Neal Adams and Jerry Robinson are gunine. Everyone else from "anti-corpo" camp never cared for Siegel and Shuster, despite having carrier DIRECTLY because of these two never gave up on their character from 1933 to 1938, not to mention created a Lot of things that others would use and reinterpret.
I understand the comment about well, "you signed up as a company man and that s the way it is,"......but after a fair amount of time had elapsed, the pile of artwork Kirby drew had started to become quite large in its own right,......who knew originally how long marvel would even stay open at first? It was wrong for Marvel to treat their artists that way, but it was something of the times they were in, but if Kirby had never complained or helped to change it, then today's artists wouldn't have their artwork to sell either,.... so it was a good thing for him to stand up and fight for his rights, and for those to come later, even though he had originally agreed to the status quo of the time,.....
Byrne Also wrote and drew a series completely dedicated to Kirby's New Gods character called Jack Kirby's Fourth World. This was in the late nineties, after Kirby had died.
Couldnt leave this comment on the creator vid you guys did on John Byrne so ill say it here. Man John Byrne was my favorite artist. I started collecting FF because he started drawing it. I think Terry Austin brought the best out of his work though. When Bryne inked his own stuff it lost a little lustre for me
Byrne was agreeing that "Work For Hire" means precisely that and one can either do the work or look for a better deal elsewhere instead of complaining after the fact. Eventually, Kirby did find a better deal in animation and a couple of comic book projects with Pacific Comics. And of course, DC did right by Jack when it came to the New Gods, even though they didn't have to! (They just wanted to stick it to Marvel while the Kirby Art Hostage scandal was going on!) Dick Giordano and Jim Shooter made some changes that got big names better deals, but it took the Creation of Image to really shake things up! Creatively, I think Kirby had the last laugh on Byrne! When Byrne was given a creator owned opportunity with the Legends label under Dark Horse: Byrne came up with DANGER UNLIMITED, NEXT MEN and BABE...boring knockoffs of books he worked on before. By contrast, the stuff Kirby did for Pacific and later Image, were CAPTAIN VICTORY, DESTROYER DUCK (w/Steve Gerber) ,SILVER STAR and PHANTOM FORCE! Even while past his prime, Kirby blew Byrne out of the water!
Really, it's just a bummer that Kirby wasn't around to get some of the credit he deserved in the form of royalties, kind of the way Stan got, for all the movies. Byrne wasn't the only artist to piggy back on what Kirby had done, he was just the most prolific. Kirby's influence on artists is so widespread. Without Kirby, what would the comics landscape look like today?
The history of comics is newer artists and writers reusing old characters and plot points. This not specific to John Byrne vs Kirby. Kirby did get screwed but he agreed to the contract and that is what the deal was back then.
As much as I like and respect Kirby, it's true, this is the contractual arrangement that he agreed to. Was he unfairly screwed over? Absolutely. Of course he was but as a gun-for-hire, if you will, that was what the situation was and was always going to be. Even Stan Lee said the same thing in a 2014 interview when he was asked if he had any kind of control or ownership over any of the many characters that he had created for Marvel. Lee said that he never owned any of the characters that he created for Marvel and that even he, was only ever just an employee of Marvel and Lee basically said that Marvel was just using him as a figurehead to trot out for promotional events and film premieres and movie-cameos. Like most comic book fans, I respect and revere Jack Kirby and like he was and is for many people, he is one of my inspirations for wanting to work in the comic book industry(also, I agree with Joe Quesada and Brian Michael Bendis, a movie should be made about Jack Kirby's life) but what happened to him, Stan Lee and many, many others in the comic book industry should be viewed as a cautionary tale and Todd McFarlane as well as the other founders of Image Comics even said that they had looked at what happened to Stan and Jack as something of a cautionary tale.
@@JR-ju3kj Lee ccx was literally related to the Publisher Martin Goodman. This was his families business. He screwed Kirby, deliberately. May he burn in Hell.
I love John Byrne's work, but now I finally know why he was considered an asshole, thanks! I didn't know you could idolized somebody and shit on them at the same damn time!
john didn’t rip off Jack Kirby.. it was all homage work . Lots and lots of artist copied Kirby’s style especially after he left . Marvel wanted them to be Kirbyish .
Not sure how old this is but I’m almost sure John Byrne has come around to jack Kirby’s philosophy that artist should be given their due credit and money for what they create- just think of the billions marvel movies made on Kirby’s ideas- anyway big fan of both - in my mind they are the two biggest artist in comics and if it’s drawn by Byrne that’s how the character should be drawn all the time- even Byrne went to creator owned independent comics for a spell - but he probably was the best for hire guy back in the day- anyway the business has changed- I think- creator/artists are given better deals and they are more independent publishers vs the big two that is marvel vs dc. Hellboy is completely owned by Mike magnolia - he’s banking
I second this; I could be mistaken but my recollection was that in later years Byrne changed his mind on some of the things he’d said about Kirby, not to mention Frank Miller very tastefully responded and took him to task for his stance. For what it’s worth I also seem to recall Byrne and Miller being at odds over whether the Image comics debut was a good thing for the industry or not, with Miller being pro and Byrne being against, and ironically later Miller wrote an opinion piece where he conceded that Byrne had been right regarding Image after all...?
It's get worse, the rumor is that Barda was originally a doppelgänger for Kirbys wife. Don't know how true it is. So having Barda do porno with Superman was not nice.
Hypocritical considering how much him and Lee ripped off from Siegel, just like everyone else did. But only Stan Lee actually paid tribute to The Man. Well and Byrne in a way too. Not to mention only Neal Adams (for that he will always be a Real one, despite that I don't share his opinions that much) and Jerry Robinson fought for Siegel and Shuster. In fact Kirby's name was plastered on Jimmy Olsen's book (thanks to Stan Lee's culture of making creators into rockstars and printing their names which is call back to beginnings of DC comics, except much more honest) while Siegel and Shuster bypline wasn't.
It's difficult to see Byrne's "respect" for Kirby when Byrne plasters "KKK" onto Kirby's forehead. There was no reason to spell Cosmic Consciousness with "K"s. The "K" at the end of "KOSMIK" breaks the "rule of three" and makes the change even more odd. Maybe there's no harm meant, but it's very obvious when you put a thing like that on a person's face.
It's easy to criticize people from the outside looking in. Kirby made it possible for artists like John Byrne to make substantial money by the time the 80s rolled around. John Byrne made it possible for the image studios to take creator rights and profits to a whole new level. But in the time between the 70s and the 90s you needed to mind your relationship with the company(s) because as far as anyone knew that was the ONLY way you were going to get your share of the revenue from your work. Byrne played Marvel and DC off one another as best one could and got paid about as well as an artist could before image happened.
Gene Colan is one of my favorite artists and his pencils are so beautiful, DC and Dark Horse have published some his work UNINKED! WHY on Earth would Byrne criticize Colan?
Well said. I love his work. Colan didn't outline his stories. He liked to be surprised, so he didn't read them ahead of time. As a result, he sometimes had to skrunch the ending in the last couple of pages. Byrne criticised that and other things, as I recall. Funny, I've seen plenty of Byrne endings that were like that.
Yeah, he may have dissed Colan elsewhere, but I remember it from his notorious Comics Journal interview in 1980. He took shots at Colan, Kirby, Neal Adams, George Perez, and no doubt a few others I'm forgetting. I absolutely LOVED his work at the time, but that interview left a sour taste in my mouth that never went away. And further dickish behavior I've heard about over the years has convinced me Mr. Byrne is simply a horse's ass who loves to stir shit up.
The sad part about Byrne's critique was it was right. The Journal was in agreement and even posted a picture with the bad perspective shot. Critiques happen all of the time, tho.
1-8-18 In my opinion, I prefer Jack Kirby as a creator, artist, and as a human being over Byrne. Kirby has a signature art-style, that is immediately recognizable. He created/ co-created most of the core characters of the Marvel universe, along with many other non-Marvel/DC characters. He single handedly created the Fourth World all by himself. The man as a person was a class act. Byrne on the other hand is one the most overrated ¨artists¨, in the history of the field and an even worse writer. From his phobias of philtrums, to giving the characters he draws a caved-in face with a slight smirk. He almost ruined Superman (thank God Ordway, Jurgens, Stern, Johns, etc. cleaned up that mess), to his massive ego about himself and his ¨talent¨(if his head got any bigger, his spine would shatter... Then theres his personality..the man (I use the term ¨man¨ very loosely in his case) has a septic tank for a heart-- all he spews is garbage... Im all for people expressing themselves verbally (thats one of the reasons why I oppose political ¨correctness¨), but when all a person does is spew negativity any time that they open their mouth-- then there definitely is a serious problem both mentally and spiritually. Ironically if super heroes were real, Byrne is the type of person that they would be against. Sadly many of the writers/artists in the comic book field, are arrogant, ego-maniacs-- they forget that without their fans-- these artists/writers´ talents would be nothing special.
Since at least the late 70s, John Byrne has been-and will probably always remain-an ungrateful, disrespectful, egoistical TOOL. Like so many artist/writers of his generation, he absolutely worshipped Jack Kirby and was inspired to go into comics because of the man’s work. He spent a good chunk of his career building on Jack’s creations, doing stories that were straight-up clones of what Jack did, developing characters that were totally modeled after Jack’s archetypes. But as soon as he got popular and sipped from the fountain of fan adulation, BOOM! Check out his infamous Comics Journal interview (matched only by Harlan Ellison’s in how many industry people were insulted) where, if I recall correctly, he not only strongly supported Marvel screwing Jack on the return of his artwork but openly admitted to being one of the Bullpen crew who nicknamed him “Jack the Hack,” ridiculing his work since returning to Marvel and basically trying to undermine his reputation at the company-a company, by the way, that owed its existence to The King. He also went after the great Gene Colan, saying he must’ve had a stroke and forgotten how to draw. Classy. I could go on and on, but the bottom line is this: Whose legacy is the most remembered and celebrated at this point? Or let’s put it another way: Aside from the X-men, how many of John Byrne’s characters and concepts have made it to the big screen? I’ll wait…
I love them both, but Byrne just can't hold a candle to Kirby in terms of sheer inventiveness. Just read that New Gods stuff. Crazy. This said, Byrne wins in terms of anatomical correctness. :P
dan gilmore I just started listening to their podcast and I just get the feeling that they just don't like John Byrne. I'm with you, he's Superman made me interested in the character.
While I prefer Byrne over Kirby as an artist (I grew up on Byrne) ‘it’s not even close’?..... you’re buggin’. Kirby CREATED most of the big books Byrne wrote/drew ...his impact is something Byrne himself would say was more meaningful than his own ...so umm no and I love Byrne ...my all time favorite comic book writer and artist .... but Kirby is the GOAT in terms of impact of the industry
@@profitgee1 "Not even close" on what though? It sounds like one person is talking about talent and the other is talking about industry influence. Of course no one can ever touch Kirby on influence because he was the original standard. He was there _at the beginning_ when Lee started it all. Byrne isn't as influential as Kirby because that's not possible, whether he had greater talent or not. It would require time travel to match what Kirby did, not skill, and that's not really a fair comparison.
Robert Reichle Dan Gilmore said Byrne did every big book so he’s alluding to influence not talent had he said Byrne drew every big book better than Kirby then you’d have an argument to say he’s referring to talent ...now again I’m a Byrne fan. He’s my all time favorite comic book artist but it is what it is ..Kirby created characters (along with Stan Lee) that withstood the tests of time. Byrne created Alpha flight the Next Men Babe Kitty Pryde and Danger unlimited ..while I enjoy these characters and their stories there’s no time travel needed to say Kirby’s influence is Greater than Byrne’s
Let me add John Byrne does have a great legacy of influence on existing characters such as wolverine the fantastic four and even super man despite DC undoing a lot of his work to define the character and his run on the X-men with Chris Claremont produced some of the most timeless stories that define the X men til this day! Just wanted to be clear ... I’m not saying Byrne had no impact or influence on the industry ....just not as much as Kirby.
