Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, entertainment, extreme, image, image comics, prophet, rob liefeld, soul saga, stephen platt

Fanboy Rampage: Rob Liefeld Vs Stephen Platt

Published Mon, 20 Jan 2014 13:00:39 -0600

by Rich Johnston

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Stephen Platt was a comic artist who rose to prominence in the nineties, first drawing Moon Knight for Marvel and then Prophet for Rob Liefeld at Image/Extreme Studios and then his own book, Soul Saga. He was… rather popular, though not exactly prodigious in his output. He went to work in movies, and recently returned to create covers for Marvel and looked to be creating new work.

On Facebook, Stephen Platt gets asked this a lot,

Federico Bettini i need a Prophet sketch…buddaaa buddaaaaa buddaaaaaa..

So he finally replied,

OK, after 200 request for Prophet commissions/sketch let me make this clear.

Never. Gonna. Happen.

I'm done with that character and that studio. Forever. Period.

Very shortly afterwards, Rob Liefeld posted on his Facebook page,

Someday I will tell you the real reason why I hired Stephen Platt and the subsequent meltdown that occurred. But not today….

Also I have not spoken Mr. Deadline in 20 years. No Plans…

But ask him why he won't allow Image to print the final chapter of Soul Saga. Guy is a loon…

Also, someone might want to enlighten him that I haven't had a studio in like 20 years. "That studio"

I'm done with LIFE magazine, Tower Records and Delorean's…….FOREVER!!!

Look to each his own, like what you like, I'm not here to say what anyone should like. The part where he won't draw Prophet is weird and is his problem.

Also – he tried a career as a stand up comic…. Guess that didn't work out.

Ex-Extreme Studios writer Thomas Reiter jumped in.

I remember Eric asking me to go in and find out just how far behind Platt was on an issue of an already late Prophet comic. I found him working very diligently…on a two page spread which was for the following issue and not the one which was needed. Like a week ago. He went into a whole 20 minute spiel about his art style, how art is a higher calling, and how he approaches his work like Moebius does.

I pointed out that Moebius was a long time professional who would have been working on the pages he needed to finish and how he wasted a slew of time telling me how he works without actually working as he did.

He never really talked to me much after that.

Rob replied,

Omigosh Thomas Reiter thank you for sharing that. He tried to convince me that I needed to print an entire issue as a "tapestry"…. I said that was not possible, he told me I didn't understand what a tapestry was. ….the whole thing was absurd.

By the way, Promethea #32? Printed as a tapestry… and while it may not exist as a studio, Extreme was revived as an imprint from Image – which might be what Stephen is talking about. Odds are he was approached about contributing to Prophet…

Extreme manager, later Image publisher and creator of Beanworld, Larry Marder piped up,

My strongest memory was going into Rob's office & the first Platt Prophet pages had come in. Various EXTREME people were marveling over the art. One spread was so layered & textured its details looked like a Jackson Pollack painting. Some of the pen work was 0000 rapid-o-graph that would never reproduce on the page after shrinking & coloring. What I remember saying was something like "Unless he adjusts his style this guy will never draw a monthly book."

With Rob Liefeld replying,

Well, Larry Marder, that's the least he could do considering I was paying him 40,000 dollars an issue. Yes, you read that correctly. I paid Sir Deadline Forty-Grand an issue for pencils and inks plus cover. He had to take an inker to cover the schedule so it went down slightly. Sigh. Poor baby.

Still, I did message Platt about Soul Saga. No response yet – or to any of Liefeld's posts, He may just be taking the high road.