Thursday, July 06, 2006
John Byrneday -- As noted at The Comics Reporter, today is John Byrne's birthday. While my loathing of Byrne's public persona runs back decades, on this, his special day, I thought I would salute the enduring things about Byrne that I actually enjoy.
- The Art of John Byrne -- A long out-of-print trade paperback that featured copious sketches, black and white illustrations and a wordless short story that features Byrne's favourite character -- himself -- in a well-drawn wish-fulfillment sci-fi fantasy involving a naked girl.
- Uncanny X-Men #108-143 -- The crowning achievement in Byrne's career as a corporate comics superhero artist. Memorable for Byrne's attention to detail and disciplined page and panel design, and crucially abetted by inker Terry Austin. Austin's meticulous, steady style is 180 degrees from Byrne's organic cartooning, and for this brief season, which coincided wonderfully with my adolescent immersion in comic book art, they could do no wrong.
- Doomsday+1 -- This Charlton series (reprinted by Fantagraphics (!) as Doomsday Squad) was an early indicator of Byrne's artistic origins (his desire to be Neal Adams was never more obvious than here) and his eventual growth. The art is rough but wildly enthusiastic, and it's always interesting to me to see how many starting adventure comic artists' styles seem to resemble the work Byrne was doing here.
- Next Men -- A still, I think, underrated (if flawed) superhero comic Byrne did for Dark Horse under the abortive wanna-be-Image Legend imprint (which also gave us Hellboy). I know the occasional Byrne effort since then has had its minor charms, but for my money, Next Men was the last Byrne comic book that was created with discipline, skill and a love of comics. I've often said that everything else Byrne has created since has been revenge on the marketplace for the failure of this series, and I continue to believe there's more than a grain of truth to that.
A good place to start, if you're interested in great John Byrne comics, is the recent Marvel hardcover Uncanny X-men Omnibus, which reprints a good chunk of the Byrne/Austin artistic era (a second volume would complete it, and is most welcome as far as I am concerned). Yes, it's $100.00 bucks, but it reprints something like 40 issues, many of which you would pay that individually for. Additionally, it's on great paper stock and includes the original letters pages, which are kind of a treat to see in print again.
Also of great historical value, if you can track it down, is the Comics Journal issue (#57) that featured a long interview with John Byrne. Byrne weighs in, among other topics, on how Bob Layton's inking made male characters look "queer," according to both Byrne and his dad. After that revelation, well over two decades ago, nothing else the guy has said can really be a surprise, can it?
A great place to track Byrne's latter-day shenanigans is the permanent John Byrne thread at The V Forum. And for biographical information, go to The John Byrne page at Wikipedia. Byrne's online discussion forum is at Byrne Robotics, but beware, only sycophantic groupthink is tolerated for any length of time.
Update: In perhaps the most beautiful coincidence ever noticed on this blog, it's also George W. Bush's birthday. What is the connection, you ask? Well, as a Canadian, Byrne will also never legally be elected President of the United States.
// posted by Alan David Doane @ 7:20 AM [LINK TO THIS]
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5 Comments:
Good overview, Alan, but what about Byrne's run on Fantastic Four? I would put that on any "best of Byrne" list.
That didn't take long. :)
Byrne's FF was welcome and refreshing in its day mostly because FF had sucked so badly since Kirby left the title. He brought energy and his own vision to the book, but I don't think it holds up today in comparison to the works I cited; obviously, your mileage may vary.
That said, I would pay big money for a hardcover collecting all of Byrne's run on Marvel Team-Up. Some beautiful stuff in there.
Yeah, if I didn't mention it, I'm sure someone else would have. Well, I admit its been a long time since I've read any of Byrne's FF, so I really can't comment on how well it holds up today, but I do remember that one of my favorite Byrne stories of all time was the FF issue where the little kid idolized the Human Torch so much he burned himself, and the Torch ended up quitting the FF. Don't remember what issue that was, but the fact that I still remember it all these years later makes it a classic in my mind, anyway.
I definitely agree with what you said about his FF run, ADD. I bought a big chunk of it really cheap when Action Man went out of business and was kind of scratching my head at what all the fuss was about. Not that it wasn't good, but FF fans talk about it like it was gold.
The only Byrne series I ever really got into was Namor. Out of all the series he's written, it was the only one I found engaging. Unless the character suddenly experiences a popularity spurt, I doubt they'll ever be collected in a trade, but if it happens I'd gladly pick it up.
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