Just to rewind a few pages, when John said one criticism of his work was "The work looks rushed ---- impossible to tell by looking at it how much time is invested in a piece of artwork". The key word for me is looks - as it says to me that this is what the viewer is seeing. When I look at Kubert's Kamandi's covers, for example, at the end of Kirby's run, they look rushed to me - it doesn't mean they were, as I have no way of knowing, Joe may have taken days over them, it may have been the vibe he was aiming for, he may have bashed them out in an hour, I don't know - but it still doesn't invalidate what I have said, ie to me, it looks rushed.

For me, there is John Byrne up to and including Fantastic Four that I love, and then there is the stuff after, a lot of which I haven't read but that which I have doesn't do it for me. It's like knowing a beautiful woman and then one day, for no reason you can put your finger, she just isn't beautiful to you anymore. The same thing happened when I read Stephen King - I read all his books and then around about Needful Things, I thought this isn't for me and that was that.

Sorry for being negative and all that. I do find it fascinating not just how artists change but how my reactions to them over time change.

Errrr.... who has the ego, again?

Matt: I think it's possible! Heck, the Bush administration created a fictional war just a couple of years ago!

(ducking) Ouch! Ouch! Hey, why do people always bring rotten tomatoes to a speech?

Hello all,

I have just joined up after reading this discussion. I have to say I'm little mind boggled that John has the time to keep up with the posts on this site.

I think the site is great, if for no other reason than that it provides direct access into thoughts, work process, pet peeves, etc. of one of the giants of the comics world.  I was pretty much there for JB's rise to fame at Marvel (missing out only on the Ironfist run) and I remain a fan to this day. Currently,I've been enjoying the runs on Doom Patrol & Demon, and I really loved Generations 1 & 2 but...

I have to admit my favorite Byrne era is still FF and I don't think that opinion is based soley on nostalgia. Some of the quality of the work from that time probably has to do with JB's obvious affection and connection to the characters. I would go so far to say his work on that title was better in many ways than Lee & Kirby. Obviously the orignal stories were just that, original, but JB's run was enlivened by much more consistent characterization and understanding of the FF as a defacto family. And JB truly brought his A game to the artwork doing both the pencils and the inks. For most of the previous decade Joe Sinnott had been burying the unfortunate artists called upon to fill Kirby's immense shoes (including JB's first run as the penciler) in a misguided (I assume) corporate mandate to keep a consistent look on the book. So JB was the first artist since Kirby to be able to present his vision of the FF as he saw fit. That vision was a blast of nova intensity flame to the comics industry and to the fans. So John, in my opinion, if you had never done another comic  that work alone would have been your pass into comics Valhalla. Heartfelt thanks.

So why do some fans feel that an artist's earlier work is better than their later work?  Well that's hard to pin down, but I would say it boils down to passion. That's a very difficult concept to codify or measure but when you see it you know it - and not just in comics. Art, film, writing, when an artist is passionate about the work the viewer knows it.  Lack of passion  doesn't necessarily mean lazy, rushed, unprofessional or just plain bad, but I do think that when that indescribable extra verve is lacking the work begins to suffer. I think you start to see a bit of a "that's good enough attitude," a complacency about improving, and when that happens an artist's flaws (and every artist has them) are exacerbated.   

I understand how much work goes in to drawing just one page of a comic book, and so I can completely understand the lure of a "looser" art style.  Tight isn't necessarily right, but when loose carries with it previously unseen distortions in anatomy, less fluid poses of characters, less use of interesting camera angles and composition, less attention to detail in both background and foreground, a lack of interesting character design, and ultimately a lack of improvement - well that's not really lack of polish, it's a lack of passion. I'm not saying artists have to draw like Perez or Art Adams in order to be good (can I hear a Toth anyone), but what is on the page has to be accurate, has to indicate the purpose of the artist, and it has to serve the story.

Sure some fans only respect or enjoy a particular artist's work form a particular era because of nostalgia, but I would argue that most artist's hit a peak at some point in their career. Jack Kirby, Jim Aparo, Carmine Infantino, Will Eisner, John Romita Sr., Steve Ditko, Neal Adams, and on and on all had peaks and discernable drop offs in their artwork.  The people who either plateaued or contine(d) to improve  like Perez, Kane, Kubert, Romita Jr are by far the exception to the rule.   And then there's John Buscema who would churn out page after page of breakdowns to be destroyed by a collection of inappropriate finishers and then turn around and do the full art on some book that rivaled anything in his previous career. I'm sure that made financial sense for Buscema, but I regret all the artwork I didn't get to truly see as a fan.  (I have to agree with the general attitude that this Nelson hasn't been doing JB any favors on the Action run).

I'm not going to presume to judge John Byrne, but I do think the question of why/if an artist peaks is an interesting one, and I would love to hear his thoughts on the matter. Also, if there's any periods he considers to be the best work of a particular artist and why? And I suppose if he's willing to address the subject, does he think the never ending grind of producing pages of art in an inequitable system (in my perception) has had an any impact on his own artwork?