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Phil Southern
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 May 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 213
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| Posted: 21 August 2025 at 3:44pm | IP Logged | 1
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This brings back painful memories--I had subscribed to Fantastic Four, starting with issue #290--I then had eight Byrne-free issues coming monthly in that brown paper sleeve!
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Greg McPhee
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 August 2004
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 5159
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| Posted: 21 August 2025 at 4:20pm | IP Logged | 2
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It was always jarring when there would be a sudden change in a creative team in 70s and 80s comics. And it was only through (in my case) with the Internet later on you would find out why (I didn't have access to industry publications in the 80s).
It really seemed to happen at Marvel a lot more than I recall at DC. And I am aware of some of the reasons for this at Marvel.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 135120
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| Posted: 21 August 2025 at 4:52pm | IP Logged | 3
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Harken back to my earliest experiences with American superhero comics, where most issues would contain three or four stories (plus filler) by different writers and artists, usually without credits. Then the problem was not with artists leaving, but with an issue containing one or more stories by artists I didn’t like.
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Matt Hawes
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 16657
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| Posted: 21 August 2025 at 5:00pm | IP Logged | 4
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Greg: "...I suppose after John Byrne left Marvel they really didn’t have any real big name or “superstar” creators still there...."
JB was unquestionably Marvel's biggest talent at the time, certainly in terms of sales. I noted even as it was happening that once JB left Marvel, they started reprinting his run on "Marvel Team-Up" in "Marvel Tales,: a title that previously only reprinted "The Amazing Spider-Man" run for years. And I noted also that by the time that run finished its' course, "Classic X-Men" would be reprinting the JB era X-Men stories. Was this coincidence or planned... I don't know, but it kept JB at Marvel in some sense for a few years more.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 135120
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| Posted: 21 August 2025 at 5:13pm | IP Logged | 5
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Ah, CLASSIC X-MEN. Two things:Shooter insisted we were not being paid “royalties”. They were “incentives” to encourage use to do better. (Royalties might imply ownership.) When I got my “incentive” for CLASSIC X-MEN I said I really wasn’t sure what I could do to boost the sales on a REPRINT. That “incentive”, btw, was more than my page rate had netted the first time around!
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James Woodcock
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 8287
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| Posted: 22 August 2025 at 6:06am | IP Logged | 6
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Pre-internet, when all we had were magazines and Marvel Age to inform us,
I was reading things like Speakeasy, Comics International etc for my
information.
Without doubt, the two biggest shocks I had were JB off FF (I really
expected you to be there for 300, especially based on that MA interview)
and CC off X-Men. I know they were not the same year by any shot, but I
had the same reaction.
The second I opened both books my first thought was that you had both
been sacked due to some power grab decision. Brain dead editors who did
not actually care about the readers was my second thought.
I was around 17 when JB left FF, and from then on I knew that political
decisions were more important than a good product.
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Peter Hicks
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 30 April 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 2064
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| Posted: 22 August 2025 at 4:40pm | IP Logged | 7
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When JB left X-Men, Dave Cockrum came back for a year, and then left again. Within a month of leaving, Cockrum received his first cheque for Classic X-Men. Cockrum said if he knew he would be getting a second cheque for the same comic 5 years after it was published, he never would have left X-Men.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 22 August 2025 at 5:03pm | IP Logged | 8
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Sadly, leaving was not his choice.
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James Woodcock
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Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: 22 August 2025 at 6:37pm | IP Logged | 9
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The second time as well???
Geez, I didn’t know that.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 22 August 2025 at 6:42pm | IP Logged | 10
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Sorry, didn’t realize we were talking about the second time.
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Phil Southern
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 May 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 213
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| Posted: 22 August 2025 at 7:25pm | IP Logged | 11
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Two months after Dave Cockrum left X-Men at 164, a reprint of Giant Sized X-Men #1 came out, which also contained a new short story drawn by Mr. Cockrum--This seems to have coincided with the onset of the already-discussed incentives, which I guess started in the second half of 1982? Classic X-Men didn't start until 1986--I remember it well because I bought #1 during my class trip to Washington D.C.!
I'll admit that I'm surprised that the incentives were paid on reprints--I hope Steve Ditko got the same for those Marvel Tales that had just started reprinting ASM in order.
I recently read somewhere (I can't recall) that Cockrum left X-Men to work on his creator-owned Futurians, a choice he purportedly regretted once these incentive payments were regular. |
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James Woodcock
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| Posted: 22 August 2025 at 10:26pm | IP Logged | 12
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Futurians was a cluster mess for Cockrum in so many ways.
He left X-Men to do it and then he left Marvel/Epic for some tiny company to
publish the issues, which went exactly as you would think it would go.
Such a shame.
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