Paul Ryan’s passing last March meant not only a loss to his family and friends, but the loss of one of the best “sixth man” artists in mainstream comics
In basketball, the “sixth man” refers to player usually sent in first to relieve one of the five starters. They are often asked to sub in for different positions and play as long or longer than some others, “sixth men” have to bring starter-level play with them when they hit the court. Time and again, Ryan was assigned to books after runs by ‘superstar’ artists, but he never failed to keep the quality of that book going after their departure.
Whether following John Romita Jr. on his second “Iron Man” run, John Byrne after “West Coast Avengers,” George Perez on “Avengers,” Oscar Jiminez on “The Flash,” or the second half of Mark Gruenwald’s landmark “Squadron Supreme” miniseries after Bob Hall fell too far behind on deadlines to continue. He and Gruenwald seeming to find common creative ground in their work together, working on the “Death of a Universe” graphic novel after their “Squadron” run and “Quasar” after that. If you needed a solid storyteller, you brought in Paul Ryan.
Ryan’s style might not have ignited the fanbase the way Buscema, Perez, or Byrne did, but you can see traces of their approaches in his work. A face here, a pose there, a Kirby Krackling machine with a John Byrne sheen in a panel background. It was never a swipe with Ryan the way it was with other artists. In the same way that Ron Frenz could stretch his style of evoke Kirby on “Thor” or Ditko on ‘Spider-Man,” Ryan could make you squint and see Perez or Byrne mixing with Kirby, a good skill to have when working on books like “Superman” or “Fantastic Four.”
And it was on his “Fantastic Four” run with Tom DeFalco, one of his few ‘starting’ jobs, that Ryan seems to have really hit his stride and made his mark with fans. Obits after his passing usually mentioned the FF when describing the artist in their headlines. Ryan’s work, an interesting amalgam of Byrne and Kirby, ended up running in the title for almost 60 issues, making him third on the longest-running FF pencillers behind only those two artists.
And then came “The Phantom.” Ryan spent the last decade handling the art chores on the comic strip for The Ghost Who Walks, starting his work on the daily strip in 2005 and adding the Sunday strip in 2007.
Be it comic books or comic strips, Paul Ryan could work at a pace and quality level not seen too often in either field. It is a real shame we won’t be seeing his name show up in the credit pages any more, because when we did, it was always a sign that we were in for some solid storytelling and some fine comics.
