Is the guy mixing you up somehow with Rob Liefeld?!

Your hands are one of the first things I recall noticing about your work, and in a good way! The gestures, both overt and subtle ones, were so fluid and graceful. I have been compliment more than once about how I have drawn hands before (once was actually by you, JB!!), and the person who influenced me the most on how to draw them: JOHN BYRNE!

For the record, I've never heard or read anyone else criticize how you draw hands and feet.

And about your drawing of feet...? If we're talking with shoes and boots on them, this guy is definitely off his rocker! Bare feet can be tricky for anyone, but even there I have no issues with how you've drawn them, JB.

Hell, I still take issue with anyone who repeats that nonsense that you don't do backgrounds. I know you've acknowledged a period of time when you thought this might be true in your work, JB, but I've never really seen it that way. Not only are your backgrounds among the most elaborate drawn by any comic book artist when you do draw them, but the panels where you do leave it empty are no more than nearly all artists I've seen.

See, as far as backgrounds go, I think why you are singled out when you don't draw a fully realized background is that, more often than not, you simply leave the space open and blank. Because you do draw such detailed backgrounds -- Another thing that impressed me, even as a child discovering your work for the first time -- when you don;t add one, it stands out. Other artists also have "no backgrounds" panels (especially Image era and modern comics artists). The thing is, they cover it up with crosshatching, noodling, shading, etc., or (especially in the computer age) let the colorist make up for the lack of an actual background with gradients. Those techniques may be artsy sometimes, but they aren't actual backgrounds.

I challenge anyone to look at the average comic book without JB art, especially in the past three decades, and count the number of actual backgrounds (not shading, noodling, etc.) and then look at the average comic by JB during the same time frame, and I think he draws backgrounds as often, if not moreso than most other artists. He certainly is among the very best when there is an actual background drawn!!

They are expressive yet minimal when small and detailed when the focus of a panel. The result of concentration and care on little elements and honest shapes.

I think the original criticism is silly, but this is also silly.

I do not need to be able to cook wonderfully to know if a chef has cooked me a meal that tastes bad. I do not have to be able to act well to recognise bad acting. As JB has said before, we all have hands, therefore we know what they look like and a critic is likely to recognise if a hand looks right or wrong. The critic's problem is that (a) they haven't backed up the opinion with actual samples of these supposed problems and (b) we can all see that JB draws hands and feet well.

One need look no further than Jasmine to disprove that ludicrous assertion.

I was going to say "don't let them get in your head," but...

Allow me to add my thin voice to the choir in avowing that your hands and feet (the ones you draw, I can't speak for your ACTUAL hands and feet) are not only above reproach but have always struck me as notably strong, in line with your complete grasp of anatomy.

Every artist has some tics - in a lot of ways, those tics are what makes up the definable style of the artist, so it's more like a 'tell' than a tic. This is not one of your tells.

On one level, I think it's healthy for any artist to have a critical eye for their own work - the fact that you've been doing this professionally for close to five decades, are generally regarded as one of the giants in the field, and STILL strive to improve is genuinely inspiring. 

But the flip side of that is to perceive everything as a flaw.  I had a near-complete cessation of drawing activity between when I graduated college (tellingly with a BFA in Illustration) and my early 30s, and it basically took those eight years to overcome the shard of devil's mirror that embedded itself in my own eye and could only see everything wrong - wrong to what I thought was an insurmountable degree, having struggled and failed to break through some perceived barriers in my college years.

I feel like it's coming from the group of people that want "ultra realism" in their comics. The group that thinks Kirby art is grotesque in its "blockiness". Personally, I've seen the kind of art they seem to want in the books and it is quite frankly boring as all get out. 

I'm torn between finding it admirable that you concern yourself with online opinions of your art and frustrating that you don't really seem to get it that you are JOHN BYRNE. The history of comics will always list your name beside Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, et al. And it should! Your contributions are absolutely on that level, whether you feel that way or not. The expert rule applies here; YOU tell people what is great comic book art, not the other way around.