I've watched that show 'The Deuce' and I can see that being the case. I also thought his comment had to do with the actress playing Sue Storm in the first couple movies so that maybe it was viewed as a slight to a character he cared about and worked on's image? Now I don't wanna know from the fershlugginer hair.

(edit: to correct sight to slight, and hopefully get fershlugginer right).

Ah, "Prostitutes We've Known and Loved". Now there's a thread the CCF needs.

Probably invoking a reply, "Relevant, once."

I like a lot of his work; but, I noticed the nastier streak, first, in his "A Flame About This High" column, in Next Men; and it started souring me on him as a person.  As time wore on, I found his work increasingly hit or miss, while his public interaction became more poisonous.  In many ways, I think he and Howard Chaykin are much alike, trying to provoke a reaction in people, while also succumbing to ego, though I think Chaykin is a bit more self-aware of his persona.  He's also mellowed quite a bit from his 70s and 80s days (and sobered up); though he still likes to spray a bit of gasoline around (like his recent quotes about American Flagg and likening modern America to Weimar Germany).  Byrne didn't seem so angry when he was younger and it felt like he got crankier as his success grew.

The shame of seeing some of your favorite creators, beyond their work is the often-found revelation that they are a bit of a Richard.  The best is when you find out that they are even nicer than their work suggests and there are far more of those, in my experiences.  You sometimes wish they had comparable economic success, though you then wonder if that might not have taken away some of that niceness.

I've met , and talked to at length , Jim Starlin and Jim Shooter. They were great and friendly , no bad stories to relate. I've had Bryne sign a book, I think and my Brother asked him about about Dr Doom being brought back to life ( he was seemingly killed in Brynes run) and he yelled at him " HE'S DEAD" !  My brother laughed it off and I sort of think that Byrne gets more flack for jokes falling flat, than for being  mean person.

Meanwhile Rob Liefeld gets shit on constantly for his artistic abilities, but apparently he's one of the nicest people around. "Mmmmaaaaaddddddd world..."

I wouldn't have a thing against Liefeld if he drew human bodies something close to real ones rather than negative gender stereotyped often grotesquely massive muscles on the males and broken-backed helium boobs for all the females (he has drawn bodies well sometimes), and if he hadn't been a bad influence on other artists and maybe even other publishers. But I think people get confused thinking they know any of these people really, any of them. I've met various people in-person and had long conversations and exchanges and still don't expect I really know them like I would people in my life every day over years. Ideally criticizing someone's work shouldn't be taken as criticizing them, however and often people criticizing do mix the two things up unfairly, or seem to be looking for any flaw to the point of being very wrong about something in order to make it a flaw. I guess I did it once where I saw Ben Dunn had copied something so obviously straight from John Buscema in How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way, it was in a U.S. Captain Harlock comic (when we couldn't even get the Reiji Matsumoto originals in English, grrr), so I think that's fair to think less of somebody for.

Generally though it's good for creative people to learn that talking back to any critic rarely pays off. You kind of have to leave it up to some fan or other person to make whatever corrections to a mistaken critic than try to do any of it yourself. Even if the critic is so far wrong on understanding how something is produced, just leave them to look ignorant with that, a lot of other people will see it usually. Let it go. The critic that gets it wrong might not even me malicious anyway, and if you do bite their head off or show them up as ignorant you are still going to lose someone over it I think.

Critical and objective thinking is needed to get to be a great artist of any kind. You have to take it or be one of those "I'm as good as/better than (whoever they rate as the worst)" types. Way to aim low! Maybe instead of slamming Rob Liefeld people should have kindly mailed him some Andrew Loomis, Jack Hamm and Burne Hogarth 'how to draw' books that an earlier generation of comic artists learned from and got a good grounding from?

Yeah, I don't buy stuff I don't like and I do remember telling people ranting about Liefeld to just not buy it if they don't like it. But... now I can see how maybe something they did like got remade over in a Liefeld mold! That I can see irking anyone. It's not like his Cyclops or Captain America looked anything like the ones that had existed for decades. Someone might feel the same about Sienkiwicz' extreme stylization being applied to favorite characters and I'd say they would be entitled to feel that, although with Liefeld there's the extreme gender stereotype aspect. If you really like what he does, if you want to imitate him even, fine, but like making Iceman gay if some established characters suddenly have Hulk-sized thighs and all the females tiny heavily lipsticked mouths for no good reason, some people are not going to like it or think that's going in a backward limiting direction. I don't know what it says about him as a person though, no clue. He's as entitled to his audience and whatever success from that as anyone else. I commend him for his taking on the publishing side of things actually, in that he could be a very good example. I don't watch wrestling but I'm not calling for it to be banned.