Me, neither. When he worked on Amazing Spider-Man in the mid-80s, I always saw a lot of Steve Ditko in Frenz' style, although his style has evolved over the years.

(But I wouldn't say Frenz has ever been an "imitator" of anyone - he's always been a good artist and I think he's doing the best work of his career now on Amazing Spider-Girl).

Only really really Byrne-ish penciller from the last, oh, 17 years that i've noticed is Dale Keown. And his "imitation" isn't that slavish. 

Beat me to it, but I would add Mike Parobek to this very short list.

Ron Frenz never struck me as a "Byrne" imitator. I've seen some Buscema influence in his work - mostly Sal, not John. And a touch of Kirby for the figures.

Some of Kerry Gammill and Tom Grummet's work strikes me as closer to a Byrne influence. Not just rendering, but body language. There was some early work by Dusty Abell (A Superman annual?) that showed a clear Byrne influence, but that may be mostly because it looked like someone had "corrected" parts of the work in house using paste-ups from John Byrne's Superman art.

Ron Frenz is more of a Buscema imitator though i find that a positive thing.  I've always enjoyed his work.

Agreed.

Ron Frenz...never!

But, during The Incredible Hulk, Paul Peletier used to draw like Mr. Byrne, now he has his own style!

Paul Peletier

Yes, I agree.  There is something byrned there.

Ted--

Have to disagree with you. I'd say it's Brett Breeding.

Interesting, Glenn, because I feel that way about Breeding (over Rubenstein) and Jurgens.  Six of one, half a dozen of another...

I loved Breeding over Bob Hall, too.

I once offered George Perez the chance to ink Ron Frenz, and he jumped at it.

Spider-man/Hobgoblin mini-series right?

The first time I saw Gammil's pencils was when he took over the Superman books from Byrne.  I remember thinking, "They just hired a guy who draws like Byrne so the transition between artists won't be as jarring."

I was never a Jurgens fan -- but LOVED McLeod when he was on ACTION with Stern. 

Victor Bridges hands down.  I can see Dale Keown a little too, but he has his own style elements. 

Congrats Glenn!

Vic Bridges

Paul Pelletier

Dale Keown

All three have JB-inspired styles.

Gotta agree that Ron Frenz doesn't really strike me as a JB clone. He has done a little Ditko, Kirby, Buscema, and Romita, though, as others note.

Paul Ryan's work always reminds me (a little) of Bob McLeod's pencilling style, not JB.

<<Spider-man/Hobgoblin mini-series right?>>


Yep. To this day, it irks me that George couldn't work on the entire project.

********

That's one of my favorite miniseries of all time!  It would have been nice if George could have done the whole project but I was elated that Roger Stern got to do his Hobgoblin reveal.  Thanks, Glenn, for helping make this possible (and congrats on passing 4000!).

The artists that made me think of a Byrne influence were:

-Kerry Gammil, although the FF story inked by JB must have set my mind.

-Dale Keown. I had to recheck the credits to make sure it wasn't JB inked by a new inker.

-Paul Pelletier had a lot of elemnets.

-Castrillo made me think of JB with a what if story he drew.

-Paul Ryan had also some Byrne elements during his AWC run.\Jurgens also had a few elements of JB in his style, especially some faces.

All of the above have or developed their own unique styles, though.

I have never even heard of Vic Bridges.

Finally, I agree with Glenn about Breeding, who I must add I think would look great over Byrne as well.

I'd say images 3 and 4 above are Byrne. 5 has got to be Kerry Gammil.

Paul Pelletier always struck me more as an Alan Davis imitator, who now swings more towards Dale Keown. Paul is great and the reason I was buying Exiles. Really fun art.

Tom Grummett just draws an awesome Batmna dn his Superman is top notch too.  I always loved his Tim Drake Robin series.

Anthony Castrillo, from this forum used to be very Byrne-ish, his style has matured, but in the 90's.....

Once again, to me this cover by Michael Ryan seems very much inspired by JB:

" Once again, to me this cover by Michael Ryan seems very much inspired by JB:"

The pose of the foreground figure seems to be exactly like a pose of the Scarlet Witch from WCA/AWC during the "Dark Wanda" Arc. A cover with her having defeated some of the other WC Avengers. Don't remember the issue  number but I'm sure it's exact down to the claw-like left hand and the grin.

Yeah Michael, Vic Bridges immediately came to mind when reading that initial post.

I still have those Faze 1 Fazers somewhere. I was always looking for new and different super-teams. And an artist that was very Byrne-ish at the time, got my attention.

JB wrote: "25,000 pages under my belt..."

********

Assuming that is reasonably accurate, this means I now own approximately 0.024% of all comic pages John Byrne has ever produced!  Alright!

Apparently that's Nocturne, the daughter of a parallel universe Nightcrawler and a parallel universe Scarlet Witch.

If I ever wonder why I don't read the X-books, the above sentence would remind me.

Nevermind.  I had a diferent comic called Phase 1 or something.  I think it was done by a Byrne Imitator, but it was B&W alternative small press stuff..

You mean this?

Finally, I agree with Glenn about Breeding, who I must add I think would look great over Byrne as well.

I disagree totally.  I do not think they would go well together.  As much as I like Breeding, I did not like him over Perez in Action Comics, nor over Grummet in Man of Tomorrow.  However, he made Jurgens look better than anyone

Sometimes, Breeding made Jurgens' Superman look better than Byrne's.

I wonder why the stopped working together.

By the way I recently read that Vic Bridges left comics altogether because of religious views that conflicted with his work.

What?  Did he find out JB was an atheist, or does he have something against cloning atheists?

Jokes, these are just jokes.

"You mean this?"

No, Michael. There's another pose, a different cover or possibly even a splash page in that arc that resembles the other cover posted above. I may be wrong, but the moment I saw that first cover, the Scarlet Witch image popped into my head. All my West Coast Avengers books are packed away, so I can't check it myself right now.

QUOTE: There's another pose, a different cover or possibly even a splash page in that arc that resembles the other cover posted above

It must be a splash page, I checked all the covers and the one I posted came the closest.

I've always thought Paul Pelletier looked to be heavily influenced by JB.

It might be hard to believe, but I've never been exposed to much of Keown's work. I never read his Hulk or Pitt but I'm more tempted to look through it to see the influence.

Congrats on hitting 4000 Glenn!

Vic Bridges' run on Freak Force was one of my favorite surprises in comics.  Very Byrne-lite, but somehow it worked and it was just a fun super-hero book.  I'm sorry to hear he's out of comics but not surprised since I can't remember anything from him after Freak Force. 

Dale Keown's run on Dragon Force was very JB-like as well.  As far as independents go, that was one of my favorite's.

Dale Keown despite some really odd anatomy was great on Hulk with Mark Farmer til he went to Image and hu... no comment about that stuff and onwards.

I always thought Jim Lee had some Byrne stuff to it. For some reason Alpha Flight#3 I reread it and was like I could swear I saw Jim Lee swipe some of that.

Vic Bridges didn't have much strenght in story telling or backgrounds if I recall. I know I bought his run because I was peeved at all the Jim Lee / Liefeld wannabes and needed a super hero comics fix real badly.

<<I still have those Faze 1 Fazers somewhere. I was always looking for new and different super-teams. And an artist that was very Byrne-ish at the time, got my attention.>>

I have some of those issues somewhere too.  I loved finding new super-hero teams and especially new writer/artists.  His stuff definitely seemed JB influenced to me. He also had the Fazers sketchbook with what seemed like a 100 different characters in it.  Very cool for a young comic fan like me, though the story itself hasn't left much of an impression these many years later (and as I recall he wasn't able to complete the four issues for some reason).

JBF member Anthony Castrillo is always posting his work in the sketchbook thread.

http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4276& amp;PN=1&TPN=1 - http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4276& amp;PN=1&TPN=1

If you've seen some of Derenick's current stuff on Shadowpact it has a John Buscema vibe going on now.

I haven't been picking up comic books for a few months now (finances) but Derenick's a guy that I count as an ebay artist.  He made a significant impact with his artwork on ebay for quite some time before he got any regular comic work.  His early submission stuff and artwork in genereal was heavily influenced by Alan Davis more than anyone else.  I haven't seen his Shadowpact stuff but the JLA, Nightwatch and other stuff I've seen seems to have stayed in the Alan Davis mold. 

All in all, I haven't been a big fan of what Derenick's had published.  I still pull for the guy but the sacrifice he has to make to meet his deadlines seems to really water down his published stuff(in my opinion).

That's the cover the fan asked if I had "forgotten" doing.

JB, besides those that have been mentioned, what artists do you see that "imitate" your style?

A little off subject but I think imitators is a very strong word...

When an artist is developing his own style, he sometimes picks up some "features" of his favorite artist(s). He then has to move from there to his own personal style.

I picked some stuff from Byrne, Buscema, Romita Jr. and Madureira or Mignola, but then I always tried to make my own style. And I think I did it. Most of the artists mentioned here acomplished that too.

I think they're more influenced by than imitators.

Just my thoughts...

Ron Frenz and Brett Breeding on Thor were a great combination.

Nice to see fans of Kerry Gammill and Tom Grummett here. Two guys I don't think get enough recognition.

Paul Pelletier is one who springs to mind

but

what about

STEVE ERWIN ???

Did anyone pick up his first few issues of Vigilante, maybe 48-50 ???

He went straight into Gunman and then Checkmate - I think

Byrne imitating to the max

Looking back at the covers Ron Frenz did for the FF in the late 80's and his Thor run I can see much more of a Kirby-esque style to both those works.

His Spider-Man seemed much more Ditko influenced.

He had a run on Superman as well with Rubinstein.

Grummet has a byrnish style.
Castrillo? I remember an artist with a very birnish style who drawn some issues of THE FLASH when Jimenez was the regular penciler (1996 circa). I think it should be him.

I don't see similarities between JB's and Ron Frenz's styles, but anyway Ron is one of my favorite superheroes artists.
I liked how, during his run on ASM, he was inspirated by the classic illustrators.
Ditko in the early issues (until the SECRET WARS II tie ins or so), and John Romita, Sr. (with some John Buscema's element) in the second part.
Mr. Greenberg, thank you (and Roger Stern and Ron Frenz, too) for the HOBGOBLIN LIVES! miniseries! That was THE story in that moment, for me.
I'd like to contact you for some questions about your work on the Spider-titles, is there any e-mail address I can use to find you? 

You would have to go back to his work on King Conan, Ka-Zar and Indiana
Jones to see the Buscema influence.

****************

Gotcha. I didn't get aboard the Frenz train until AMAZING. I do have an odd STAR WARS or two with Frenz/ Palmer art. I wonder if that will look Buscema-ish at all to me?