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Topic: I Wish Byrne Bashers Would Do Their Homework (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Darren Taylor
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Posted: 17 April 2015 at 4:15am | IP Logged | 1  

I wonder how many Byrne-Bashers were born from the split of Claremont/Byrne? Or, come to think of it, from your departure from long running books?

Abandonment issues?.

There was a point, when I was picking up Alpha Flight, Fantastic Four & the Hulk and I got wind of news JB was going to be doing Superman* I forgot the trifling matter of 'how' these comics were produced and I wondered why John wasn't doing -all- the comics! Why did they (DC/Marvel) waste their time with these other artists for whom I had little to no interest in (at the time).

So my ire/frustration was aimed at the companies for not having JB on everything. Which let's face it, besides being impossible, might have proven to have been a torture most extreme.

Maybe some others directed their frustration at John.

* It was easy to forget that the comics I was picking up weren't all done at the same time or released at the same time. Here in the UK, there were -very- few specialist shops. So mostly titles were picked up from newsagents.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 17 April 2015 at 5:12am | IP Logged | 2  

Maybe some others directed their frustration at John.

••

Years ago I broke one of my own rules and started dating a fan. This turned out to be the longest of my post-divorce relationships, and from her I got many "inside" observations.

One was that there were some fans -- vocal fans -- who felt "personally betrayed" when I quit X-MEN, and this certainly fit the timeline. The first Big Bad Byrne stories started showing up around then, as I seemed to go in the eyes of some from He Who Can Do No Wrong, to He Who Can Do No Right. And, once the stories were out there, having one's own "bad experience" with me became a way of claiming "shop cred," even if the stories told were not true!

We see an echo of this in the quote at the top of this thread. The poster presented his garbled chronology as fact and, of course, these were those equally uninformed who followed where that pointed.

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Michael Penn
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Posted: 17 April 2015 at 5:48am | IP Logged | 3  

The Claremont-Byrne X-MEN work was a good thing. It ended, as proverbially it must. To grouse about this for decades after is unfathomably immature. Fans, not kids, but adults, continually proving themselves nuthin' but big babies. 

I thought back when I was buying those issues that, yes, there was a special kind of magic in it -- but... grow up. Artists and writers do work and move on. Unfortunately, it used to be that way with readers too: a kid latched onto the comicbook hobby, it was magic to him, and then he moved on!

Anyway, I don't think that Terry Austin gets enough credit for the X-MEN. If Claremont-Byrne were analogously Lennon-McCartney, then at least Terry Austin was George Harrison. Hardly a trivial component to the overall success. (Who was Ringo? Hmm...)
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John Byrne
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Posted: 17 April 2015 at 6:06am | IP Logged | 4  

I don't think that Terry Austin gets enough credit for the X-MEN.

••

I agree. During the years I was working on the book, and after, I came to realize that for many, when they said they were John Byrne fans they really meant Byrne/Austin fans.

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Matthew Wilkie
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Posted: 17 April 2015 at 6:27am | IP Logged | 5  

Funny, I became a Byrne victim by reading Fantastic Four, Alpha 
Flight, The Incredible Hulk and Superman. I didn't read the X-Men 
stuff till much later. 

I must've become a John Byrne fan, incorrectly.

* * *

Similar for me too. I first read JB with Alpha Flight and, save the odd UK reprint, didn't read any of the run on X-Men until way after the creator-owned Darn Horse material. Even now, JB art without JB words (and vice versa, if I am honest) is far less of draw for me when coming across back issues.
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Paul Greer
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Posted: 17 April 2015 at 6:40am | IP Logged | 6  

It is stories like these that makes me hate the internet. Misinformation
and lies can easily spread overnight. If you are a blogger of any kind it
should be your duty to check your "facts" before publishing.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 17 April 2015 at 6:56am | IP Logged | 7  

There is a phenomenon that existed long before the internet, but which modern technology has exacerbated. I describe it like so:

Person A says GREEN. Person B repeats this, as do Persons C, D and E. By the time it gets to Person F, tho, the quote has become BLUE AND YELLOW. Blue and Yellow make Green, so… And this gets handed off to G, H, I, J and so on, and by the time it gets to, say, R or S, it's become just BLUE, which is not what person A said at all. It is, in fact, something very different from what Person A said.

The next step is that A will be confronted about "what he said," often belligerently, and there is no point at which anyone says "Did you really say 'BLUE'?" They just open fire, both barrels, and when A says "But I said GREEN!" --- Well, obviously he's lying!

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Jason Scott
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Posted: 17 April 2015 at 7:43am | IP Logged | 8  

Jeez, never mind wildy incorrect assertions, this guy sounds like he can barely construct a sentence adequately. I'm not going to go looking for his comments, (as I don't want to give him the attention by doing so..) but he sounds like a 12 year old, or some sort of barely articulate high school drop out!

I really wouldn't pay attention to folks like this. The internet has given a vocal platform to a lot of folk that really shouldn't be heard from in any kind of civilised discussion.
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Tim O Neill
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Posted: 17 April 2015 at 7:50am | IP Logged | 9  



I think the move to Fantastic Four was ultimately a smart career move.  I know you moved for creative reasons, JB - but going from a collaboration to a solo job showed readers immediately that the role of the penciler at Marvel was very much a storyteller.  It wasn't just the art that went to FF, it was the stories.  And oh what stories!!!

Going to FF established you as someone who could do different titles - back then, I thought you were putting your own spin on each title.  I reread these titles now and I see that while it is unmistakenly your work, your faithfulness to the original material by Lee, Kirby, Ditko et al really shines through.


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John Byrne
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Posted: 17 April 2015 at 8:08am | IP Logged | 10  

I really wouldn't pay attention to folks like this.

••

That's what I thought when the Big Bad Byrne stories first started to circulate. "These are either gross exaggerations or outright lies! Anybody with half a brain will know I could not have said or done these things!" So I ignored them.

See how that turned out!

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John Byrne
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Posted: 17 April 2015 at 8:12am | IP Logged | 11  

I think the move to Fantastic Four was ultimately a smart career move.

••

Apart from what was turning into constant friction with Chris, I felt I had to leave in order to find out whether the fan appreciation was for me, or strictly the X-Men.

One of the people who most encouraged me to do this was, in fact, Frank Miller. He and I used to talk, often several times a week back then, about the things we thought needed fixing at Marvel. And he had his own troubles on DAREDEVIL, mostly because he was not yet doing his own writing. That came later. (I used to kid him that he waited to see if I crashed and burned before he made his own move!)

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Ted Pugliese
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Posted: 17 April 2015 at 8:33am | IP Logged | 12  

I became a Byrne victim with Alpha Flight #1.

I think I love it most of all.
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