Los Angeles, CA Jan 13th 2020 – As revealed exclusively with The Hollywood Reporter today, Prolific Comic Book Creator Rob Liefeld, will debut his new characters “THE DEFIANTS” in his first ever NFT drop with MakersPlace on January 20th, 2022. Debuting on the heels of the 30th Anniversary Celebration of Liefeld’s Deadpool, Cable and X-Force, THE DEFIANTS features a disparate collection of Warriors united in defense of humanity.

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“Since I was first tasked with creating all-new worlds and legacies for Marvel Comics, I have desired to use publishing platforms to push the distribution of fresh concepts and characters.” Said Rob Liefeld. “At Marvel i brought Deadpool, Cable and X- Force to life and breathed new life into the X-Men Universe. 30 years ago, I pushed the envelope by creating the launch comic books for an unknown comic imprint named Image Comics, that went on to be one of the largest mainstream comic studios. Those characters, Prophet, Youngblood, Brigade, Avengelyne caught the favor of fans worldwide. Now, 3 decades later, in conjunction with Makers Place, I’m utilizing the platform of NFT’s to launch a new world filled with exciting new faces and legacies. “THE DEFIANTS” is an offbeat concept featuring the wildest characters I’ve ever created; I’m thrilled to share their world in the realm of NFT’s. ”

The exclusive NFT Drop will take place on Thursday 20th January 2021 and begins previews on January 13th at https://makersplace.com/robliefeld/drops/the-defiants/

“We are extremely excited for the chance to work with comic legend Rob Liefeld on his “DEFIANTS” NFT collection — The impact he’s made on comics, art and culture is immeasurable and we are extremely honored for the opportunity to help present his artwork in NFT form for the first time ever, allowing fans a new way to interact with his work and forever preserving his creative legacy. ” – Dannie Chu, CEO of MakersPlace.

The Defiants will be a carbon neutral collection which will be offset using Aerial, a sustainability platform that calculates the carbon emissions based on associated energy use. The offsets will be allocated to high-quality forest conservation projects verified by American Carbon Registry and to emerging technologies such as Charm industrial that capture carbon from biomass waste.

ABOUT MAKERS PLACE
MakersPlace is the premier NFT marketplace for digital art. Launched in 2018, MakersPlace utilizes blockchain technology to facilitate the sale of authentic, original digital artwork, ensuring rarity and ownership for both creators and collectors. MakersPlace has emphasized accessibility since its inception, and has attracted a large mainstream audience as the first NFT marketplace to accept both cryptocurrency (ETH) and non-cryptocurrency (USD) payments, which it facilitates through crypto wallet and credit card transactions, respectively. MakersPlace helped catapult digital art and NFTs onto the global stage, with the historic sale of Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5000 Days for $69.3 million in partnership with Christie’s auction house in March 2021 – the record price for any digital artwork. Our mission is simple: to enable a vibrant future for digital creativity.

ABOUT ROB LIEFELD
Rob Liefeld is a Illustrious comic book Creator, Writer, Artist and Author from Orange County, CA, best known as the creator of everyone’s favorite Merc With A Mouth, Marvel’s “Deadpool”. His 30+ year career spans work on many of the industry’s top-tier comic franchises from both DC and Marvel including the X-Men, Captain America, The Avengers, Spiderman, X-Force, Teen Titans and Hawkman. His big break came in 1991 when Marvel handed him the reins of the ailing New Mutants Franchise. He created dozens of new characters including Domino, Shatterstar, Stryfe, Wildside and Warpath to name just a few but it was his creation of Deadpool, first seen in New Mutants #92, that changed it all. He single handedly reinvigorated the franchise. Deadpool, along with one of Liefeld’s other popular creations, Cable, was spun off when Liefeld created X-Force. X-Force #1 quickly became a runaway hit selling over 5 million copies and still stands as the number #2 highest selling comic book of all time.

Rob returned to Marvel in 2019 with Major X, a six part series that became one of the biggest selling comics of 2019 with multiple reprints of every issue. In 2020, Rob released a highly anticipated G.I Joe comic from Hasbro and IDW, Snake Eyes : Deadgame which became an instant hit and IDW’s biggest selling G.I Joe book in over 20 years. In 2021, Rob and Marvel teamed up to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Deadpool by releasing 30 covers crossing many of Marvel’s biggest heroes with Deadpool and the 30th Anniversary of X-force “X-Force: Killshot” an X-Force one shot bringing the best selling comics original X-Force team back together.

Not content with just conquering the comics world, Rob’s characters have taken over the big screen as well. Deadpool was made into 2 major motion pictures featuring Ryan Reynolds playing the titular character. They shattered box office records making over $1.5 billion dollars worldwide. In 2021, it was announced that PROPHET would be adapted to a major motion picture directed by Sam Hargrave (Extraction) and starring Jake Gyllenhaal as the title character John Prophet. Liefeld will serve as Executive producer.