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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Aug 3, 2021 15:45:50 GMT -5
I'm one the most unapologetic Starlin fanboys on this site and even I won't make excuses for Death of the New Gods.
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Post by brutalis on Aug 3, 2021 16:21:48 GMT -5
I can forgive Starlin his Death of New Gods as it wasn't his idea. DC came to him for putting an end to Kirby's 4th World. I haven't read it since buying it new, so I really can't speak out in yay or nay since I really don't recall how it all played out.
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Post by berkley on Aug 3, 2021 22:17:34 GMT -5
Starlin's New Gods work aside, I don't know if there's another comics creator whose work in general has dropped off from such a high to such a low for me, at least as fasr as my personal enjoyment is concerned. At the time, Starlin's 70s work was right up there with my very favourites of the era - Gerber, Englehart, MoKF, etc. But everything since the early 80s or late 70s reads and looks awful to me.
I don't claim objectivity for the artwork - it could well be that objectively he's a better artist now, for example in being less reliant on a small arsenal of stock poses. But in terms of my aesthetic enjoyment, it just doesn't look good to me any more, whereas the earlier stuff looks fantastic, thoguh it may well be more crude.
I feel similarly about George Perez but the drop-off there is much less drastic, as I still like Perez's stuff from every period of his career, though the 70s work is my favourite (and the 80s my least favourite).
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Post by Duragizer on Aug 4, 2021 2:37:12 GMT -5
I've read virtually nothing of Starlin's. Infinity War and Batman: The Cult are the only works of his I know I've touched (don't ask why I read Infinity War without having read Infinity Gauntlet; I don't know myself).
I've read my fair share of Byrne. A good chunk of his Superman, Fantastic Four, and She-Hulk runs; his entire X-Men run, both on Uncanny and Hidden Years; and various & sundry miscellaneous crap. I loved his artwork from the late '70s-early '90s, but find his output since then very hit-&-miss. I've never really liked his writing; I loved She-Hulk and an extremely small portion of his Superman, but found most of his stuff either disposable fluff or absolute crud. I absolutely hate him as a person; I've lurked on his forum over a decade now — long and often enough to discern how much of an egotistical, misanthropic shithead he is.
So I guess to be fair, I can't vote for either of them, though Byrne is clearly the loser spiritually.
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 4, 2021 5:04:13 GMT -5
Starlin's New Gods work aside, I don't know if there's another comics creator whose work in general has dropped off from such a high to such a low for me, at least as fasr as my personal enjoyment is concerned. At the time, Starlin's 70s work was right up there with my very favourites of the era - Gerber, Englehart, MoKF, etc. But everything since the early 80s or late 70s reads and looks awful to me. I don't claim objectivity for the artwork - it could well be that objectively he's a better artist now, for example in being less reliant on a small arsenal of stock poses. But in terms of my aesthetic enjoyment, it just doesn't look good to me any more, whereas the earlier stuff looks fantastic, thoguh it may well be more crude. I feel similarly about George Perez but the drop-off there is much less drastic, as I still like Perez's stuff from every period of his career, though the 70s work is my favourite (and the 80s my least favourite). Your post has me thinking if there are any artists that still have their appeal 40-50 years later. George Perez still put out amazing stuff into the 2000's. I personally believe that Avengers /JLA was his finest hour. For Starlin, I always thought his storytelling layouts were his strength. His line work peaked around when Avengers Annual #7 was on the stands. As for Byrne, I look back on his artwork and don't like it as much as when I was younger.
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Post by berkley on Aug 4, 2021 18:57:30 GMT -5
Starlin's New Gods work aside, I don't know if there's another comics creator whose work in general has dropped off from such a high to such a low for me, at least as fasr as my personal enjoyment is concerned. At the time, Starlin's 70s work was right up there with my very favourites of the era - Gerber, Englehart, MoKF, etc. But everything since the early 80s or late 70s reads and looks awful to me. I don't claim objectivity for the artwork - it could well be that objectively he's a better artist now, for example in being less reliant on a small arsenal of stock poses. But in terms of my aesthetic enjoyment, it just doesn't look good to me any more, whereas the earlier stuff looks fantastic, thoguh it may well be more crude. I feel similarly about George Perez but the drop-off there is much less drastic, as I still like Perez's stuff from every period of his career, though the 70s work is my favourite (and the 80s my least favourite). Your post has me thinking if there are any artists that still have their appeal 40-50 years later. George Perez still put out amazing stuff into the 2000's. I personally believe that Avengers /JLA was his finest hour. For Starlin, I always thought his storytelling layouts were his strength. His line work peaked around when Avengers Annual #7 was on the stands. As for Byrne, I look back on his artwork and don't like it as much as when I was younger. Yeah, Perez maintained a pretty high level throughout his career and I agree that his later stuff is much better than his middle period (for me the 80s). Probably it's objectively better than the 70s too in some ways - e.g. he added more detail and made his characters' faces more individualised - though to me the latter wasn't always an improvement. But anyway, yes, I definietly like his late-90s-2000s work better than his 80s.
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Post by earl on Aug 4, 2021 22:43:04 GMT -5
Got to figure that Byrne is pretty bitter that all these guys that surrounded him had all these huge success in film (Starlin, Miller, Mignola).
Back in the 80s, Jim Starlin was pretty cool and approachable at cons - he did a couple small cons up in Michigan and South Bend that were pretty near where he lived too, so I met him a few times back then. I used to have a ton of stuff signed by Starlin at one point. The couple I was at with Byrne, he got the big entry and people would sprint over and all. He was never in the artist isles etc.
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Post by zaku on Aug 5, 2021 3:09:39 GMT -5
Got to figure that Byrne is pretty bitter that all these guys that surrounded him had all these huge success in film (Starlin, Miller, Mignola). What would it be his most "famous" original creation? Next-Men perhaps? Babe? (never read it).
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Post by Bronze age andy on Aug 5, 2021 3:31:36 GMT -5
Got to figure that Byrne is pretty bitter that all these guys that surrounded him had all these huge success in film (Starlin, Miller, Mignola). What would it be his most "famous" original creation? Next-Men perhaps? Babe? (never read it). I would think Alpha Flight would be his most well known.
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 5, 2021 4:35:03 GMT -5
Got to figure that Byrne is pretty bitter that all these guys that surrounded him had all these huge success in film (Starlin, Miller, Mignola). Back in the 80s, Jim Starlin was pretty cool and approachable at cons - he did a couple small cons up in Michigan and South Bend that were pretty near where he lived too, so I met him a few times back then. I used to have a ton of stuff signed by Starlin at one point. The couple I was at with Byrne, he got the big entry and people would sprint over and all. He was never in the artist isles etc. I remember more than once, talking to Starlin for 30 minutes at time. In the early 2000's I believe. You could never do that with Byrne. But Byrne chose to continue to work for the big two, while Starlin went out to do creator owned things. He took more of a risk. Byrne is know to be a nasty person, while Starlin is the friendliest person you'd ever want to meet. They are two people that took different career paths and resonated with the fans in different ways.
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Post by zaku on Aug 5, 2021 5:31:04 GMT -5
What would it be his most "famous" original creation? Next-Men perhaps? Babe? (never read it). I would think Alpha Flight would be his most well known. Weren't the characters by Claremont?
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 5, 2021 9:11:30 GMT -5
I would think Alpha Flight would be his most well known. Weren't the characters by Claremont? Byrne created the characters; Chris wrote the comics in which they first appeared. I suppose the two men might be listed as co-creators in the credits, but I don't have an issue of Alpha Flight handy!
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Post by badwolf on Aug 5, 2021 9:25:58 GMT -5
Weren't the characters by Claremont? Byrne created the characters; Chris wrote the comics in which they first appeared. I suppose the two men might be listed as co-creators in the credits, but I don't have an issue of Alpha Flight handy! I think the deal was that Byrne got creation of Alpha Flight while Claremont got creation of the New Mutants (which actually came from an idea of Byrne's.)
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 5, 2021 9:59:00 GMT -5
Byrne created the characters; Chris wrote the comics in which they first appeared. I suppose the two men might be listed as co-creators in the credits, but I don't have an issue of Alpha Flight handy! I think the deal was that Byrne got creation of Alpha Flight while Claremont got creation of the New Mutants (which actually came from an idea of Byrne's.) That would be fair, I suppose, although I think the New Mutants Byrne thought of would have been quite different from the ones we got; wasn't Kitty a member, as well as a kid with mental powers we had seen in Fantastic Four? In the case of Alpha Flight, some of the designs (Guardian and Snowbird) had been created a long time before the idea of Alpha Flight was developed. As I recall, Byrne imagined Snowbird as being the daughter of Nelvana, an earlier Inuit-themed Canadian superhero. As for Guardian, he's simply Canada's Captain America...with the power of super-apology!
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Post by badwolf on Aug 5, 2021 10:11:05 GMT -5
I think the deal was that Byrne got creation of Alpha Flight while Claremont got creation of the New Mutants (which actually came from an idea of Byrne's.) That would be fair, I suppose, although I think the New Mutants Byrne thought of would have been quite different from the ones we got; wasn't Kitty a member, as well as a kid with mental powers we had seen in Fantastic Four? Do you mean Wendy from FF #239? She didn't have any powers of her own, but she was befriended by primal spirits that awakened every ten thousand years or so to test humanity. I suppose his original idea might have changed into the final concept, though.
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