Because of the short holiday week I haven't had a chance to put together a "Bad Costume" post for today. Instead I recruited my six year old nephew and farmed the assignment out to him after he saw this image in my stack of Bad Image Ninenties Comics:
Since he's just a kid, he used his crayons to mark up the image, but even at that age I think you can see he's already got a better sense of the absurd than the entire Image creative team of the Nineties. So without further ado, I give you my six year old nephew's critique of "Youngblood, Babewatch" archer type person:
(Image and character copyright Rob Liefeld and Image Comics.)
Liefeld’s disproportionate female anatomy aside (she has skeleton-thin arms!), and given her frail composure, how in the world was she able to walk around in those boots? They surely have to weigh more than she does.
My main beef with the costume — no, wait, one of my main beefs — ok, A beef — is the shoulder pads. This is an archer. Ginormous shoulder pads for an archer are a Bad Idea, the bow string would be catching on one or both every draw.
The boots are insane, absolutely. And that tailpipe thing is just bizarre, it looks like someone let Dr. Seuss have an extra go at it before the thing was inked.
I also don’t get the Santa Claus sleeves. None of the rest of the outfit is cloth, just spandex and metal as far as I can tell, and suddenly you have these voluminous billowing sleeves? Are they sewn onto the spandex top, or are they attached to the shoulder pads for some obscure reason?
That’s without getting into the stereotypically bad Image Nineties cliches like the wrestling mask or the lame logo or the thigh pouches or the absurd hair. Ugh. Both as a costume and an illustration, this whole thing makes no sense.
Those Boots!
We need them in HM3 pronto!!!
🙂 Not really.
Well, like, duh…she’s got blades ’cause…well, you never know when a heavily-booted archer babe is gonna need a katana to save the day!
(To say nothing of the GPS device, Purell hand sanitizer and iPhone charger she keeps in the pouches. You need those things!)
Geez! You guys are like, SO dense!
Gene, I agree! I WANT the **** boots in HM!!! If I win the greek contest!
Has anyone else noticed the fact that there’s no bowstring attached to the bow?
I mean granted, that’s just on little aside in the whole outfit from hell we have going on here, but how is she supposed to fire her arrows without a bowstring?
Jeff said…
“My main beef with the costume — no, wait, one of my main beefs — ok, A beef — is the shoulder pads. This is an archer. Ginormous shoulder pads for an archer are a Bad Idea, the bow string would be catching on one or both every draw.”
Errrmmm I don’t think that’s a problem as there is no bowstring to catch on those riduclous shoulder pads!
I think hte boots are the to keep her on the ground otherwise those shoulder pads would act like a hand glider. In anythign more than a light breeze she’d be blown 50 miles away – no great loss
Given that she’s holding the arrow in her right hand but her quiver is over her left shoulder it’s going to be a bit tricky for her to draw an arrow out of that quiver
Jeff – how about an HM3/Liefield contest? Something along the lines of drawing the most bizarre and out of proportion superhero?
If part of the shadows of her arrows are on her thigh, then why do they cast a full shadow down on the…um, well, that’s not a floor or the ground that she’s standing on. I think she is standing on the nothingness that existed or rather didn’t exist before the “big bang” of the birth of the universe.
Well… I’d have to say that that is one of the most disproportionate drawings I’ve ever seen with the most mistakes that a professional can make. I think that the critiques made above really hit the nail on the head. Especially the WTFs on the boobs, the no blades part for the swords, and her head… WOW. When I was 10 I could have done a better job… JUST WOW
yes im so sure your 6 year old nephew came up with that. also the hand holding bow comment is stupid. You can hold a bow like that. Why would you? Who knows. What should have been pointed out is that there is no string for the bow as far as i can tell.
No bowstring
Sword handles with no swords attached
Boots too big to ever be able to move in
Quiver on wrong side for a right handed shooter
Shoulder pads so large that firing a bow at full drawback would be impossible
Yep, this is obviously one of Image’s most famous heroines, Killed Before She Could Do A Damn Thing Girl!
Gero – good call on the quiver placement! Let it never be said that Mr. Liefeld let inconvenient details get in the way of teh awsumness.
@J (#10): I’m not sure which is more impressive, your keen deductive reasoning skills in cleverly ascertaining that the nephew angle was a joke, or your razor-sharp use of the English language. Yes, one CAN hold a bow like that. One can also shove it up one’s bum. The fact remains that no actual archer with two (!) arrows allegedly nocked would grasp a bow with their palm facing AWAY from their body instead of the way an actual human would hold it, palm in.
@Synner (#7): Been there, done that, in hilarious fashion.
Loved this! At first, I was scratching my head about that six-year-old nephew angle, but after the comment about the underwire, knew it was you! Although I’m not an artist, even I know how absurd this looks!
Imagine meeting a Rob Liefeld character in real life. You know how ugly people become when their eyes are too far part?
Kingmonkey: “Imagine meeting a Rob Liefeld character in real life. You know how ugly people become when their eyes are too far part?”
A person would have to be made out of antimatter to have such proportions. No way in heaven or hell could anyone make a woman like that in real life. Scientists all around the world would go insane and commit mass suicide trying to figure this out.
Mr. Q
Take a look at the pattern on the spandex…The white block that runs down the front is not anywhere NEAR centered on the “body”. The headband between the eyes would block peripheral vision. The reason that the boots are so huge is to keep the metal bands around the thighs from clanking together with every step. Clank…clank…clank…
Jeff, I’m curious to know what you think of the costume designs for the main characters in City of Heroes…after reading some of your Liefeld critiques, I noticed that Lord Recluse’s thigh armor would stab him in the hip if he ever bent forward…and Sister Psyche apparently collected her outfit from a thrift store in the red light district.
I am shamed to admit I have never played COH. Bad geek, BAD!
“apparently collected her outfit from a thrift store in the red light district.”
You could probably make a decent origin story out of this.
Jeff,
Why would you expose your six-year-old to Rob Liefeld. Your brother or sister should forbid you from seeing him again, ubless as a good uncle you also show him Perez amd Wolfman. (I know the nephew is a non-real person, because what 6-year-old knows what WTF means.)