the Byron John Interview

“The Byron John Interview”

From the Comics Inquirer 255 (April 1985)

The last time I interviewed Byron John was just over a year ago. He was in the final days of his work on the book that made him a living legend: The Mighty Doc Stalwart #250. He had obsessed over this one story for months, working diligently to get ahead of his workflow so that he would have the time to get this massive anniversary issue done. He was a focused and dedicated creator, no doubt. But he was also angry. Tired. In some ways, now that I look back, I can see the frantic pace and terrible pressure had made its way into the book. It is Doc pushed to his absolute limits, and its creator had, in his own way, endured the same thing.

So, it was very surprising to me that the Byron John who opened the door when I arrived for this interview was… relaxed. He seemed content. Affable. The occasion was, in and of itself, remarkable. He was releasing his first comic in over a year: the first issue of Skye Stalwart, the Girl Who Fell To Earth. 

He welcomed me into his own Secret Lab: his studio. The covers of every issue of Doc Stalwart he did were framed, filling an entire wall. His desk was clean, a single piece of illustration board ready for the pencil. His shelves had comics, of course, but also collections of Greek Myth and Shakespeare. He offered me a cup of tea.

Interviewer: Well, YOU seem relaxed!

Byron John: (laughs) being relaxed will make you look that way.

I: This is different… from…

B: Don’t I know it. It’s been. It’s been a year.

I: So you’re working on Skye Stalwart now. I wonder how that came to be.

B: If you told me a year ago that I’d be here, now, doing this. I never would have believed you.

I: What changed?

B: Everything. I mean, after the release party for Doc 250, my wife pulled me aside and told me that we were pregnant. She was three months along. Abigail was born in March.

I: Congratulations. That has to be a new experience.

B: It changed me. It changed everything. 

I: How do you mean?

B: When I finished my run on Doc–

I: A legendary run, I might add…

B: Kind of you to say. But when I finished, I was DONE. I had been fighting for years to protect that book, those characters, from interference. I think it is documented that I had a few conflicts with editorial staff…

I: (laughs) I hadn’t heard about that.

B: (laughs) I was pretty subtle about it. So, after years of public war with my own editors, I was ready to leave. But I wasn’t ready to let it go. So, in my own way, I went out kicking and screaming. And I spent a few months in a funk. But then… Abigail. And. I don’t know. I just couldn’t look at the world through that angry lens anymore.

I: That’s good. I’m glad. 

B: Thank you. So, there came a day, maybe two months after she came home, where I thought about Doc. I wondered what he’d been up to.

I: You hadn’t followed the comic after you left?

B: (laughs) God no! Doc was my first child, in some ways, and the thought of someone else parenting him and his book was just. I couldn’t handle it. It felt unfair. But, I had a pile of unopened envelopes that the creative team had sent me. Each issue, they’d sent me an overnight copy of the new issue the moment it came off the press. But I had not been able to bring myself to open them.

I: They probably wondered why you didn’t write back (laughs).

B: Yeah. (laughs). Probably did. So I peeled open those envelopes and lined up the books and read them.

I: And?

B: I was. Stunned. I had been worried that they would either completely mimic everything I’d done for years and just recycle it, or that they’d simply cast it all aside and pretend I’d never been involved. Either option was just as unsettling.

I: But?

B: It was this… love letter. To Stanford and Jackson. To me. To comics in general. Their work showed a reverence and a respect but also a dedication to craft. I just… I really loved their work. I loved the story they were telling. Then I read the letters and… well, I will say that their words brought me so much. Healing I guess.

I: Wow.

B: Right. And so, I spent the rest of the night writing them a letter back. I sent it, and felt incredible. I had moved on. I had let Doc go. I could really turn the page and do something else.

I: And that something else is Skye Stalwart (laughs)? That’s not much different…
B: No. That was the last - no. But, a few days letter, I got an invitation. Stalwart Press was hosting a Doc summit - the new creative team, me, the widow of Jackson… they wanted us all together. I hesitated, but (my wife) Margot said I should go. So, I did.

I: And?

B: They floated out their next storyline… how Doc recovers his daughter. And they said that they had ways to include her in the story going forward, but they wanted my input. And Beatrice (Kirby Jackson’s widow)... they wanted to know what we thought. They felt like this was such a - such a big change. They were concerned with honoring the history. And I was all for it. I loved the idea. We did some collaborative brainstorming and ate some incredible Filet Mignon (laughs). They knew how to get my attention, I guess.

I: That will do it.

B: And at the end of the night, they had taken a complete 180 on their plans. The original plan was that the book would become a team up book between Doc and his daughter. But we’d discussed how she had to find herself on her own. That seemed more authentic. And we talked about her having her own book. And I was all for that. Liked the idea. And then they just offered me the book. But it was going to be completely mine. No editorial influence. They guaranteed me complete creative control. As long as sales justified it, they would publish the book for as long as I wanted to do it, in any format I chose. There were a handful of characters that they asked me not to use, because they had plans for them, but I was free to pull from anything in Doc’s history, or to build my own new history. 

I: That had to be a great feeling.

B: Kid in a candy store. So I got to work. And, I mean, it just flowed.

I: Like riding a bike?

B: Like riding a bike. I was in the same world, the world I knew so well, but suddenly had this open road before me. Locating her on the other side of the country and just giving her this totally blank slate to work from. It was liberating. Still is.

I: The future?

B: I committed to a four-issue storyline. It’s a limited series right now… but I’m working on issue three, and I’m starting to see ways to keep this story going… threads I’m not going to wrap up. And, to be honest, I’m having a lot of fun. So, I think it’s likely I just keep going after number four.

I: Well, college isn’t cheap, from what I hear.

B: Right. I do have a job again. I think my wife likes that (laughs). She no longer has to tell people she’s married to an unemployed cartoonist (laughs).

I: That’s not impressive?

B: I guess not (laughs). And now I have a daughter who I get to watch grow up, and a book I get to watch grow up. I’m a very lucky man.