I used to post on the board that preceded Byrne Robotics. I believe it was called the Unofficial Byrne Fan Site. It was run by a Swedish guy named Magnus. This was a long time ago. I started posting there before the first issue of X-Men: Hidden Years was published. Anyone, I think Byrne would much better received by fans and enjoy his career more if he didn't get so angry over every little thing and chill out. Like with this thread. I am loving these X-Men pages he's doing for fun. It's the most excited I've been about John Byrne art in a long time. And it seems to me that the reception is overwhelmingly positive. But it seems that as the thread progresses Byrne is complaining more and more (seemingly most about comments supposedly made on other website). Dude, people are saying lots of nice things about you! Accept it. Don't keep looking for fights.

That's why I left that old Byrne site. I'm a fan, and it was cool place to discuss with others. But it actually got to be a lot less fun when Byrne himself showed up. Yes, sycophancy became the rule, as many people walked on eggshells as not to offend Byrne. Others in turn lashed out at his attitude. It became an area in which the scope of P.C. opinions was limited. Once I expressed a sort of critical opinion. It was something pretty mainstream; I believe I said that I preferred his art on his original X-Men run to Hidden Years, and gave a couple reasons why. I didn't feel I was being rude, because I wasn't replying to him (just posting on the thread for the topic), and wasn't attacking his character. I was just expressing a personal art preference. Byrne actually replied to me to tell me I knew nothing about art.

I mean Byrne has preferences regarding his own work. He has expressed negative feelings about his Alpha Flight run (although that's really about running out of ideas for writing it rather than the art). Heaven forbid I should also rank one of his works above another of his works. 

But again, I love the pages he's drawing in that thread now.

I'll enjoy it while I can I suppose. I have seen him be kind, funny, charming... everyone is a mixed bag, and hopefully a work in progress. I hope I never stop being able and open to learn and see different perspectives anyway. Words on screens are tricky things, you're bring your own things to them as well as what the other person is trying to bring. I used to be all for proper English online and not the kind of U for you and LOL sloppy and frankly boring thing, and yet I find I actually need smileys, frownies and crying emoticons somewhat now and then (or without them be even more long-winded and trying of patience than I already am).

Even face to face people can misread each other, actually isn't that was Aspberger's Syndrome or other forms of autism causes? We all have blind spots and becoming aware of your own is a big plus and will help you. It's also because we all have them that we do need each other. It could be he has in addition to amazing abilities to communicate through comic stories a few blind spots someplace else. I had a blind spot in visualizing and drawing three-dimensionally, failed a drafting class spectacularly, but I became aware of the contours of it from what I was so obviously missing, and with other artists letting me see their earliest works before they were brilliant, and John Byrne has been notably free in that stuff being out there, where others want to suppress all their early stuff... I found reason to hope I could learn. I've seen him criticize his own work past and present too, and I'm like that myself, and if I'm honest there's an aspect of that where on the positive side you can learn in leaps and bounds by not being too tied in with it being a part of you, but in that it's pre-emptive in being my own worst critic I am stopping someone else from doing that and getting into a thing with another person.

So... I think while you can say something serious constructive about someone's/Byrne's work, it's obvious too that well, they/he don't really need it! Yes, they/he might share and show their work to huge numbers of people, obviously there are a lot of people who will enjoy it and want it, but they aren't really looking for the critique and I don't know how you know who is like that? I will admit I am. If I put something out there I brace for the worst and hope for the best, sort of say goodbye to it. I am neither believing in fanatical praise nor severe dissection.

I had someone review something in print which I had worked on once who got everything so wrong it was laughable. I started to reply to them and then stopped. I decided what they'd written could speak for itself to those who would know the difference, and to anyone else they'd probably not be too interested in someone having a war of words with the critic (the can't do it themselves type after all too, so kind of a fight with the unarmed man, which is why he got so many things wrong, from not knowing how the work is done and under what conditions).

At this point I have gotten positive things over the years from John Byrne and his work. If it goes sour where he says off with her head or something I'm kind of fore-warned and will be sad but try to understand. Take whatever bad with the good which is very good. From things I've learned about how artists and writers have been treated by these comic companies and editors I am not surprised there is bitterness. I am reading a book about Bo Diddley mostly in his own words, and there is a large aspect of the exact same things about record labels and production people there. I love Bo Diddley's recordings, and I love John Byrne's comics from Wheelie & The Chopper Bunch and Rog 2000 up to Assignment Earth and Doom Patrol at least! He doesn't really know me or you or even some person in a line-up at a convention, so is it really me/you/them if he does snap at us? And I have seen fans deliberately push buttons and be rude and I'm not sure why, makes them feel part of things even if it's negative? Mike Grell once dumped a drink all over someone who apparently said something to him about being a poor Neal Adams. You get to meet someone and that's what you say to them? C'mon.

I'm sure I'm just a tiny brick in the wall.

Byrne probably read various posts I made, but there were probably only one or two direct interactions with replies between him and me. The interaction was almost 20 years ago (time flies!!!), so my recollection is a bit foggy. For instance, there's a comment that I think he made about me but it's possible he just made about other people. I suspect it was actually both (said to me, but also repeated in other rants at "his old stuff was better" fans). He said that fans of his X-Men who aren't as enthusiastic about X:HY aren't really John Byrne fans. They're actually just fans of Terry Austin's inks and don't understand enough about art to realize it. The irony of that attempt at mindreading by Byrne is that my favorite inker on John Byrne's pencils is . . . John Byrne. I'd say my favorite Byrne art are issues of f Alpha Flight and FF that he inked himself. And I'm actually lukewarm on some examples of Terry Austin's inks of seen with other pencilers.

I'm much quieter offline, as well..I encounter more people who 'like stuff I like' online, so it's easier to get into a spirited discussion of page 7 of such and such a Marvel comic from 1976.

It would be interesting to see how the comics and SF legends you mention would have handled an internet forum! Some of them likely wouldn't have bothered. Even Harlan Ellison retreated from the online world, when it got too weird and crazy for him(and that's saying something! )
JB seems to be channeling Al Capp at times, in terms of 'prickliness' towards critics.

He's a guy with his own forum so he can act how he wants on it I guess. Whether you or I think it's right he should I don't know that he would care. I relate to him a lot, must have an inner cranky irritated old dude inside sometimes, especially looking around the internet.