John Byrne

   

For John Byrne the recipient of the Victoria Cross, see John Byrne

For John Byrne the Scottish artist, see John Byrne

Overview

John Byrne (born July 6, 1950) is a writer and artist of comic books. Byrne is known for his dynamic, flamboyant style of artwork (which has been heavily influenced by Jack Kirby), and also for his often-controversial new perspectives on established comic series, and for his harsh attitude towards criticism.

Byrne was born near West Bromwich, England, but immigrated with his family to Canada in 1958. He attended the Alberta College of Art in Calgary for a few years, where he produced some of his earliest work when he created the superhero Gay Guy for the college newspaper, The Emery Weal. However Byrne and the school eventually realized that his interests lay elsewhere. He made his first professional sale in 1971 to The Monster Times.

In 1974 he got his first assignment with Marvel Comics, in the form of a short story ("Dark Asylum") which eventually appeared in Giant-Sized Dracula #5, a year or so later. Meanwhile, editor Nicola Cuti asked Byrne to do the fan character ROG-2000 for Charlton Comics, and this led to his first full title assignment Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch. Wheelie was followed in short order by Doomsday+1, Space: 1999 and a single issue of Emergency!. He eventually moved on to Marvel Comics and DC Comics where he has handled nearly every major character at one time or another.

Among Byrne's most prominent activites were drawing the X-Men with writer Chris Claremont, writing and drawing an award-winning run on the Fantastic Four, and the 1986 revamp of Superman, The Man of Steel.

He has also produced his own creator-owned projects for Dark Horse Comics, including John Byrne's Next Men, Danger Unlimited, and Babe.

Byrne drew ten weeks of the comic strip Funky Winkerbean while its creator, Tom Batiuk, was recovering from foot surgery.

In addition to his comic book work, Byrne has published three novels: Fearbook, Whipping Boy and Wonder Woman: Gods and Goddesses. He also has short stories in the Hotter Blood and Shock Rock anthologies. Fearbook was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award by the Horror Writers of America as "Best First Novel".

His stepson is comic book artist Kieron Dwyer and they collaborated on stories featuring the character Torch of Liberty, part of the Danger Unlimited universe.

Controversies

John Byrne is perhaps one of the most controversial figures doing mainstream superhero books today. While not as controversial a figure like Dave Sim, his opinions and his work has caused friction between him and comic companies, his peers, and comic fans.

Writing/Retcons/Reboots

One of John Byrne's controversies has been the way he has approached projects. Some feel that Byrne's take on superheroes is somewhat egotistical, and that he puts his own personal vision on corporate characters that, while probably closer to the classic versions, might not be the version readers feel is the best interpretation of the characters.

While Byrne's run on The Fantastic Four and Superman are well regarded, other developments have been mixed. When he returned to Marvel to do the Avengers, he severely altered the status quo of the Vision and the Scarlet Witch, which came after a long run by Steve Englehart, include a 12 issues limited series in what can only be called "Superhero Romance". Byrne's story basically changed the direction of both characters, undoing a lot of what Steve Englehart has established.

Byrne's next controversial reboot was that of the character Etrigan The Demon. The Demon was a character created by Jack Kirby, but had evolved under a lot of other writers, including Alan Moore, Alan Grant, and Garth Ennis. When he first used the character in a run on Wonder Woman, he omitted the rhyme-scheme the demon talked in. Later in the run, he had established a retcon that restored the Demon to the Kirby status quo. This was not well-received by many fans, and subsequently ignored by later writers of the character.

Marvel next had Byrne work on a "Spider-Man: Chapter One" series. Criticism occurred as soon as it started as a series written by Kurt Busiek, Untold Tales of Spider-Man, added events that took place "in-between" classic issues. Fans were upset with Byrne, feeling he was being egotistical. Unlike Byrne's successful Man of Steel series, reviews were mixed, and many of the changes in Chapter One were ignored by subsequent writers.

Recently, DC allowed Byrne do to a reboot of the Doom Patrol. Unlike other reboots, where Byrne would research the past history of a character and write a story in current continuity to change characters, DC is ignoring the past continuity and presenting the characters as if they were appearing for the first time. While this has the advantage of bringing the classic characters back (many had been killed and the basic concept of the team had changed under writers such as Grant Morrison), it has irritated fans of both Grant Morrison's work, as well as continuity-fans whom complain about how the "retconed" Doom Patrol affect plotlines such as that of the Teen Titan's character Beast Boy (who used to be a member of the Doom Patrol).

Byrne has been very critical of the plot-lines of others. His biggest criticism of The X-Men was Chris Claremont's addition to the history of the X-Men villain Magneto. Claremont made Magneto a survivor of the Holocaust. Despite the enormous popularity of that addition to the X-Men mythos, Byrne has stated that he would like to retcon this, but has never been given the opportunity. He specificially ignored these elements of Magneto when writing his Hidden Years series.

From appearances, Byrne's vision mostly matches that of the original creators of a character, or what the characters were like when he read them. Unlike many contemporary creators, who seem to respect the work that other writers have done, Byrne doesn't appear to read or respect much of today's work or appear to be a fan of current writers. It is a possible explaination as why his fan base has shrunk over the years.

Internet Message boards

John Byrne has had controversy on Internet messageboards. Originally, he had a folder on the AOL comics board. However, he came into conflict with a poster who may have allegedly been a sexual predator. However, AOL strictly enforced their terms of service, and when Byrne would speak out about this person, the AOL managers censored him. Byrne left this board.

Byrne next participated on an unofficial site dedicated to him. However, Byrne occasionally came into conflict with others on the Internet, including professional comic writers like Peter David, whom Byrne critized on his message board. When Peter David defended some of John Byrne's inaccurate accusations, Byrne actually threatened to leave unless David left first. After a time, Byrne chose to have another board setup for him.

After a time, that board wasn't enough, so when Byrne setup an official website, he setup a board for himself. Byrne requires people to use their real names, and there have been censorship controversies, where people have been banned under certain circumstances that would not constitute "flaming". Some long-time fans have found this too restrictive. At one point, members discovered that Byrne had "squelched" a posted--hiding the posts existance from other members without banning the offender. This has led to some long-time fans withdrawing their participation in the message board.

External links


Retrieved from "http://www.mywiseowl.com/articles/John_Byrne"

This page has been accessed 217 times. This page was last modified 13:15, 18 Nov 2004. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (see Copyrights for details).