I wouldn’t say it’s infamous, I’d say it’s a cultural artifact of note. It was a bittersweet note: on the one hand, it was mainstream media recognition of comics in a way that really hadn’t been done before. This was a commercial showing a comic artist as being held up as a cool dude, side by side with other hip artist types in the commercial series. He wasn’t being presented as a nerd or loser, but as a guy doing something enviable and awesome, in a commercial directed by one of the hot hip directors of the time.
At the same time, many in comics felt that Liefeld, particularly at that time, was single-handedly damaging and/or destroying the comics medium. Image started with a creator’s right stance, but some of their mouthier members made overtures that writers were unnecessary and that only artists were the guys who paid the bills. Given how Liefeld in particular was a very exaggerated artist with some fairly sizable gaps in his abilities (not how Ed parodizes his style, especially with the tiny feet), that rankled many. By being a very outspoken proponent of Image back in the 1990s (both in badmouthing their former employers as well as promoting themselves), Liefeld gained a very polarizing reputation.
In hindsight, it’s worth noting that we really haven’t seen this approach since. The last time a comics professional really got any sort of exposure like this was when one artist was on MTV’s ‘Real Life’ years ago, afaicr. Liefeld, for his part, at least recognizes who he was and who he is today.
And in answer to codinghorror’s question: NO.
