Inking the greats 3: John Byrne's "X-Men Elsewhen"

John Byrne is another one of my childhood favourites - Alpha Flight, She-Hulk, X-Men (I think I read those issues in Classic X-Men). I asked my friend R Stevens who I should attempt to ink next and he suggested one of JB's "X-Men Elsewhen" pencil pages that he puts up on his Byrne Robotics forums. 

Inking Byrne is a real adventure. The X-Men Elsewhen pages are quirky, to say the least - they're very tightly pencilled, but you can see the speed of decision making in the number of popped thumbs on this page. That's plainly his go-to thumb. He's leaning on his figure-drawing craft, 40+ years of it. 

When I was inking (or trying to ink) the sniffs in panels 2 and 3, I realised just how much the man knows about how a nose works when it's sniffing. For the second day in a row, I was deep in the world of comic nostrils. Right up there with the gremlins. It was incredibly educational to try to dig out a simpler shape that didn't just look wretched. When I sat back and panel 3 looked a bit like a mad manga comic, I thought, that'll do pig.

I didn't know what to do with Jean's face in the bottom right corner. In the original, the face was distorted, as if JB had drawn it from a height. Her chin was virtually on the page bleed! It looked right if you viewed it from the angle one might sit at a drawing board, foreshortened like one of those advertising signs they paint on the pitch for cricket matches. I straightened it up to get it back "in pro" but it's not a classic cheekboney Byrne face any more, in trying to fix it I lost the spirit of it.

[I also made a few editorial decisions along the way, enjoy playing spot the difference.]

My other takeaway, from yesterday's comic and today, is that Cyclops is a no-personality stiff. He's a granite boy. I bet he doesn't have any hobbies. Maybe that's what it takes to go out with Marvel Girl/Phoenix, it's a full time job &c. But I think she could do better and I am not talking about Wolverine. I'm talking about the Batman.

In conclusion, John Byrne knows more about drawing that I will ever know. There was something to learn in every line.