John Byrne (comics) - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

Byrne was born in West Bromwich, West Midlands, England where along with his parents (Frank and Nelsie) he lived with his maternal grandmother. While living there, he was first exposed to the American superheroes that would dominate his professional life through reruns of American programs such as The Adventures of Superman. In Britain, he was able to read domestic comics such as Eagle as well as reprints of DC Comics. When he was eight years old he left England with his parents and moved to Canada.

His first encounter with Marvel Comics was in 1962 with Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four No. 5. He later commented that "the book had an 'edge' like nothing DC was putting out at the time". Jack Kirby’s work in particular had a strong influence on Byrne and he has worked with many of the characters Kirby created or co-created. Besides Kirby, Byrne was also influenced by the naturalistic style of Neal Adams.

In 1970, Byrne enrolled at the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary. He created the superhero parody Gay Guy for the college newspaper, which poked fun at the campus stereotype of homosexuality among art students. Gay Guy is also notable for featuring a prototype of the Alpha Flight character Snowbird. While there, he also published his first comic book, ACA Comix No. 1, featuring "The Death’s Head Knight".

Byrne left the college in 1973 without graduating. He broke into comics with a "Fan Art Gallery" piece in Marvel's promotional publication FOOM in early 1974 and by illustrating a two-page story by writer Al Hewetson for Skywald Publications’ black-and-white horror magazine Nightmare No. 20 (August 1974). He then began freelancing for Charlton Comics, making his color-comics debut with the E-Man backup feature “Rog-2000,” starring a robot character he’d created in the mid-1970s that colleagues Roger Stern and Bob Layton named and began using for spot illustrations in their fanzine CPL (Contemporary Pictorial Literature). A Rog-2000 story written by Stern, with art by Byrne and Layton, had gotten the attention of Charlton Comics editor Nicola Cuti, who extended Byrne an invitation. Written by Cuti, "Rog-2000" became one of several alternating backup features in the Charlton Comics superhero series E-Man, starting with the eight-page "That Was No Lady" in issue No. 6 (January 1975).

Byrne went on to work on the Charlton books Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch, Space: 1999, and Emergency!, and co-created with writer Joe Gill the post-apocalyptic science-fiction series Doomsday + 1. Byrne additionally drew a cover for the supernatural anthology The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves No. 54 (December 1975).