Came upon a site declaring that I cannot draw children. “Proof” was offered in the form of my portrayal of young Logan in this issue.
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Obviously they didn't bother to understand lil' Logan was not your average-looking kid.
Your drawings of children always looked normal to me. But I have noticed this theme fairly recently. It's the fact that someone wrote this once and the 'fanboys' ran with it. Doesn't matter how well you draw them or not, it becomes a thing - "Do you know John Byrne?" "Oh yeah, isn't he the one who can't draw children?"
Now that you mention the "only lasts ..." criticism, I distinctly remember appreciating that you gave the courtesy of ANNOUNCING that you were leaving a book, for whatever reason(s), and I really appreciated that, however disappointing, rather than being surprised by a new team when you weren't expecting it.
I re-read the Miller Wolverine mini-series again after many many years.
Two thoughts on it:
1) It was a good story, but not really a Wolverine story. It twisted his character along Miller's preferences, which didn't really fit what had been established. So many modern movie anti-heroes are now carbon copies of this version. Lot's of implied killing by our hero too which was taboo back then. It should have been an alternative universe story.
2) I have no idea how Claremont ever got "scripting" credit on this book. The dialog, pacing, everything is so clearly and strongly in Miller's voice who is listed only as "penciler". The exception seems to be that repetitive hero-summary at the beginning that has to remind us ad nauseam who Wolerine is and what his super-powers are.
When I read Elsewhen I see exactly the same thing with respect to the original X-men run --- those are so clearly in John Byrne's voice --- except for some injected weirdness.
It has me wondering if this was some sort of long-running con-game Claremont played to take credit for his collaborator's work?
A couple of curious strands tangled on that Wolverine book. Frank, having noted Chris’ tendency to bury my art under his copy, left lots of open space, while Chris, seeing Frank’s terse scripting style, decided to mimic it.
The result was a book that neither read nor looked like a typical Claremontian job.
ELSEWHEN is something that is pure John Byrne and, as such, I have trouble understanding any complaints about it. This book exists because John Byrne had an itch to do it. It scratched that itch. Period.
People who wish it did anything different see some other purpose, some other reason for it to be made-- missing what it is by mistaking it for what it isn't.
A couple of curious strands tangled on that Wolverine book. Frank, having noted Chris’ tendency to bury my art under his copy, left lots of open space, while Chris, seeing Frank’s terse scripting style, decided to mimic it.
Either Frank gave him an uncredited assist with the script or Claremont is a very skilled mimic.
I think I found a panel that demonstrates what you were saying:
All that space left for the words and then they still put them inside the illustration with terrible contrast to the background. Someone got their wires crossed!
Now that you mention it, I do see some of Claremont's finger print in the repetitive text. Every interesting idea has to be said two or three times, like a recap.
With regard to Miller: In retrospective I had come to see him more as a writer than artist, because he settled into such a minimalist style. Looking back though, his layouts were fairly inventive, and poking out here were the shoots of his Moebius-like hatching that bloomed on Ronin starting to emerge. It just was something he discarded pretty quickly. Too labor intensive?
Edited by Steven Queen on 14 December 2022 at 10:45pm
Yesterday, I happened to see a page from Iron Fist 15 (1977) posted online, and the dialogue in the second panel jumped right out at me:
For those of us who consider JB's recent work to be canon, it wasn't until ELSEWHEN 27 (2021) that we saw what might have been the childhood "hit" to which Logan referred. And it wasn't until now that I made the connection.
