Oh, there have been more than a few times in my career when my work has fallen far short of "great".
I am, unfortunately, one of those "sensitive artists" whose output is very much impacted by what's going on in my life. It's not hard to track my emotional arcs based on what's seen on the page (except, of course, in those instances where the work is printed in an order other than the one in which I produced it).
That merely puts you in the company of those few artists that manages a prolific output at a consistent high quality, to assemble a distinguished body of work as a contribution to the art form.
You can't please all the people all the time, least of all yourself as your harshest critic, no doubt.
And like the greats, you appear to be always pushing, always questioning, always experimenting as to how you can do a better job next time. Swing for the fences, but rest assured no one is batting 1000!
Much like DC claimed Generations as Earth-38 in Multiversity…
•••
THIS is why I BEGGED then not to put the ElseWorlds bullet on the GENERATIONS covers. As those covers boldly announced GENERATIONS was an “imaginary story”, not a parallel universe. The chapters didn’t even form a cohesive chronology! Deliberately!
But, of course, Alan Moore had already pissed in that well with his “aren’t they all?” crack. Something the ennui-engorged fanboys turned into a mantra. (It was truly amazing to watch the powers that were jumping thru hoops over that one. “Oh, no, St. Alan didn’t mean anything thing snarky by that comment!”)
Every time I go back through this issues pages, I keep thinking how It is so nice to see you drawing Spider-Man again. It is like seeing an old friend that I haven't seen in years.
Spider-Man's a character that some artists (even some of my favorites*) can't quite get a good grasp of - but the character plays to JB's strengths well - drawing lithe figures in motion being one of them, as well as the slavish dedication to perspective like in this issue's splash page. When you see a Byrne Spider-Man in the wild, you KNOW it's a Byrne Spider-Man.
*Neal Adams being the one I think of the most - one of his strengths is drawing expressive faces, but that's neutralized with the full mask. But one of his other strengths is drawing the human form with crazy perspective focal points and pulling it off, which I'd think would be a perfect use case for Spider-Man - but for some reason, the few Adams' Spider-Man drawings I've seen never utilized that gift of his.