Get me up to speed on some classic comics creators.

[Flexor the Mighty!]

What are the following people doing these days in comics, or are they doing anything at all.

John Byrne - Has anything "Next Men" related come out since the end of the first series? Is he doing anything at all these days? He's my #1 artist/writer but I haven't seen anything up at the comics shop with his name on it.

Walt Simonson - Last thing I saw with him was the "Star Slammers" series under the Legend imprint. My #2 guy next to Byrne.

Art Adams - Has he ever found time to draw an ongoing series for more than 1 issue?

What happened to the Legend imprint? Is Madman still being made?

 

[CrusaderX]

What are the following people doing these days in comics, or are they doing anything at all.

John Byrne - Has anything "Next Men" related come out since the end of the first series? Is he doing anything at all these days? He's my #1 artist/writer but I haven't seen anything up at the comics shop with his name on it.

Bryne is currently writing and drawing a new Doom Patrol series for DC. There hasn't been any new Next Men material in ages.

Walt Simonson - Last thing I saw with him was the "Star Slammers" series under the Legend imprint. My #2 guy next to Byrne.

Simonson is drawing an upcoming Elric miniseries for DC.

Art Adams - Has he ever found time to draw an ongoing series for more than 1 issue?

I'm not sure what Adams is doing. He did some short stories for Alan Moore's America's Best Comics imprint not too long ago. But he's not doing a regular ongoing series.

What happened to the Legend imprint? Is Madman still being made?

Legend is gone. Madman is on the shelf for now. Mike Allred stopped doing Madman and started publishing a comic called The Atomics, which was set in the same world as Madman. Then Allred put The Atomics on the shelf and started drawing a revamped X-Force for Marvel, which I think later became X-Statics. The series has ended, though, or is about to end soon. Allred's next project is supposedly a comic about his Mormon faith.

 

[Viking Bastard]

The only thing John Byrne has done in recent years that hasn't been total
crap (and I don't mean mediocre, but real, bad-as-heck crap) were the
three Generations mini-series he did for DC. It's a Elseworld stories about
the future of the Superman and Batman legacies.

Even his art has gone dramatically down hill.

I don't get what happened to the guy (well, except for bitterness).

.

Simonson hasn't been up to much lately. He did a short lived Orion ongoing
for DC a few years back and outside from that he's not done much. Some
covers here and there and writing some one-shots for Dark Horse.

.

Art Adams has mostly been working as a cover and fill-in artist for Wildstorm,
but also drawing some stories in Wildstorm's/Alan Moore's ABC line. Some time
agohe was doing a pretty fun creator-owned pulp-like series called Monkeyman
and O'Brien, but I don't know if he ever finished it.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I'll have to check out his Doom Patrol, not much of a DP fan but he will give me a reason to look at it. What is going downhill with his art? Is he getting sloppy? Gimme an example of you have one on hand of his bad art style now so I can check it out. Is it different than his Next Men/Danger Unlimited/Babe stuff? That's the last Byrne stuff I read and I loved it of course. I always loved how he paced his art and used it to tell the story isntead of create a series of pinups. The pages themselves would end on mini cliffhangers that made you want to flip to the next page.

Too bad about Simonson. I worshiped his run on Thor and thought he was the only good FF writer I read since Byrne left the book. The current team is pretty solid though.

As for Adams, why can't this man do a regular title? He's been covers, pinups, & one shots for his whole career.

 

[ddvmor]

I beleive Mr Byrne's latest project is Superman: True Brit.... could be good as John Cleese is involved, but it's more likely to be a steaming heap of poo!

 

[Klaus]

Re: Walt Simonson

After a short run on Wonder Woman, Walt Simonson is teaming up with Michael Moorcock to create ELRIC, THE MAKING OF A SORCEROR!
http://www.dccomics.com/comics/dc_display.html?cm_dc_itemCode=elricms1&month=September

Re: Byrne...

The height of Byrne's art was during his Superman revamp, when he didn't ink his own artwork. Sometime after that he started inking his own pencils and started getting sloppy. His Wonder Woman stint was just 'bleh'.

Plus, he got _extreeemely_ verbose, with word balloons taking up nearly an entire page (and often there was no background, just the character's heads, to make space for the balloons).

Byrne's new Doom Patrol was set-up during a short stint on JLA. The storyline was written by Chris Claremont (another creator that lost his touch), and it was titled "The Tenth".

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I always thought Terry Austin or Karl Keisel were the best for his art. I agree that he is better when he doesn't ink his own work. But has his storytelling gotten worse?

 

[Villano]

I always thought Terry Austin or Karl Keisel were the best for his art. I agree that he is better when he doesn't ink his own work. But has his storytelling gotten worse?

Go read his Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman got turned into a goddess. Goofy aliens influenced the Egyptian gods and gave Wonder Woman an invisible jet. Her mom became Wonder Woman. Paradise Island could travel through time. Her mom goes back to WW2 and they retroactively add a golden age Wonder Woman to DC history.

That was some terrrible stuff. It left some damage that the following writers spent all their time trying to correct.

I used to love his Superman stuff, but I think he lost his touch.

Personally, I'd love to see Art Adams do some more Monkey Man & O'Brien.

BTW, does anyone know what happened to Mitch Byrd and Adam Hughes? I know Hughes has been doing covers, but is he doing any interior art? Byrd worked on Warrior (Guy Gardner's comic) and then did some stuff for Verotik. Last I heard of him was a pin-up sketchbook for SPQ or SQP or whatever it is.

 

[Gomez]

Humm...good thread....got me thinking.

What ever happened to Michael Golden. I thought he was/is a great comic book artist. Loved his Micronaut comic art. I wonder what he is doing today?

 

[Cthulhudrew]

If you get a chance, you might want to pick up Simonson's "Orion" run. It was 25 issues, and it started out a bit slow (for my tastes), but ended up being one of the best comic series I've ever read. It follows a distinct development path- I'd say it's akin to the mythical "Heroic Journey" but I don't know that that adequately conveys the quest that Orion goes on from start to finish. It's too bad that the series got cancelled- it really was that good. And I didn't know much about Orion before I read it (only picked it up because of Uncle Walt), nor did I care much about the New Gods (aside from bad mofo Darkseid), but Walt really got me invested in the character. If you liked his work on Thor, you owe it to yourself to pick up Orion (which he wrote and illustrated).

If you only can pick up one issue, I'd say to pick up the last issue, #25. It may seem weird to suggest the last issue of the series, but it is a story that can stand alone, and is a truly epic tale in and of itself. As the climax to the previous 24 issues, it is an amazing piece, bringing Orion full circle and setting him off on a bright new path. I really, *really* would have loved to see what Walt would have done next. *sigh*

Also, most of Walt's Thor work has now been collected in TPB form and released recently from Marvel. As far as Elric goes, Walt also collaborated with Michael Moorcock several years ago on an original story of MM's (three, actually) called Multiverse. It tells the story of three incarnations of the Eternal Warrior (one of whom is Elric), illustrated by three different authors (Walt draws the story arc featuring the character of the Rose, introduced in MM's War Against Heaven trilogy), and the stories all weave together in the end in a climax illustrated by Simonson. Also available in TPB from DC.