| Author |
|
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 134648
|
| Posted: 13 June 2025 at 6:18am | IP Logged | 1
|
post reply
|
|
Did you ever have any idea to adapt [FEARBOOK] into comic book form?••• You’re not the first to ask that question! But the answer is no. I wrote it as a text piece, and that was how I wanted it to stay.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Richard Stevens
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 May 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 1992
|
| Posted: 13 June 2025 at 1:43pm | IP Logged | 2
|
post reply
|
|
Byrne Month would have been pretty amazing. I imagine that would have been a lot of work, even for you.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
|
| |
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 134648
|
| Posted: 13 June 2025 at 2:19pm | IP Logged | 3
|
post reply
|
|
No more work than my usual load. Be clear, I would not have produced all those books in a single month. One of the things that put the kibosh on the concept, in fact, was realizing how long it would take. (I wonder if it would really have worked. I’ve told before of how an editorial screw-up at DC caused OMAC to ship late, coming out at the same time as several other projects that had been in the works for months. All those books coming out at the same time inspired some of the microbrains to declare I was doing too much, and everything looked “rushed”. Yes, OMAC looked rushed! (Imagine the exploding heads “Byrne Month” would have produced!)
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Brandon Carter
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2347
|
| Posted: 13 June 2025 at 2:21pm | IP Logged | 4
|
post reply
|
|
Something close almost happened. Shooter got the idea of me drawing a fill-in issue of every non-reprint Marvel book. It would take as much as a year, working around my regular assignments, then all would be published in one month.
***********
That would have been great! Since your normal workload usually involved at least two monthly titles, it's impressive that this could possibly have been done with even a year of lead time!
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
e-mail
|
| |
Dave Kopperman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 December 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 3835
|
| Posted: 13 June 2025 at 2:27pm | IP Logged | 5
|
post reply
|
|
Mark wrote:
| I can't think of an actual Graphic Novel I like more than "HUNGER DOGS" |
|
|
Kirby had been off the stands for the first few years of my collecting habit, so I was pretty much 100% unfamiliar with his work when Hunger Dogs appeared - and of course, by the mid-80's, Kirby's work had reached its final maximalist style. I have a distinct memory of coming across it when it was first released and being equal parts repulsed and fascinated.
Even from forty years on and with a full appreciation of all of his work, Hunger Dogs is uniquely intense. Kirby firing on every cylinder and then some more cylinders. Royer really bringing his A-game. Theakston has a lot of issues elsewhere but the colors on this are a once-in-a-lifetime, obit-mention-worthy job.
Man, is it a thing of beauty.
Edited by Dave Kopperman on 13 June 2025 at 2:27pm
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
|
| |
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 134648
|
| Posted: 13 June 2025 at 2:27pm | IP Logged | 6
|
post reply
|
|
I’m not sure how many non-reprint titles Marvel was producing at that time. This was circa 1985, so maybe thirty. Producing one issue per month until I had them all done could stretch out to nearly three years!
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Brandon Carter
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2347
|
| Posted: 13 June 2025 at 2:31pm | IP Logged | 7
|
post reply
|
|
All those books coming out at the same time inspired some of the microbrains to declare I was doing too much, and everything looked “rushed”. Yes, OMAC looked rushed! (Imagine the exploding heads “Byrne Month” would have produced!) ****** I was thinking the same thing! There would have definitely been some comments of how "rushed" these books looked, with several dozen Byrne issues being published in a single month. Would have made for a great Omnibus edition years later, though!
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
e-mail
|
| |
Doug Centers
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 February 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 5703
|
| Posted: 13 June 2025 at 2:49pm | IP Logged | 8
|
post reply
|
|
With the proper definition, I may only have 2 Graphic Novels (Novellas?)JB's BATMAN 3D, and that Fireside Book by Lee and Kirby THE SILVER SURFER, fun was had with both of those!
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Brandon Carter
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2347
|
| Posted: 13 June 2025 at 3:07pm | IP Logged | 9
|
post reply
|
|
I’m not sure how many non-reprint titles Marvel was producing at that time. This was circa 1985, so maybe thirty. Producing one issue per month until I had them all done could stretch out to nearly three years!
**********
Here's a link to a list of Marvel titles published with a June 1985 cover date. I just chose June since it's in the middle of the year but other months are accessible here as well. There weren't as many as I expected, maybe two dozen? . That's not counting reprint titles, mini-series, UK titles, and Epic titles. I assume Star comics would not have been included either, though that may have been pretty fun!
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
e-mail
|
| |
Daniel Gillotte
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 11 October 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 2727
|
| Posted: 13 June 2025 at 3:09pm | IP Logged | 10
|
post reply
|
|
I see what JB means, I went to look at top graphic novel lists and 95% of them are lists of trade collections of issues of comics.
The Killing Joke and Arkham Asylum being two of the few mainstream actual graphic novels represented.
Indie comics creators seem to be the real graphic novel makers overall.
Dan Clowes started collecting Eightball but over the past several years has produced true graphic novels(MOnica, Patience, WIlson). David Mazzuchelli's masterpiece Asterios Polyp Chris Ware's Rusty Brown
Kate Beaton's Ducks Adrien Tomin'e Killing and Dying Phoebe Gloeckner- Diary of a teenage girl Allison Behcdel's- Fun Home and Are you my mother
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
|
| |
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 134648
|
| Posted: 13 June 2025 at 3:25pm | IP Logged | 11
|
post reply
|
|
Remember, the Lee/Kirby Surfer book was a trade paperback. No one was using ”graphic novel” yet. There’s a bit of an irony here. For many years I searched for a term that was as user friendly as “comic book” but a more accurate description of the product. I didn’t see “graphic novel” filling that bill, especially as elitist readers used it while ignoring the fact that graphic novels are, after all, comic books. So I find myself pushing the original term.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Dave Kopperman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 December 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 3835
|
| Posted: 13 June 2025 at 4:03pm | IP Logged | 12
|
post reply
|
|
@Daniel: What's sort of interesting about some of the work you mention is that it's autobiography, which again muddies the idea of the term 'novel'. And Diary of a Teenage Girl gets even more complicated by being only about 30% comics, with the comic sections breaking up the longer prose sections.
I personally don't worry about terms and find the debate overall a bit moot for my own understanding, but since it does impact the comics medium's critical standing and the general public's view of it (which still has a lot of work to get to full acceptance), I recognize the strong need to create a valid and clear classification for something that's neither fish nor fowl but also sometimes fish AND fowl.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
|
| |