Budrock," though, would be an obvious allusion to the beer, since, uh, it's not a real word.)

I was just looking through here, and this jumped out at me. How did we never notice that Liefeld had no problem with "Bedrock" when Flintstones was just a wildly iconic cartoon, but the minute they make a shitty live action movie, he decides it's going to get him in trouble.

As long as there wasn't a title called Bedrock, he would've been fine, especially since he'd been using the name for, what, two years? Good or bad, Youngblood should've been big enough to register on Hanna-Barbera's radar, so I'm going to conclude they didn't give a shit. Hell, as long as he didn't call a title "Budrock," on what grounds could Anheuser-Busch sue him? (It'd be interesting to go back and somehow check A-B's legal records. My guess is there's jackshit about this. Especially since I was keeping pretty abreast of the comics world then, and I'm sure you were, too, and none of us ever saw the first mention of the name "Budrock" until this interview a couple of years ago.)

But.... This would be like "I had a character called The Robot in Disguise, and then I saw an ad for the Transformers movie." There's no fucking way the dipshit didn't know about Flintstones. You go and find a tribe of pygmies that's never had contact with the modern world, and they know the fucking Flintstones. Seriously. Rob, man, there's no fucking way you're not a retard. We should stop being mean to you, because you can't defend yourself.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

At the very least, he would've waited until HB sent some kind of 'Cease and Desist' letter. Considering Liefeld practically bathes in litigation on a daily basis for every other thing he's done, I can't see him rolling over like that. The whole thing smells.

[Diabolical]

And then there's the fact that bedrock is an actual thing and not something Hanna Barbarra made up.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

And then there's the fact that bedrock is an actual thing and not something Hanna Barbarra made up.

That's why I always wondered how Spike Lee was trying to sue Spike-TV for infringing on his name. Spikes have been around for millions of years.

[anarky]

You can trademark some words. The restaurant chain "Outback" trademarked the word "outback" across every possible category, including toys, though it's pretty unlikely they'd ever make Outback toys. There was a Transformer and a Joe both named Outback, but, since Hasbro didn't actually file trademarks on names in the 80s, the restaurant actually filed the application first and got the trademark. On figures produced, since the character name is pretty much the product name, they're called Fallback or Stuart "Outback" Selkirk. But, in comics (or presumably cartoons), they're called Outback, since it's not used in actual promotion.

Hasbro actually lost the rights to "Bumblebee" for several years because of a trademark filed by another company. Same with "Roadblock" (which is why the character was sold as Heavy Duty and called Roadblock in media). Hasbro eventually got both trademarks. Same with the Joe/Decepticon name "Shockwave." They were both sold as Shockblast for a few years, and Hasbro got the trademark; in the meantime, they'd trademarked "Shockblast," and decided to keep that name for future figures of the Joe character so as to protect both trademarks. (An unused trademark is less defensible after a point.)

"Bedrock" would be more like "Gotham City." There may be trademark protection to a point--you couldn't call a comic book "Town of Bedrock." But there are tons of references to towns called Gotham in other media. You can't copyright a title, but you can trademark it. I could legally write and release a book called "Gates of Gotham," but, since "Batman" is trademarked, no way in hell could I release "Batman: Gates of Gotham."

For some reason, content falls under copyright but not trademark. Atomic Robo can (and did) have a cameo by the G.I. Joe team, so long as they're unnamed and not used in promoting the book.

Confusing, and I don't pretend to be an expert (even if it sounds like I'm trying to sound otherwise), but Bedrock would've been no problem, Budrock would've been no problem, and I have to conclude Rob Liefeld is a drama queen who doesn't understand copyright and trademark law, even though, given his position, he needs to.

[anarky]

Rollo, some celebrities have trademarked their names, mostly to prevent illegal use. I know Billy Joel has, because his first contract royally fucked him in some regard. I'm not sure that Spike Lee would have much leg to stand on; that would be like Billy Joel suing Billy Carter over Billy Beer. Trademarking a real first name would probably be impossible.

I know Thomas Dolby was sued by Dolby, successfully. However, this was because his legal last name wasn't Dolby, he made no secret of having based it on the company's audio technology, and was occasionally using just "Dolby" to promote himself. (It would be like me pretending my last name was Hasbro, running an action figure site called Anarky Hasbro, and often referring to it as Hasbro.) The Dolby company was perfectly fine with letting him use the fake name, just not in leaving out the "Thomas" part, and I think the settlement was simply to restrict the use of the word "Dolby" without "Thomas" and there were no monetary damages.