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What if John Byrne went full Mandala?
- Thread starter Rowdy Roddy McDowall
- Start date
This is more of a TrekLit topic...
I love John Byrne's earlier Trek work, namely "Assignment: Earth," "Crew," "Leonard McCoy: Frontier Doctor," and especially the "Romulans" stuff. It really fits into the world of TOS.
But I do not like his "New Visions" series.
And I'm not a huge fan of photocomic adaptations of existing episodes (I would rather just watch the episode). So I wouldn't really be interested in this.
Kor
I love John Byrne's earlier Trek work, namely "Assignment: Earth," "Crew," "Leonard McCoy: Frontier Doctor," and especially the "Romulans" stuff. It really fits into the world of TOS.
But I do not like his "New Visions" series.
And I'm not a huge fan of photocomic adaptations of existing episodes (I would rather just watch the episode). So I wouldn't really be interested in this.
Kor
Yeah, I don't see the point of Byrne adapting TOS stories when he's giving us original stories instead. I know which of the two I'd rather have.
Besides, I suspect the introduction of home video, Beta and VHS, kinda' "killed" the market for photo-novels. I mean, those volumes, while dang cool to be sure, could not depict every shot. They had to "pick and choose" the more representative shots, dropping some aspects to make the price reasonable. When prerecorded episodes became available containing everything, first frame of the "teaser" to the last frame of the Desilu and Paramount logos, well, the photo-novels just couldn't compete.
Sincerely,
Bill
Sincerely,
Bill
This is more of a TrekLit topic...
I love John Byrne's earlier Trek work, namely "Assignment: Earth," "Crew," "Leonard McCoy: Frontier Doctor," and especially the "Romulans" stuff. It really fits into the world of TOS.
But I do not like his "New Visions" series.
Same here. Mainly because his photoshopping is amateur level, the light sourcing on the different figures from panel to panel is horrifically jarring, and his original designs (ships, aliens, sets, etc) are horrible and do not, in any way shape or form, match the aesthetics of the original show.
When he drew the stuff, it at least matched what we were seeing, not so when he tries to insert original stuff in.
And the worst part about John doing these books is that apparently the nice little universes he created at the end (Highways, Secret Service, Trio/Triple Helix, Doomsday.1) have now been left by the wayside because he no longer has any desire to draw comics.
That's the not the only thing amateurish about Byrne's...stuff.
The Photonovels were great--but as they seemed to be packaged: a "best of" series.
The Fotonovels were great when I worked for a company in a man-made cave, there was no tv, radio, or phonograph at night. Not even a window to outdoors. I had audio tapes I'd made of episodes, the Fotonovels for those tapes, so it was almost as good as the real thing.
Me, I don't like John Byrne as a person, because as a person, he's a gaping, spewing anal sphincter. But please, tell the rest of us your Bad Byrne story, and why you think a pencil artist who could be consistently in the top five with a good inker(rather than himself), and a writer who has the balls to tell stories about people that don't share his religious philosophy (hate spewing anti-christian pseudo-atheist) and not make them out to be wrong, stupid or contemptible is amateurish.
I loved the Fotonovels, and they still have a retro charm. The comics I don't like because, the one issue I checked out, had stills from all across the series. So instead of, say, Kirk looking consistent throughout the story, his age, weight and hair changed from panel to panel. And it's distracting also to read these with my brain identifying what episodes the stills came from.
So...I'd be okay with Fotonovels based on the remaining episodes because I loved them and always wanted a Doomsday Machine book. As long as they were of the same quality and in the same format as the originals. But the "comic"? It's dead to me.
So...I'd be okay with Fotonovels based on the remaining episodes because I loved them and always wanted a Doomsday Machine book. As long as they were of the same quality and in the same format as the originals. But the "comic"? It's dead to me.
John Byrne is gonna become president of South Africa?!
I glanced through them at my local used bookstore and while I'll be the first to admit I don't know much about photoshop, these looked like bad 'cut 'n paste' jobs against poorly rendered CGI backgrounds. It felt lazy. I couldn't believe this was the same artist who did such detailed work with 'Romulans' and 'Crew' etc. Has he given up illustrating?
I glanced through these at my local used bookstore and while admit I don't know much about Photoshop, these looked like bad 'cut 'n paste' jobs against some poorly rendered CGI backgrounds. I couldn't believe this was the same artist who drew 'Crew' and 'Leonard McCoy'. It felt lazy. What happened? Has he given up illustrating?
..and that is the glaring, lazy, amateurish nature of Byrne's work (aside from the stories). Did he really think no one would notice the well-known physical changes of actors not only from season to season, but within the season, too?
While they aren't my thing, I think people here are being unfairly harsh to John Byrne's photomanip comics. I think it's bad when people shout down something new that is tried. Creating something different with limited resources is probably a pretty difficult task.
It is obvious that some folks are enjoying them, as they are continuing to be published.
It is obvious that some folks are enjoying them, as they are continuing to be published.
Jesus. I've never seen Byrne's Trek work, but the hatred for him around here is way out of whack for a guy who was one of the definitive X-Men and FF artists of all time. Yeah, he can be an asshole (though he has been inaccurately and unfairly called a racist), but his art and stories for Marvel were first rate.
Ellison can be an asshole too. But few doubt his talent, even if he couldn't write a Trek story for sour owl poop.
Ellison can be an asshole too. But few doubt his talent, even if he couldn't write a Trek story for sour owl poop.
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