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John Byrne

Started by inovrmihd,

38 posts in this topic

Alex B

Alex B

Posted
Posted

I believe my feelings towards Byrne are due to my age (born in the early 70s) as most of my friends from the same generation share them : in our childhood, Byrne was "the god of comics". No one else had the same effect on us : we had to get EVERYTHING by Byrne and the more we saw, the more we wanted. I don't know of any artist who was involved in so many of the classic runs of my generation : Iron Fist, Marvel Team Up, X-Men, Avengers, Captain America, Fantastic Four, Superman, Alpha Flight, etc. We even loved his short runs on Hulk, The Champions, West Coast Avengers and the single issues he did for Daredevil, Amazing Spider-Man, etc.

Most of his work may not have aged well but the nostalgia prevents fans like me to be objective about it. Obviously we've come to love other comic artists but he still is and always will be our childhood hero.

 

To answer the questions at the beginning of this thread :

- most of his style might have been inspired by his peers but he brought a unique slickness and dynamism to his pages. He was definitely the flavor of the day but a day that lasted for more than 10 years.

- I would not compare him to McFarlane except in the way they were both, at the height of their popularity, the absolute biggest stars in comics . Did not like McF's run on either Spider-Man nor Spawn as I did not like the stories : tried to read them again recently but I simply could not make it. Including Hulk, McF did only 3 famous runs, can't compete with Byrne in that way either. I know the question is art related but Byrne knew how to write and that makes a huge difference.

- But if i was the curator of a museum, I would not spend too much time on Byrne : compared to the Kirby, Dikto, Miller, etc. he has not left enough historic achievements imho. He should definitely take a big part of the mid 70s-mid 80s but not in the big picture.

- I believe only people from my generation will care about his work in 20 years, mostly X-Men and FF.

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Bronty

Bronty

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Posted
I believe my feelings towards Byrne are due to my age (born in the early 70s) as most of my friends from the same generation share them : in our childhood, Byrne was "the god of comics". No one else had the same effect on us : we had to get EVERYTHING by Byrne and the more we saw, the more we wanted. I don't know of any artist who was involved in so many of the classic runs of my generation : Iron Fist, Marvel Team Up, X-Men, Avengers, Captain America, Fantastic Four, Superman, Alpha Flight, etc. We even loved his short runs on Hulk, The Champions, West Coast Avengers and the single issues he did for Daredevil, Amazing Spider-Man, etc.

 

You're very right about that, its easy to forget but he had a tremendous output at the time. Serious workhorse for quite some years. I wonder if he wasn't a little burnt out by it in the end.

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Silver Surfer

Silver Surfer

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Here is an interesting question, what character do you feel that Byrne excelled at drawing? For me its the brief work on Captain America, first with the Hyde/Battroc arc and then of course the Baron Blood arc which was epic. Thoughts? Of course the X-Men work is right up there as well.

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seanfingh

seanfingh

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Here is an interesting question, what character do you feel that Byrne excelled at drawing? For me its the brief work on Captain America, first with the Hyde/Battroc arc and then of course the Baron Blood arc which was epic. Thoughts? Of course the X-Men work is right up there as well.

 

Iron Fist and Sasquatch. His Hulk was also epic.

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Koa

Koa

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I believe my feelings towards Byrne are due to my age (born in the early 70s) as most of my friends from the same generation share them : in our childhood, Byrne was "the god of comics". No one else had the same effect on us : we had to get EVERYTHING by Byrne and the more we saw, the more we wanted. I don't know of any artist who was involved in so many of the classic runs of my generation : Iron Fist, Marvel Team Up, X-Men, Avengers, Captain America, Fantastic Four, Superman, Alpha Flight, etc. We even loved his short runs on Hulk, The Champions, West Coast Avengers and the single issues he did for Daredevil, Amazing Spider-Man, etc.

Most of his work may not have aged well but the nostalgia prevents fans like me to be objective about it. Obviously we've come to love other comic artists but he still is and always will be our childhood hero.

 

To answer the questions at the beginning of this thread :

- most of his style might have been inspired by his peers but he brought a unique slickness and dynamism to his pages. He was definitely the flavor of the day but a day that lasted for more than 10 years.

- I would not compare him to McFarlane except in the way they were both, at the height of their popularity, the absolute biggest stars in comics . Did not like McF's run on either Spider-Man nor Spawn as I did not like the stories : tried to read them again recently but I simply could not make it. Including Hulk, McF did only 3 famous runs, can't compete with Byrne in that way either. I know the question is art related but Byrne knew how to write and that makes a huge difference.

- But if i was the curator of a museum, I would not spend too much time on Byrne : compared to the Kirby, Dikto, Miller, etc. he has not left enough historic achievements imho. He should definitely take a big part of the mid 70s-mid 80s but not in the big picture.

- I believe only people from my generation will care about his work in 20 years, mostly X-Men and FF.

 

Having come into comics the generation after Byrne's real peak in popularity I think his Uncanny X-men stuff has aged very well, even though characters in civilian garb are very much of the late 70's/early 80's. Byrne's visual storytelling and portrayals of the characters are great. What John has going for his stuff in longevity that Mcfarlane's Spider-man doesn't are the stories in those X-men comics. David Micheline's writing was mediocre, Claremont was not at that time.

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chromium

chromium

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Here is an interesting question, what character do you feel that Byrne excelled at drawing? For me its the brief work on Captain America, first with the Hyde/Battroc arc and then of course the Baron Blood arc which was epic. Thoughts? Of course the X-Men work is right up there as well.

 

Doc Doom, his FF run, especially the Doom issues were excellent.

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vaillant

vaillant

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Posted
Here is an interesting question, what character do you feel that Byrne excelled at drawing? For me its the brief work on Captain America, first with the Hyde/Battroc arc and then of course the Baron Blood arc which was epic. Thoughts? Of course the X-Men work is right up there as well.

 

I’d take Champions (Champions #13 shows a John Byrne, inked by Bob Layton, truly in "state of grace", the Avengers run, early (very early) Fantastic Four (not those written by him), and then the Captain America, yes. (thumbs u

All of those are very high quality, awesome, although he never learned to draw children… :(

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vaillant

vaillant

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Having come into comics the generation after Byrne's real peak in popularity I think his Uncanny X-men stuff has aged very well, even though characters in civilian garb are very much of the late 70's/early 80's. Byrne's visual storytelling and portrayals of the characters are great. What John has going for his stuff in longevity that Mcfarlane's Spider-man doesn't are the stories in those X-men comics. David Micheline's writing was mediocre, Claremont was not at that time.

 

Having come into comics way before Byrne’s real peak (which I have read as an adult) I think he just suffered from rushing up his work a bit, here and there.

As for the garb, it‘s clear that you should expect those reflecting the time the stories had been drawn in.

Michelinie’s writing was quite good on ASM, but was nothing short of excellent on earlier Avengers, incidentally those were drawn by Byrne… :)

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Koa

Koa

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You know, I really liked Byrne's Alpha Flight . . .

 

Me too. The linework was perfect on newsprint. A lot of 80's art loses it's magic of better paper, wonder how this would fair?

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pinupcartoonguy

pinupcartoonguy

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You know, I really liked Byrne's Alpha Flight . . .

 

Me too. The linework was perfect on newsprint. A lot of 80's art loses it's magic of better paper, wonder how this would fair?

 

I think Bob Wiacek was one of the more underrated inkers of the '80s.

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