John Byrne
In 1986, a six-issue limited series called The Man of Steel relaunched DC Comics's Superman franchise — and its first issue made history by featuring comics' first variant cover.
Born in Walsall on July 6, 1950, John Byrne was educated at Alberta University of the Arts and went on to work as a comics artist, writer, and critic, producing work in English across both of the major American comics publishers. His career at Marvel Comics brought him to two of the company's flagship titles, X-Men and Fantastic Four, and during that period he contributed to the creation of several characters who would go on to become fixtures in the Marvel universe. Among those he co-created are Emma Frost, Sabretooth, Shadow King, Scott Lang, Bishop, Omega Red, and Rachel Summers — a roster that spans a wide range of character types, from villains to heroes to morally complex figures in between.
Byrne's move to DC Comics produced The Man of Steel, his 1986 retelling of Superman's origins. The series did more than reintroduce one of comics' most familiar characters to a new generation of readers; its first issue introduced the variant cover format to the medium, a publishing practice that would become common across the industry in the decades that followed. The project demonstrated that Byrne could work effectively on both sides of the artistic equation, serving as writer and artist on a high-profile, continuity-reshaping assignment.
His contributions to the medium have been recognized with a number of awards. He received the Inkpot Award, the Eagle Award, and the Yellow Kid Award, and was inducted into the Canadian Comic Book Hall of Fame. The most substantial of these honors is his membership in the Will Eisner Hall of Fame, one of the comics industry's most formal acknowledgments of a career's lasting significance. Taken together, these recognitions reflect the range of his output — as a visual artist, a writer of scripts and dialogue, and a critic engaging with the form — across a career that has touched some of the most prominent characters and titles in North American comics. His co-creation of the variant cover format alone, introduced with that first issue of The Man of Steel, marks a concrete and lasting change to how comics are published and sold.
Quotes by John Byrne
One of the things that kept most comics from being monthly was that very few artists could produce 24 pages per month. Jack Kirby was very much the exception to the rule, but his towering presence at Marvel started to dictate the whole shape of the industry – and that’s where problems set in!
I think Daily Kos is a really great example of where it’s really worked in terms of putting the opinions of a larger group of people forward. And Kos has obviously had a huge impact on politics.
It’s that invasive and puerile curiosity to feed a tabloid culture. I don’t subscribe to it.
Personal prejudice: Hispanic and Latino women with blond hair look like hookers to me, no matter how clean or cute they are. Somehow those skin tones that look so good with dark, dark hair just don’t work for me with lighter shades.
I have no interest in anybody’s life that way so it defeats me why people go to that length to pry.
I feel not unlike a small boy, waking from a bad dream to find reality not much of an improvement.
I feel not unlike a small boy, waking from a bad dream to find reality not much of an improvement
Getting older is fine. There is nothing you can do to stop it so you might as well stay on the bus.
John Conyers' office has been very responsive to citizen concerns and the Internet has presented a way to communicate with them in a way that's never before been there.