Lat week I spoke with y’all about that dude NEAL ADAMS who was a superior comic book artist and took the medium into another realm of sophistication with his attention to detail. NEAL ADAMS style gave birth to my favoite comic artist, JOHN BYRNE. It was his run on the X-Men books that made JOHN BYRNE a household name for collectors. He was a combination of the fluid technique that ADAMS employed along with the larger than life dynamism of predecessors like the great JACK KIRBY and even DAVE COCKRUM (R.I.P.).
Where JOHN BYRNE’s mastery is readily apparent is on the covers of the comics that he has drawn. The cover of the comic is singularly important because it essentially describes the story of that issue. The conflict that will be contained within the pages is represented on the cover. Where BYRNE excelled at detailing and expressions is clear when you look at his work.
BYRNE did catch a lot of heat inside the comic book industry for his penchant for redrawing scenes done by other artists. In rap music you might call this biting, but in pencil art it’s regarded as an homage. I already told you that BYRNE was highly influenced by NEAL ADAMS. Here is an X-Men cover that NEAL ADAMS did during his run on that title…
The first cover wasn’t used for publishing, but the second one was. The storyline had the X-Men in Egypt fighting another mutant called the Pharoah. *Nerd Alert* Incidentally, this storyline was the first time I saw Havok and his wife Polaris (Cyclops’ brother and sister-in-law) *Nerd Alert*
Now peep JOHN BRYNE’s cover for X-Men #135…
There were several instances where BYRNE redrew covers originally drawn by DAVE COCKRUM who was the X-Men artist that was prior to his stint. I wasn’t a big fan of COCKRUM’s style and I thought it was too close to the JACK KIRBY era artwork. When you compare BYRNE’s interpretations you can see more movement and detail. Look at how BYRNE plays with form on the cover of X-Men #134(right), whereas COCKRUM’s depiction on X-Men #100(left) is far more rigid and predictable. Nevertheless, these are both classic issues.
Another COCKRUM redraw for BYRNE was when he was doing the Alpha Flight title and he re-interpreted COCKRUM’s X-Men #108 cover into Alpha Flight #17’s cover. *Nerd Alert* The death of Guardian was anothe SICK storyline in comicdom. No really, it was. *Nerd Alert*
BYRNE took cues from all the greats in the business. Here is a proposed cover for D.C.’s Justice League Generations that resembles a scene from a JACK KIRBY Avenger’s cover. Props go out to JACK KIRBY who was the most prolific comic artist evar. At one point this dude was drawing like a hundred titles simultaneously.
When BYRNE was doing his run of Superman books he finally decided to copy from the best in the game, himself.
As I was culling images for this drop I found an incredible site that will help you see the magic and transcendant art that comic books possess.
COVER BROWSER
I literally spent hours at the site. Good shit my dudes and dudettes, good shit.
