Rob Liefeld quietly broke the comic book industry system this week, releasing a brand new book, Last Blood #1, via a stream on WhatNot, a new platform that combines live streaming with a marketplace that specializes in selling collectibles. He’s also bypassed crowdfunding using this route for a book, marking an innovation for the industry as the Last Blood release saw only a handful of copies going to rabid collectors.
The WhatNot stream had Rob Liefeld at his most energetic. Viewers could see his enthusiasm as he talked up the comic, generated sales, and enjoyed himself by interacting with fans directly, something very few comic creators do. The livestream had hundreds of viewers, and they were ready to open their wallets for this project.
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Very little is known about Rob Liefeld’s Last Blood comic, with Liefeld stating on the live stream that he’s shown no preview pages from the issue to deliver a complete surprise to readers. This is another unusual tactic in the modern comic industry, as most books are sent with multiple preview pages, spoiling a lot of their content prior to release. Many pros and fans alike have lamented a lack of surprise in comic books, which Last Blood promises to deliver.
The information on the book and release were given only a few days in advance, as Rob Liefeld tweeted, “LAST BLOOD #1 coming this week! Available EXCLUSIVELY through my #whatnot livestream. 50 unsigned copies and 50 signed copies will be available at launch with this launch cover. Various Variant covers will be available as well. 28 brand new full color pages of story & art by me. Preview pages of issue #2 featured in the back. Follow me on #whatnot to be notified.”
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Rob Liefeld talked about his Last Blood comic on his podcast for avid listeners to be prepped for the launch, but he truly announced the book on January 16th, posting “Get ready for this,” to X along with a logo for the book.
In a brief interview with comicbook.com, he explained the process. “”The truth of the matter is, I just wanted to tell a story,” Rob Liefeld said. “I wanted to tell a story that I could just do whatever I wanted. It didn’t even feel like Image Comics. Image Comics had a system that we fed. I’m just drawing these pages with some familiar characters, some new characters, and the story is starting to take on a life of its own and it’s talking to me. I was really going to make it only 23 pages, and then I made it 28 pages because when you’re printing to order, a 24 page signature is way more affordable than a 32 page signature. But I went, no, I’m going bigger. I’m going bigger because I’m going to keep telling this story. Then you send it to the printer and you go, ‘Is anyone going to want even buy this?'”
Fans were delighted at both Liefeld’s entertainment on the live stream and the prospect of getting a new comic. The standard editions being sold went for $50 and sold out almost immediately on the livestream. Toward the end of the WhatNot stream, Rob Liefeld offered more books in limited variant editions, which were going via auction for hundreds of dollars apiece.
Some fans were sad at not being able to get books, but Liefeld says more are on the way. He tweeted, “Waking up from an incredible launch night on @Whatnot. Thank you to everyone who showed up, participated and SOLD OUT our entire print run. Going back to press this weekend. Thank you!”
This tweet was followed up by letting fans know Last Blood’s limited supply was a matter of printer expediency, saying, “The printer worked overtime to deliver us as many copies of LAST BLOOD as possible for our launch week and still we couldn’t meet demand. Lots of messages like this. More editions, new copies are on the way.”
Regardless, the WhatNot experiment in selling Last Blood #1 was a huge success for Rob Liefeld and his team, marking a new way to sell comics in a setting like an intimate comic convention brought right to your living room. Last Blood is slated to be a four-issue miniseries, and Rob Liefeld has said that issue #2 is only six weeks behind the first.
What do you think of Rob Liefeld using WhatNot to launch his new comic Last Blood? Leave a comment and let us know.
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