I can understand criticizing the quality of Byrne's work in recent years. And I can understand being frustrated that he's jumping off assignments and/or getting fired a lot. But I don't understand the same person doing both. If Byrne sucks, who wants more of him?

Reminds me of the old Woody Allen complaint about the restaurant where the food is terrible and the portions are too small.

Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm not frustrated with either the quality of his work or the fact that he quits a lot. I don't especially care about Byrne's work one way or the other.

I am, however, weirdly fascinated by watching the funny old cranky man make a fool of himself in public. And even more fascinated by the mental contortions his fans do to defend him.

Byrne's mental contortions are amusing.

Often after one of his books has failed, Byrne will go into long, elaborate conspiracy theories as to why. Publishers inexplicably schemed against him; retailers ignored their customers' pleas and refused to stock the book; and so on. A decade after X-MEN: THE HIDDEN YEARS got axed, Byrne still foams at the mouth about how he done got did wrong on that one.

If Byrne has ever said, "I guess it wasn't very good" or "I liked it, but the audience just wasn't there for it," I've missed it.

That's about it. There was a time I'd love to see him to a "good" and, for me, interesting book. But I juts don't care anymore.

[quote=Lawson]I can understand criticizing the quality of Byrne's work in recent years. And I can understand being frustrated that he's jumping off assignments and/or getting fired a lot. But I don't understand the same person doing both. If Byrne sucks, who wants more of him?
/quote]

It's not really criticizing Byrne for storming off assignments so often because I necessarily wanted him to continue on those assignments. This discussion is really more of setting the record straight in the face of his defensiveness, denials, and as others have pointed out, his mangling of logic to explain why he shouldn't have a reputation for doing exactly what he repeatedly does.

If there were ever any sort of concession like that on Byrne's part, it would go a long way to possibly affording him some credibility in those instances where he screams "Double cross!" or "Conspiracy!"

The same thing applies to his very own accounts of the times he's quit jobs. If there were at least one or two stories in which he said, "Yeah. I was a young hot head so I blew my stack and quit," or "Looking back, I guess I shouldn't have done it that way" his other more self-serving version of events would be far more believable. As it is however, ever single one of his "I quit" stories have him quitting a job because it was a moral imperative for him to do so.

Even JB himself raises an eyebrow at all of the usual commission thread gushing in this thread...


http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=37116&PN=1&TPN=4

"I'm most intrigued by the enormous positive response to this one. Sure, I will modestly agree with the rest of you that it's a good drawing -- if it wasn't, it would be in four strips in my garbage can and you would never have seen it! -- but Best One Ever?

Hm!!"

You can speak for me.

I do think that is one of his better commissions, the reasons being:

The blacks and details are nice and crisp.
The illustration looks balanced with his spotting blacks in the background.
The anatomy and perspective don't look off.
Wolverine doesn't have an "O" mouth.
The proper number of digits on each hand.

Might not be the Best One Ever, but it is a good drawing, IMHO.

So which stories do you believe? Or do all have no credence because if one is possibly untrue, then the rest are untrue? Is JB lying in some cases, but not others? Did he actually have a legitimate reason on one, but the rest are lies? Maybe two legitimate stories, but the others are lies? How do you decide? Or is it just easier to paint it all one color?