Childhood & Early Life
John Byrne was born in Walsall, England, on July 6, 1950. His father was Frank Byrne and his mother was Nelsie Byrne. His parents immigrated to Canada when he was eight.
He joined the ‘Alberta College of Art and Design’, Calgary, Canada, in 1970 where he created his first comic character ‘Gay Guy’ for the college newspaper. He also published his first comic book ‘ACA Comix’ here. He left the college in 1973 before completing graduation.
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Career
In early 1974 he started his comic-book career with a Marvel Comics promotional publication ‘Fan Art Gallery’.
Later in August 1974, he drew black-and-white illustrations for a two-page story written by Al Hewetson of a horror magazine ‘Nightmare’ from ‘Skywald Publications’.
He made his debut in 1975 in color comics as a freelancer with Charlton Comics with the ‘Rog-2000’ series.
He worked for the series ‘Emergency’, ‘Space: 1999’ and ‘Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch’.
With Joe Gill he created a science fiction comic called ‘Doomsday 1’ around this time.
He joined Chris Claremont to start the ‘X-Men” series in 1977 for Marvel Comics.
He did the penciling job for ‘The Avengers’ written by David Michelinie till March1979.
In early 1980 he did the penciling job for miniseries ‘The Untold Legend of the Batman’ for the first time for DC Comics.
He next penciled for ‘Captain America’ written by Roger Stern from July 1980 to March 1981.
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From July 1981 to October 1986 he produced his best in the ‘Fantastic Four’ series and created the characters ‘She Hulk’ and the ‘Invisible Woman’.
He started work on the superhero team of ‘Alpha Flight’ in 1983 in which he created the gay character ‘Northstar’. The same year he became the co-writer and penciled ‘The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones’.
In 1985 he wrote and drew for five issues of the ‘Incredible Hulk’.
In 1986, he was asked by DC Comics to write something new for the next ‘Superman’ series. He worked on a six-issue mini-series titled ‘The Man of Steel’ from July 1986 to September 1986.
He worked on another six-issue mini-series ‘Legends’ for DC Universe from November 1986 to May 1987.
In January 1987 he wrote the story and drew for the first and second monthly issues of the new ‘Superman’. He worked on most of the ‘Superman’ titles for the next two years from 1986 to 1988.
He returned to Marvel Comics in 1989 and worked on the ‘West Coast Avengers’.
In 1989 he wrote and drew a new series called ‘The Sensational She-Hulk’.
He started a new series called ‘Namor, the Sub-Mariner’ in April 1990.
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He started writing for ‘Iron Man’ from July 1990 to February 1992.
He returned to DC Comics to write the story and draw for another ‘Superman’ series in 1994.
From 1995 to 1998 he wrote and drew the ‘Wonder Woman’ series for DC Comics.
He started writing and drawing for ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ in late 1998 and penciled for the series from 1999 to 2000.
From 1999 to 2001 he also wrote and drew some more titles of ‘X-Men’ for Marvel Comics.
In early 2003, Byrne worked on the ‘Funky Winkerbean’ comic strip.
During the first decade of the new millennium he worked on the ‘JLA’ series for DC Comics and on a ‘Superman’ series from 2005 to 2006.
He started working for IDW publishers in March 2008 on the superhero ‘FX’ and later on the ‘Star Trek’ series.
He worked on the ‘Angel’ series in 2008, 2009 and 2010.
He worked on the ‘Jurassic Park’ in 2011, revived ‘Next Men’ series during 2010 and 2011.
He worked on the ‘Trio’ miniseries in 2012 and ‘The High Ways’ and ‘Doomsday 1’ in 2013.
