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Post by LovesGilKane on Aug 1, 2017 11:34:50 GMT -5
CC, big yes on the comparision with Cockrum, and everythig else.
adamwarlock2099, well, Byrne's had a long go at this, in print longer than some members here have been alive. i get what you're saying, but the same could be (and has been) said of Kirby, Infantino, Kane and others.
that pic you chose is, frankly, from a 'trough' in his canon. but to each their own, horses-for-courses. i still scowl when showing old Srarlin stuff to ppl and they whine 'it's toooo distorrrrrted'.... which was half the charm.
As for She Hulk/Shulkie, i dunno if i agree; the layouts were right but maybe Cockrum pencils inked by grainger circa 1977 would have been better, or Leinil Yu, or even a 'wishful thinking' more mellow Brunner. Don Newton inked by Nebres? that would have been nice!
I can't fault most of his FF because it tried to reclaim the Stan/Jack 1964-1969 days.
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Aug 1, 2017 12:37:16 GMT -5
I recognize his talent as an artist. It's just not to my taste. And I am one of those people that is mostly not a fan of Kirby's either. I like a lot what I have seen of Infantino and Kane, so I guess I see your point of someone not understanding disliking Byrne's art.
And yes, I realize that is like the Cap America picture everyone likes to bring out to pick on Liefield. I actually got really more accustomed to his art in FF over Sensational She-Hulk. I think the cosmic aspect of FF fit Bryne's style more that a sexy muscular green gal. (Which I had already previewed in FF before I ever discovered Sensational She-Hulk.) However the stories and comedy in the series were a great fit for his writing. I'd take a Leinil Yu She Hulk. Though to be honest I wished Juan Bobillo and Marcelo Sosa never left doing She-Hulk.
If anything I wouldn't have Terrax if not for Byrne, so in any event he's a-okay.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Aug 1, 2017 15:58:00 GMT -5
Yeah, John Byrne. I never quite got it. He's certainly a decent artist.p Two words: Terry Austin. Austin was the reason Byrne's artwork was tolerable during the height of his popularity during the X-Menrun; without Austin, Byrne's leanings--the facial smirks/dimples, broad hairy chests, similar bodies for almost all characters was nothing great or groundbreaking. I've always believed you can always separate the great artists from the average by the ability to produce excellent work with or without a great inker (or any inker, for that matter). I've never considered Byrne to be one of those artists with that talent. I'm not sure what that other member meant, but Erica Henderson is not to my taste, as her work is just so far removed from the standard within the genre she's dealing with. It's like Harvey Comics or Marvel's old STAR imprint line for children. Curious--why do you find work from the "Neal Adams school" alienating? Note: I'm really not super knowledeable about inkers and inking, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. Still, these converseations are probably really good practice for me.  I definitely like John Byrne better when he's not inking himself, and the stuff that I immediately think of when I hear John Byrne is Terry Austin, so I'm not completely disagreeing... but there were some other Byrne inkers I liked. I'm at the public library and they have a really good comics collection, so I've got hardcovers of Byrnes's Captain America and Marvel Team-Up and Days of Future Past stuff in front of me. I REALLY did Joe Robinstein inking Byrne on Cap 253 and 254 which is a spooky vampire story - he adds a lot to the mood and does a good spooky, shadowy vampire. He's not as good on the other issues which are straight superhero but he's definitely not BAD. The Marvel TEam-Up stuff (I HEART Marvel Team-Up) is a mixed bag, inking-wise. A lot of Dave Hunt who is... generally fine but sometimes really, really good.  It's a little thing, but I especially dig what Hunt does with Tigra's hair. A mass of curls that kind of turn into darkness in the center. (But this is by far his best issue. Usually he's.... generally fine.) And Tony Dezuinga on the Havock/Thor chapter... Holy $%^& %^%$! This is great! Did Dezuinga do anything else with Byrne? Freaking Wow!  I think Austen was the most consistently great inker who worked with Byrne long term, but he wasn't the only great Byrne inker. So I'm not sure I can give him that much credit for Byrne's success. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 1, 2017 17:01:41 GMT -5
I'm quite shocked at the disrespect being shown John Byrne. He was the biggest thing in the late 70's to late 80's. He literally was given Superman to do what he wished, THAT'S how big he was. I will agree that now , he's not employable and his stupid comments over the years have hurt him, but his legacy as one of the greats is secured.
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Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on Aug 1, 2017 18:14:31 GMT -5
I'm quite shocked at the disrespect being shown John Byrne. He was the biggest thing in the late 70's to late 80's. He literally was given Superman to do what he wished, THAT'S how big he was. I will agree that now , he's not employable and his stupid comments over the years have hurt him, but his legacy as one of the greats is secured. His work in the 70's and early 80's was solid, and some of it was excellent. But the more popular he became, and the more power he was given as a result, the more his idiocy came through in his work. I'm not sure I've read anything he did after 1986 or so that I think holds up today, with the exception of Batman/Captain America. I liked his FF at the time and some of it is still cool now, but I think Byrne did his best work when he was collaborating with someone who could temper his tendency towards crap. And his West Coast Avengers is a complete travesty. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 1, 2017 18:57:17 GMT -5
I'm quite shocked at the disrespect being shown John Byrne. He was the biggest thing in the late 70's to late 80's. He literally was given Superman to do what he wished, THAT'S how big he was. I will agree that now , he's not employable and his stupid comments over the years have hurt him, but his legacy as one of the greats is secured. His work in the 70's and early 80's was solid, and some of it was excellent. But the more popular he became, and the more power he was given as a result, the more his idiocy came through in his work. I'm not sure I've read anything he did after 1986 or so that I think holds up today, with the exception of Batman/Captain America. I liked his FF at the time and some of it is still cool now, but I think Byrne did his best work when he was collaborating with someone who could temper his tendency towards crap. And his West Coast Avengers is a complete travesty. I don't disagree with anything you said, but some of the posts suggest that he was anything other than the top person for a while there. |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Aug 1, 2017 19:10:00 GMT -5
His work in the 70's and early 80's was solid, and some of it was excellent. But the more popular he became, and the more power he was given as a result, the more his idiocy came through in his work. I'm not sure I've read anything he did after 1986 or so that I think holds up today, with the exception of Batman/Captain America. I liked his FF at the time and some of it is still cool now, but I think Byrne did his best work when he was collaborating with someone who could temper his tendency towards crap. And his West Coast Avengers is a complete travesty. I don't disagree with anything you said, but some of the posts suggest that he was anything other than the top person for a while there. Yeah I agree, I just don't get why. Your Kirbys, Ditkos, Adams, Perezs, Kanes all were doing something way different than their contemporaries. I'm not a huge Adams fan, but he was approaching comic storytelling in a way that no other comic artist before him did. His work was a lot more highly rendered (not realistic, per se, but less cartoony), he was better than anyone else in comics at the time at conveying extreme emotions, and he was doing some crazy page layouts at a time when everybody-except-Steranko-and-Colan was doing basic grids. I get why he's incredibly influential. Even, say, Rob Leifeld, I see how why his stuff would look badass to a 14 year old in 1991. He had an extremely limited skill, but his stuff was high energy and didn't look line anyone else's. I'm not surprised that he couldn't maintain his popularity, but I see why his work was really popular in the early '90s. John Byrne didn't seem (to me) to be doing anything particularly special. He's GOOD at what he does, but his work isn't particularly unique (or at least I can't figure out how.) All the other super popular comic artists tended to be unique stylists... Byrne was one of (maybe the) best Kirby/Adams style artist, but his stuff just didn't look all that different from the rest of the late '70s early '80s superhero artists. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 1, 2017 19:18:53 GMT -5
Okay, I see your point, he wasn't original in his artwork , but I would say that George Perez wasn't either. I'm guessing that added more to the comics than just being an " art Robot" like he says these days.
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Post by batusi on Aug 1, 2017 19:48:29 GMT -5
I'm quite shocked at the disrespect being shown John Byrne. He was the biggest thing in the late 70's to late 80's. He literally was given Superman to do what he wished, THAT'S how big he was. I will agree that now , he's not employable and his stupid comments over the years have hurt him, but his legacy as one of the greats is secured. When I was reading Marvel Comics in the late 70's/80's I wished every book was drawn by Byrne, that's how good he was. I don't mean any disrespect by commenting on his later art style/declining work (IMO), doesn't take away from how good he was in the past. I haven't kept up on his "stupid comments" or feuds with Marvel/DC, but heard enough to know that he has only hurt himself in the industry. |
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Post by batusi on Aug 1, 2017 19:53:52 GMT -5
Byrne was one of (maybe the) best Kirby/Adams style artist, but his stuff just didn't look all that different from the rest of the late '70s early '80s superhero artists. I totally disagree, he may have been influenced by Kirby/Adams but Byrne had his own distinct style. |
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Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on Aug 1, 2017 20:12:00 GMT -5
Mmm, I think the Kirby/Adams comparison is a pretty good one, to my eye anyway. Byrne was really good at taking the core of the house style of Marvel superheroics codified by Kirby and Buscema and giving it a more detailed stylistic overlay like Adams. I think the George Perez comparison is apt, because I think he did the same thing, and it explains why the two were two of the biggest, most popular artists for their time period from the late 70's through the 80's.
I'll definitely take Perez's oeuvre over Byrne's, though.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Aug 1, 2017 20:15:08 GMT -5
Byrne was one of (maybe the) best Kirby/Adams style artist, but his stuff just didn't look all that different from the rest of the late '70s early '80s superhero artists. I totally disagree, he may have been influenced by Kirby/Adams but Byrne had his own distinct style. Yeah, I can recognize his stuff. Let me rephrase: I don't think he had any particular skills than none of his peers had, and I don't think he was doing anything unique in terms of storytelling or formal design or how panels are placed on a page - and most of the "most popular of their generation" type artists also had some skills that NOBODY else at the time had. Ditko is still the best surrealist in mainstream comics, ever. Perez still puts more detail in his stuff, and has almost pointalistic page design skills, where he can make a cool image out of a bunch of little parts. Alex Ross is the most photorealistic of superhero artists. Jim Lee... puts lots of little lines all over everything for no reason, but nobody else was putting a bunch of little lines all over everything when Jim Lee came out. (And I guess the 14 year olds thought it looked cool?) So that is unique! I don't see any specific elements of Byrne's style that was unique to him. Another note: I think John Byrne fans tend to be superhero fans (almost) exclusively more than general comics people, too. And I'll read anything (Seriously, I spent yesterday reading '50s Rex the Wonder Dog.) So maybe I'm just not in the right mindset. |
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Post by LovesGilKane on Aug 2, 2017 0:52:28 GMT -5
Byrne stated in the early '80's Kirby's layout was a massive influence, but also that in terms of finished-art, manga/anime was as well, which i feel can still be seen in his early I.F. work.
I love the Austin inking on him up until his final x-men issue, but many times, i prefer Hunt inking him.
how do people here feel about his work on 'Hidden Years'?
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Post by batusi on Aug 2, 2017 5:02:18 GMT -5
I never read Hidden Years, but have seen the interior art. Not his best work, not even Tom Palmer inking helped.
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Post by MDG on Aug 2, 2017 6:42:13 GMT -5
Byrne was also the co-plotter and artist on X-Men when it was The Biggest Thing In Comics. It's very possible that if he hadn't gotten that book, his reputation wouldn't be near as big as it was.
Again, not a Byrne fan, but I found X-Men pretty much unreadable after he left.
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