One element in your recent work that I especially appreciate, Mr. Byrne, is the use you make of foreshortening to heighten the drama of a particular scene.

In this commission, for example, there's a definite feeling of vertigo in Zorba's left dangling leg, especially with Reed's hand stretching out to it. But it's also the contrast with Doom's very firmly planted right leg as seen from above and slightly angled in the viewer's perspective that increases the intensity. Very nice!

Blowin away again.THANKS JB.

Something thick and heavy, to be sure. My impression from the start was that Doom's outfit began as a tradition suit of armor which he modified. Something he found tucked away in a corner somewhere in Latveria, complete with cape and tunic. In his first appearance, in FF 5, it is drawn as a much more conventional configuration.

QUOTE: Something he found tucked away in a corner somewhere in Latveria

You really never know what that might have been, given his poor Gypsy background. My peasant parents in their Balkan mountain villages gleaned the natural fibers from a plant naturally growing in that region which eventually could be washed and combed to the consistency, strength, and lightness of a fine linen.

Just a personal note: this story was my "jumping on point" for your run on FF back in 1983. I still say that your run, now that I've re-read it via the "Visionaries" reprints, is the best.

If Hollywood would just consult your run on that series, they wouldn't have to give us the tripe we've seen recently. You featured almost every major player in the FF's history, and told a tight, cohesive story the whole time. What more could anyone ask?

I think thanks are appropriate here for the years of entertainment you provided for me personally.

Here's the problem, Peter -- basically, there are two ways to approach these characters (any characters), which can be distilled down to stories that serve the characters, or stories that serve the talent's ego. Hollywood, as a mindset, 99.9999999% of the time, falls squarely into the second camp.

Pete Carrubba: Just a personal note: this story was my "jumping on point" for your run on FF back in 1983

Mine too.  Issue #246, "Too Many Dooms!" was the official beginning of my regularly collecting the FF series.  I took my well-read and tattered copy to MOC in 2004, and of all the books I had him sign, this one has the most sentimentality to me.

Thanks to JB for making a kid happy.