>Then in October, Liefeld accomplished something that had escaped him for decades: securing the movie and publishing rights to Youngblood under one roof. It was a personal victory, as it was the very first comic published by Image Comics, the company Liefeld co-founded with other superstar artists who defected from Marvel in the early 1990s.

>To make the deal, Liefeld made peace with Scott M. Rosenberg, a publisher and producer whose claim to fame was turning an obscure black and white indie comic titled Men in Black into a hit Will Smith movie. Rosenberg also held certain rights to Young Blood creations, a point that bedeviled Liefeld for years. With that issue settled, Liefeld and Rosenberg then teamed with producer Adrian Askarieh to begin setting up the IP. The trio took meetings at CAA, WME, UTA and Range Media in October, hyping the title as the last great superhero comic that isn’t taken. The trio ultimately signed with CAA for the endeavor.

>Those two developments are on top of the royalties Liefeld enjoys from the surge of Deadpool’s popularity. Liefeld has a deal unique among creators of Marvel and DC characters. Some enjoy royalties for certain books or receive discretionary bonuses for movie or TV usage from the companies (Marvel pays some creators $5,000 for character’s a movie appearance, for example). But Liefeld receives payment any time Deadpool appears onscreen, in merch, in video games and in comics. It’s a deal that not even Stan Lee, the late co-creator of Spider-Man and Iron Man, benefited from. Nor Jim Starlin, co-creator of Thanos, Gamora and Shang-Chi, or Todd McFarlane, co-creator of Venom.

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Deadpool Creator Rob Liefeld’s Very Good, Very Lucrative Year