RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books Mitch Byrd

Another artist I've recently gotten into, Mitch Byrd drew comics mostly from 1990-1996, a thinning output in 1997-1998, and very little since, other than art books for SQ Productions.

Here's a chronological list of his work, courtesy of comics.org:
http://www.comics.org/penciller/name/mitch%20byrd/sort/chrono/


I'd say his stuff started getting good with the first series of his I picked up, DINOSAURS FOR HIRE. A nice clean art style, and he definitely has a gift for drawing women. In latter years, he seems to have gravitated toward drawing more full-figured women. It's too bad he stopped doing comics, dropping out about 2 years after his stuff started getting really good. His longest and most prominent run being on GUY GARDNER: WARRIOR issues 17-23, 0, 25, 27-28, 30-31, and 44.
Issues 17-23 were interesting, and then the series completely changed gears. From what writer Beau Smith said, I got the impression there was a lot of editorial interference, that possibly made Mitch Byrd at some point say "fuck this shit" and walk away.

Except for coming back for one more issue, number 44 (July 1996) and a later less impressive 10-page backup story in GUY GARDNER ANNUAL 2 (also 1996).
Along with a handful of single-issue efforts in:
VEROTIKA 2,
CURSE OF RUNE 4,
JAGUAR GOD 2 and 4.
The stuff after this is mostly just a few pages by him in an artist-jam, such as:
SHI: WAY OF THE WARRIOR 8 (only 7 pages of a 28 page story),
STARMAN ANNUAL 2 (1997, 27 pages),
GENERATION X number 23 (22 pages), and 24 (3 pages out of 24),
and MAGNUS ROBOT FIGHTER 17 (8 pages, out of 21).

He appears to have burned out in 1998, and only done a few scattered issues since. Too bad.

I think the SQ Productions book THE ART OF MITCH BYRD, vol 1 (and only) is the best representation of his work, outside of his comics art.

One of the GUY GARDNER issues I enjoyed the most (22 and 23 are a 2-part story):

He seems to like chunky pear-shaped women. And that's a fun variety from the norm.

From GUY GARDNER WARRIOR 23:



A fairly representative Mitch Byrd page, from two of the nicest issues of the series.

A panel from the 10-page backup story in GUY GARDNER ANNUAL 2 (1996).

Another book of Byrd's from SQ Productions.

It looks like most of what he does is a lot of naked fat women. I do like his Guy Gardner stuff.

So, this guy was like the first chubby chaser?

I kind of over-represented that in the images I chose. I hope you don't mind the nude women!

Yeah, the GUY GARDNER run is his best work, it's too bad he didn't do another run after, to give it some competition for Byrd's best series. The only other he did for any length of time was CAT & MOUSE 1-12, 14-18 in 1990-1991, rougher early work. Byrd only did full art for about 65 issues. The SQ Productions books have a lot of unpublished proposed new series by Byrd. Maybe he left comics because he couldn't find a publisher for the work he was producing. A lot of semi-nude adventurer women stuff.

He's the Russ Meyer of comics!

A photo of the man himself, from a convention profile.



http://wizardworld.com/mitchbyrd.html

OK, back to women:

Yeah, Mitch likes the 'plus sized' women. He lives down in Biloxi and has a working relationship with one of the comic shops down there. Grimm knows him pretty well personally from what I remember.

Man, that would be great, to be able to just hang out with Mitch Byrd! It's fun to chat with creators at conventions, but that's not quite the same as them being locals you can chat with on a regular basis.

The more I look at Byrd's work, the more I think this guy is very talented and should be doing more work in comics. Maybe he's doing covers, or commercial art or game design or something, that pays better than comics.

I also learned that Byrd does a regular column for SKETCH magazine, at least some of which were collected in the trades NOTES TO DRAW FROM, volumes 1 and 2.

Grimm used to kick around with a bunch of comic artists that live down here. Mitch Byrd, Sam Lovelace (I believe she's in one of the Carolina's now), and Steven Butler. Butler's actually started a new comic company called Gallant Comics using public domain characters.

I like Steve Butler's art too. As I recall, he broke into comics and did Marvel stuff in the mid and late 1980's, and I've seen some other promotional and historical one-shots he's done on the periphery of comics. Wasn't he the artist on the BADGER series for Comico?

Thanks for the info, I'll take a look at his more recent work. The only conventions you can meet pro's in my area are the Orlando Con, and the Miami-based Florida Supercon. As I said the last time I went (July 2012), the latter one gets a remarkable group of creators for such a relatively small show, Neal Adams, Dennis O'Neil, Kevin Maguire, Bill Sienkiewicz, Roy Thomas, Carmine Infantino, Richard Spurlock, Jose Delbo, and many others. I hope to go again this year.

I don't know about the Badger stuff. I know he was the artist during the whole Scarlet Spider storyline. He also worked on some design sketches when Archie was toying with the idea to revive their superheroes line. I got to see his work on that maybe five or so years ago.

Sienkiewicz is a really cool guy from the times that I've met him. The first DragonCon I went to, he was talking about how he couldn't sleep the night before. He wound up walking out onto the balcony of his hotel room. "Only here can you see Batman stumbling home drunk down the sidewalk at 3 AM."

Butler on Badger: http://www.amazon.com/Badger-Volume1-Issue-Steven-butler/dp/B00FYQS412

Butler and badger?

I barely knew them!

Actually, I looked, and there were two Butlers.
Jeff Butler did the first 5 or so issues of BADGER.
Steve Butler did issues 60-69.

I'm more familiar with Jeff than Steve.

http://art.cafimg.com/images/Category_3774/subcat_106585/2L6XvjAg_1504141737511.jpg !