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John Byrne

John Lindley Byrne is a British-born naturalised American author and artist of comic books. Since the mid-1970s Byrne has worked on nearly every major American superhero. His most famous works have been on Marvel Comics’ X-Men and Fantastic Four and the 1986 relaunch of DC Comics’ Superman franchise.

Terrorism

  • The only acceptable response, now that we are officially in a new world, is for the American government to go Old Testament on these motherfuckers. Operation Flaming Sword. Find them and kill them. And kill their wives, their children, their mothers, their fathers, their brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers. Go Super-Israel, and let them know what it feels like to be “at war” with the United States. (2001) http://www.barbelith.com/topic.php?id=3117


The Comics Industry

  • A time machine would come in handy, right about now. Go back about fifteen years and shoot all those people who didn’t listen when I predicted the present state of the industry as the natural outcome of what the industry was doing, or starting to do, then. Basically—we must get the product back into the maximum number of venues, in cheap and accessible packages. Comics are primarily a cyclical fad, and they depend upon new readers being able to spontaneously discover them, on a spinner rack, at the drugstore, or the Mom & Pop, or the grocery story, or the bus depot, etc., etc. As long as new blood has to make a conscious decision to walk into a comic book shop, looking for comics, and as long as the comics we produce continue to be aimed at the wrong audience—witness Gareb Shamus and his insane attempts, of late, to rekindle the speculator mentality!!—the industry has slim hope of recovery, or even survival. (2000) http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=190


  • Face it—for the most part, when you say “comic book professional” what you mean is “unprofessional yahoo who is more concerned with making a name for himself and masturbating all his emotionally retarded fans than paying any attention to the history of the titles, the characters, or the work done by other creators.” (2004) http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3538&PN=1&totPosts=9

  • Get this into your tiny brain: trade paperbacks are not the “future” of this industry. They are another industry entirely, as movies are to TV. And, like movies, they are going to become increasingly dependent upon new material as the prima donnas who work in comics these days increasingly demonstrate themselves incapable of producing their product on schedule—even schedules which, as in this instance, they have set themselves! Go on—continue congratulating these unprofessional elitists for their failures. Pretty soon there will be nothing but trades—and then, without reprint material to fill them up, those will start coming out later and later and later.

    How about if we just think of it this way: PEOPLE WHO MISS DEADLINES ARE LAZY, ARROGANT, UNPROFESSIONAL C*CKS*CKERS WHO ARE IN NO SMALL WAY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEATH OF THE INDUSTRY. AND THE “FANS” WHO SUPPORT THEM ARE BRAINDEAD ELITIST MORONS. (2004) http://fanboyrampage.blogspot.com/2004_12_01_fanboyrampage_archive.html

  • This is exactly what Ayn Rand often goes on about, the “looters”—her word—who expect to be rewarded for not doing the job they have been hired to do. Tell me if you hired someone to build you a house you would be happy if he left off the back wall, as long as he did a good job on the rest of it. (2005) http://fanboyrampage.blogspot.com/2005_04_01_fanboyrampage_archive.html

Marvel Comics and Joe Quesada

  • “I was officially informed yesterday that, despite the fact that they are still profitable, several ‘redundant’ X-titles are being axed,” Byrne told the Comic Wire Wednesday morning. “X-Men: The Hidden Years is one of these, ending with #19. No one at Marvel was able to provide a reasonable explanation of why, in today’s marketplace, profitable books are being canceled. Since I have no interest in working for a company apparently so intent on committing suicide, I have terminated my association with Marvel Comics effective immediately.” (2000) http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/index.cgi?column=comicwire&article=718

  • IF I CAN GO ALL REPUBLICAN FOR A MOMENT, IN QUESADA WE HAVE THE COMIC INDUSTRY EQUIVALENT OF BILL CLINTON. EVERYONE KEPT SAYING CLINTON WOULD “GROW INTO THE OFFICE.” AS HIS LAST DAYS SO CLEARLY DEMONSTRATE, THIS NEVER HAPPENED—HE REMAINED A SMALL-TIME POLITICO, WHO NEVER ESCAPED HIS BUMPKIN BACKGROUND. LIKEWISE, QUESADA—HE IS NOW EIC OF >MARVEL COMICS!!!<, YET HE CONTINUES TO ACT LIKE THE SMALL-PRESS PUBLISHER HE “USED” TO BE.

    “JOEY DA Q” HAS PLACED HIMSELF IN A MOST UNPLEASANT, AND LARGELY INDEFENSIBLE POSITION—WHICH IS WHY HE HAS TO KEEP DEFENDING IT. THERE WERE TOO MANY VARIANTS OF WHY XHY WAS CANCELLED—AND NONE OF THEM JIBED WITH THE FACTS THAT ANY FAN COULD DISCOVER FROM HIM OR HERSELF. IN POLITICS, WHAT QUESADA IS TRYING HERE IS CALLED “THE BIG LIE”—SAY SOMETHING SO OUTRAGEOUS, THAT WHILE YOUR OPPONENTS ARE REELING YOU CAN MOVE ON TO THE NEXT POINT. HE’S SIMPLY NOT VERY GOOD AT IT, SO WE END UP WITH “I DIDN’T SAY WHAT I SAID WHEN I SAID WHAT I DIDN’T SAY.” (2001) http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/rage/98306429253701.htm

Mature Comics

  • I repeat, bullshit. Pull your head out of your ass for a moment and look at this not as a long time comic book reader, but as a civilian. This looks like a comic book, feels like a comic book, smells like a comic book, tastes like a comic book. No “uninitiated” person is going to look at this and think “Ah! This lurid cover illustration indicates this book must be intended for mature readers!” They are going to think “Look what they are selling to my children!!”* And those children are going to think “Co-o-o-o-o-o-ol!!!”

    *And in far too many comic shops around the country, they will be right.

Monthly comics and creator's ability to keep on schedule




Alan Moore

  • Tom Strong and the rest of the ABC bunch leave me cold for a lot of reasons. First—and I realize this is purely subjective, but what isn’t?—I find a smugness, a condescension that reads to me as nostalgia being done by someone who is not in the least bit nostalgic. Almost as if Moore sits down to write and flips his brain 180°, so he’s not really writing what he feels or what he likes, just the exact opposite of what he would usually write.

    Also, there is the whole pastiche/homage/whatever thing. I find this really annoying. Not just when Moore does it. I can look back on elements of my own work and be annoyed at myself for going down that path. I only did it on rare occasions, tho. Moore has turned it into a career. So much so, that in the post-Watchmen era I have trouble calling to mind much that he has done that was not based on someone else’s previous work. I am not the most original guy on the block, but at least when I do Superman, I do Superman.

    I suppose a lot of this could simply be the bad taste his earlier work left for me. All that tearing down and “deconstructionism.” All that revealing of the flaws and feet of clay, not a bit of which has served the industry in any positive way, and, in fact, has left huge scars across it, like the ones left in the landscape by open pit mining.


Grant Morrison


Bob Layton's Inking Style

  • It's kind of difficult to put into words why I don't like Bob Laytons's inking. This is going to sound really silly, but I actually feel physically ill when I look at Bob's stuff. I really do. It's like everything is greasy and slimy. You know those things you can buy that hang from your rear view mirror that are made out of rubber and you touch them and they feel greasy. That's how Bob's stuff looks to me. And all his men are queer. They have these bouffant hairdos and heavy eye make-up and an upper lip with a little shadow in the corner which to me says lipstick. Even the Hulk. I will never forgive him for what he did to the Hulk's face in the annual that we did together. A lot of the other stuff I liked, but the Hulk's face, the Angel's face, the Angel, God!I remember my father looking at the stats of the finished inks and there's a shot of the Angel standing there with his hands on his hips saying hello to somebody and my father said, "Well this guy's queer." No, he didn't look queer in the pencils Dad. (Comics Journal #57, interview)

Superman

  • Being an immigrant myself, I have something of an insight, I think, into the way Clark’s mind works. I was born in England, and I am proud of my English heritage (I was also quite a lot older than Kal-El when I left “home,” so my connections would be stronger) but I grew up in Canada and I have lived for the last 25 years in the US, and I don’t ever—ever—feel like a “displaced Englishman.”

    Clark would be proud, too, of his Kryptonian heritage, but later portrayals of him have tried to shoehorn in too much of the pychobabble of adopted children longing for and seeking out their biological parents. Excuse my French, but to me, they fall under the heading of “ungrateful little sh*ts.”

    Clark grew up as human, thinks as a human, reacts as a human. He lives and loves as a human. And that is what really defines him. (2005) http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:8t86LGIIFloJ:www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp%3FTID%3D4114%26PN%3D2%26totPosts%3D28+adopted+superman+ungrateful+%22john+byrne%22&hl=sv&gl=se&ct=clnk&cd=1

On Neil Gaiman (After Gaiman Announced His Next Work Would Be a Re-Vamp of Kirby’s ‘The Eternals’)

  • When working with existing “franchises,” any good writer will return to the source material from time to time, to see if s/he can divine from that work something that might have been missed before. This is true whether the work is good, bad, or indifferent. The best place to start, however, no matter what the context, is not by saying “the creator didn’t get it right.” That’s the worst kind of hubris. I have been pilloried for my work on Superman, Spider-Man, Doom Patrol, and in the early days even FF and X-Men, yet I have never once said the creators of those series/characters “didn’t get it right.” It disgusts me not only to read Gaiman saying this—about Jack Kirby of all people!—but to see the cartwheels people are willing to turn in order to make his words seem other than what they are. Apparently, dissing one of the greatest talents this industry has produced is okay, as long as you’re on the Approved List. Next, how Eisner screwed up the Spirit, and Lee and Ditko on Spider-Man—what the heck were they thinking?? Maybe you should keep in mind, then, that the only person who knows if a creator “got it right” is the creator himself. Unless Kirby told Gaiman he felt he didn’t “get it right” on The Eternals, it’s pretty f***ing arrogant of Gaiman to make such a statement. “Kirby didn’t get it right, and I probably won’t either” sound like it should read “I don’t want to do this series.” (2006) http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=12952&PN=2&TPN=2

Regarding Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s version of Thor

  • As I have noted elsewhere, and with the clarity of hindsight, I think Stan and Jack made a mistake when they decided to make Thor the “real” Thor. “Whosoever holds his hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor(r)!” That was really all I needed to know. But, of course, the rest of the Norse mythology began appearing early on, so it was only natural (if a tad anal) that fans should start writing in wondering what had happened to the real Thor. (2007) http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=20511&PN=1&TPN=3

On Taking Comics Back to the Basics; ‘Rewinding’ or ‘Resetting’ to the Status Quo

  • ...were I in charge of either of the Big Two, my “solution” to the ills of the industry would be to “reset” all the books to where they were at some arbitrarily chosen point in time. Usually I say 1976, for many reasons good and bad. Mostly because that’s the last year when, while actually still working in the Biz, I really still felt like a fan. (2007) http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=22629&TPN=1



  • If ^^***** had the stones they’d say “Screw continuity! As of January 2007, we’re hitting ‘rewind’ and resetting all the books to where they were in 1972—just set in modern time.” No “cosmic events,” no 100 issue crossovers. Just an editorial fiat, like Man of Steel. Only way to get things done. (2006) http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11794


Christopher Reeve

  • I have noticed that people have begun referring to Christopher Reeve as a hero. I do not wish to take away one iota of the courage he must have needed not to wake up screaming every single day, but the hard truth is there was nothing heroic in what happened to him or how he dealt with it...In fact, as far as how he dealt with it he didn’t even have a choice. We could imagine he spent every hour of every day when not in front of the cameras begging family members to simply kill him and get it over with—but none of them did so he had no choice but to deal with each day as it came.* Heroism I believe involves choice.

    *Not in any way suggesting this is what was happening, just in case there are those who are paralyzed from the neck up who might be reading these words... (2004) http://web.archive.org/web/20050222084023/http://jb.24-7intouch.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2669&PN=2&TPN=2

    —Comments four days after the actor’s death


  • I’ve gotten tired of people calling Christopher Reeve a hero. A really terrible thing happened to him and our society can’t deal with it when terrible things happen so we try to make out that it isn’t a terrible thing—“It’s an uplifting thing. He’s a hero.” He’s not a hero, he’s in hell. (2005) http://newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22533

    —Clarifications offered during a question and answer panel at the Mid Ohio Convention, (29-30 November 2005, Columbus, Ohio

Latinas

  • Personal prejudice: Hispanic and Latino [sic] women with blond hair look like hookers to me, no matter how clean or “cute” they are. Somehow those skin tones that look so good with dark, dark hair just don’t work for me with lighter shades.

  • What we’ve seen here today is an all too typical example of an all too typical attitude: those who are the loudest to defend their “freedom of speech” are the quickest to try to slap down anyone whose “speech” differs from theirs. The standard “all opinions are valid as long as I agree with them.”

    Interestingly, of all the “lurkers” who have flocked here to be “offended” today (as well as one or two regulars) none are Hispanic or Latino [sic] women who have dyed their hair blond. (2005) http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/rage/109617183474242.htm

Racial Semantics

  • There are lots of people who call black people “niggers.” Are both terms “right”? You seem to have missed the rather important point that my response indicated roughly the same percentage of fans and pros use the improper terms for various elements of what we do—but that percentage does not approach a balance. It is not that roughly half say “balloon” and half say “bubble.” It is that some say “bubble” and they are wrong.

  • Um...in point of fact there are plenty of people who use the word “nigger” because that is the word they use, not because they imagine it has any negative racial connotations. That’s precisely why I chose that word as my illustration.

  • Ignorance is the key, but not on my part. There are many places in this country where people to this day use “nigger” when referring to black people because that’s the word they use. They don’t think of it as a racial slur. They don’t think about it at all, in fact. It simply is.

    This is not even considering black people who themselves use the word. We cannot, surely, imagine that it is used in that context as a racial slur?

    “Nigger” is—like so many others—a word with a complex etymology and an even more complex pattern of use. (2005) http://popcultureshock.com/features.php?id=1182

‘The Onion’

  • The Onion lost all credibility for me a while back when they did a “story” on the Hudson River cleanup GE was forced to do. As some of you may recall, one of my neighbors is a GE veep, and he was directly in charge of this, so from him I found out all kinds of details the press did not bother to pass along to the public. Since The Onion apparently gets its info from other papers, the story was full of inaccuracies.

    What are they, Michael Moore?

    Anyway, I stopped reading The Onion from then on. (2005) http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3647&PN=1&TPN=1

On the Death of Steve Irwin

  • Okay, time for me to rain on this parade. I didn’t know he had kids. Young kids. This alters the mix considerably. This makes him an asshole. Cops and firemen, to name but two, place their lives on the line every day to protect others. There was nothing Steve Irwin was doing that he could not have done—as did, say, David Attenborough—without putting his life at risk. This takes this from tragedy to stupidity, and, worse, irresponsibility. http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=14104&PN=1&totPosts=25

  • I am glad this asshole is dead. Sorry for his wife and kids, but relieved they are in no further danger from his lunacy!


When Asked by a Long Time Customer About an Alteration to His Signature on Recent Commision Drawings


To a Fan/Supporter Who Suggests He Try and Regain Some of His Status as a Creator


To a Long Time Fan, and Creator of the John Byrne Forum, After a Disagreement

  • You crossed that line a long time ago. Only the fact that you created the Forum renders you bulletproof. (2007)

When a Fan and Forum Member Made the Announcement in One of the Message Board Threads That His Mother Had Passed Earlier in the Day

  • No. Sorry, but no. I fully appreciate how much “trouble” I will get into for this, but no. I cannot let this pass without comment. Using the only hours past death of your own mother to make a point about a comic book story? There are not sufficient words in the English language to properly express my disgust. (2008) http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=22720&PN=0&TPN=43

On Internet Screen Names

  • Any opinion—even an informed opinion—expressed from behind the shelter of a screen name is rendered automatically invalid, as far as I’m concerned. Courage of one’s convictions is one of the few things that make people worth the powder to blow ’em up. And, after all, no one would be getting up in arms if I was posting as FuzyBuny and not letting anybody know who I really was. Internet cowards are among the lowest of the species. Grow some f***ing balls, you losers! (2006) http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=13024&PN=1&TPN=4

On the Idea of Comic Fans Utilizing the Internet to Interact and Share Their Hobby with Each Other

  • To think that the internet allowing fans to feel that they are “not alone as readers” plays to the “clubhouse” mentality that is a large part of what’s wrong with comics today. When you have isolated fans, reading the books on their own and not knowing (or much caring) if anybody else is, then the prime reason for reading is enjoyment—it’s all about the books themselves. It’s not about “getting together” with fellow fans to dissect and deconstruct...There had been fan clubs before. The Merry Marvel Marching Society shamelessly stole its name from the Mary Marvel Marching Society. I was, myself, a member of the Supermen of America. What was key to these, tho, was that the fans who belonged were not truly interconnected. There was a sense of being part of a greater whole, but the hobby itself remained largely solitary. Which, the history of the industry seems to teach, was a good thing. (2007) http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=19499&PN=0&TPN=1

When Asked If He Had Considered Closing His ‘Forum,’ Since It Was Part of the Internet Fandom ‘Problem’


The Internet, Continuity, and ‘Fans’: ‘Bad’

  • Usually, I am quick to point out how the internet would have had a profoundly negative effect—as it does today—if it had been in place twenty, thirty, forty years ago. How things like the DC rebirth in the 1950s would have most certainly died aborning had internet chat rooms and forums been around, where a small group of vocal fans could make themselves seem like an army screaming against this utter abandonment of cherished “continuity.” (2007) http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=22350&TPN=14

The Internet, Continuity, and ‘Fans’: ‘Good’

  • I kinda wish the internet had been around. Or at least some major force that could have screamed “Why are you turning Magneto into a half-assed clone of Doctor Doom?” and cataloged each and every way in which this transformation violated the long standing continuity. (2007) http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=22350&TPN=14

‘Alien 3’


Revealing His Aborted Plans for a Character Named Kristoff He Created in ‘Fantastic Four’

  • It’s too late for someone to steal this story now, I suppose. I intended Doom to return to Latvaria and absolutely freak out when he discovered what his robots had done to Kristoff. Basically—he’d need a whole lot of new robots by the time he calmed down. And then he would devote a whole lot of time and energy to restoring Kristoff. (I had not decided if he would be successful. Part of my brain wanted him to realize he needed the help of the other smartest guy on the planet—and there was no way he could ever go there!) (2007) http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=22307&PN=2&totPosts=21

  • But at the time I left, I was planning a year long arc of interconnected stories under the umbrella title “Doom War.” Doctor Doom vs. Kristoff/Doom with the FF frequently caught in the middle. I had not worked out the specifics of the resolution, save that I knew Kristoff would die, and Doom, typically, would find a way to blame the FF. (1999)

    —Old AOL Byrne Ward message board post

‘Good Stories’

  • Oh—and “but it’s a good story” is the biggest load of crap ever foisted on the reading audience. Any story which deliberately violates core concepts and themes of original materials is not, by definition “a good story.” Time some people pulled their heads out of various writers’ asses and realized that. (2006) http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=12516&PN=1&TPN=1

The ‘Humanity’ of the Original Human Torch

  • Androids (i.e., artificial humans) tend to blur the line between living and non-living. Especially in a case like the Human Torch, where his origin tends to establish him as something much more than a clever assemblage of non-organic parts. The “instability” which originally caused him to burst into flame spontaneously indicates there’s an unknown factor involved. Push come to shove, I would put Jim Hammond into his own category, and grant that, altho he is “not of woman born,” he is, in a true sense, alive. In other words, not a toaster. (2006) http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=15591

The ‘Humanity’ of the Vision, an Android Hero Whose Body Was Once the Original Human Torch

  • The question becomes, I suppose, one of value. Knowing that the Vision’s complete personality/memory/intelligence was downloaded into a computer in Titan (was it Titan? Memory blurs) allowed me to scrape his brain in my VisionQuest story, since everything could be restored with a literal flip of a switch. Should something that can be so easily copied and retrieved be treated as having the same intrinsic value as a human being? Should any of the human Avengers, for instance, ever risk their lives on behalf of the Vision? My vote would be no (as some of you have probably already guessed)—but I would say that even if it were not possible to restore or “save” the Vision in any other way. He is a “toaster.” (2006) http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=15591

On the reconstruction of Jack Kirby's original FF #103, a project endorsed by Kirby's daughter, Stan Lee & inked by Joe Sinnott


Criticism


  • At the Dallas Fantasy Fair, during a panel discussion Byrne made unflattering comments about a number of industry figures, including Gene Colan, Lynn Graeme, Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, and Roy Thomas. After a transcript of the panel was published in The Comics Journal #75 (September 1982), Thomas threatened a libel suit if Byrne did not apologize. In a letter printed in TCJ #82 (July 1983), Byrne retracted his statements. He claimed he was only repeating information from Wolfman and Wein and wrote “I acted only in the office of a parrot.” http://rodrigobaeza.blog-city.com/acting_in_the_office_of_a_parrot.htm

  • Mark Waid reportedly responded to an anecdote Byrne had used in illustrating comic book terminology, Byrne recounting “...when Mark Waid stuck up his hand at a convention Q&A to ask me if ‘we can have the real Superman back’...,” by accusing Byrne of fabricating the story: “This, by the way, never happened, even though it’s become one of Byrne’s new favorite anecdotes.”

    Waid then went on to question Byrne’s impartiality as a moderator on his message board, noting “I’d gladly refute it more directly at the message board on which it was posted, but—at least in my experience—those who attempt to correct John’s delusional statements and borderline libels are quickly booted,” further clarifying “I have already been banned.” Waid went on to explain that a previous attempt at extracting a clarification or retraction from Byrne in reference to another matter had ended with Byrne removing Waid’s message: “...I registered, posted a response, and within ten minutes it was deleted and my membership was cancelled.” (2004) http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/index.cgi?article=1937




 
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