Cletus Byrnison

Cletus Byrnison is one of the central writers of the Supers series. His current project is the "Beautiful World" story arc. He was born in 1967 and is currently 43 years old.

Background
Cletus grew up and attended school in Hot Springs, Arkansas. His earliest foray into comics was writing a political/current events weekly for his highschool newspaper. He attended college with the aim of becoming a professional graphic designer, working on fiction side-projects as he did. He initially dismissed comics as "puerile" as a medium, until an enthusiast friend convinced him to read the then-recently published Watchmen. This later expanded into a headfirst trip into the underground comics "scene". His resonance with his parents' accounts as college students in the sixties left him feeling somewhat left out of the culture of "personal psychological self-expansion" (his words), a venue he began to explore in comics and his own art. Inspired by The Invisibles by Grant Morrison, he attempted to publish his own graphic novel in 1999. The two volume work,  In and Out of Puddles , was praised by some critics for the strength of its allegorical anti-capitalist plotline, but largely flew under the radar, at worst among accusations of "preaching". He did graphical design for several other series, and occasional writing, while holding down a job as an editor for Del Ray Books. A contact from a previous series recommended him when writer recruitment for  Supers  began. The marketting director of the publication happened to be a fan of In and Out of Puddles, and purportedly jokingly threatened to leave if Byrnison was not hired.

Example interview questions and answers
Q: The last two-part segment of the series, "A Boat Load of Science" and "The Bomb", drew outcry for its depiction of a Scientologist supervillain. What were your thoughts on this backlash?

A: Well, first of all, I want to clarify I didn't write this storyline, but I absolutely support it. (Name not available) wrote it, and he was shocked, just shocked, at the backlash. And maybe it's naive, but I kind of understand that. Large religions like Christianity are seen as "fair game" for targetting in fiction. Maybe it's because it's just inevitable when something gets that huge. Maybe it's because people feel something that massive can't be "hurt" by some negative press. But for every anti-Christian straw man who brings about a book burning, there are a hundred others that soar right on by. This really isn't any different. The villain is a Scientologist. It's no different from all the other fictional villains through history who've been Christians, or Jewish, or Muslims, or Hindu - I'll bet - I'm sure, there's been at least one Buddhist villain. And his religion deeply affects his motivations and character. That's just part of solid writing. I think it would have been better if there were more focus on the secondary characters - just to show that he doesn't think Scientologists are evil people. But if people can't figure that out for themselves, if they're going to extrapolate one character out of context like that, there's no helping them.

Q: I understand you wrote the characters of Dr. Malika Aarya from the previous run, and "Exemplar". Which character among the others is your favorite?

A: You left out Overclocked. He didn't last long, though. I'm not surprised you forgot. Scrapping him was my idea. I realized early on I was just copying the "tone" of Rorschach from Watchmen. And nobody had died yet, so I just asked the editor one day, "Hey. Can I kill Overclocked?" (laughs) I probably could have tweaked the writing, in retrospect, but it feels like it would've been a betrayal of the character, even if he was subconsciously plagiarized. But back to your question. SO-LAR, definitely. He's just so guileless in a way we could all stand to be. He's a throwback to the old four-color superheroes, with that same kind of vulnerable naiveté, and I think that fits really well for an occasionally dark series like this one, where you can really play with that a bit.

Q: What do you think sets you apart from your co-writers?

A: I think you'll get to see this soon - we've only recently started "dividing power" so much. It used to be that (Name not available) pretty much called the shots, so I didn't really get to show my style off as much. I'm very interested in the speculative fiction side of things, the allegorical, the stuff good science-fiction is about. I don't want to tell people what to think - I learned that the hard way with Puddles, God help me - but I do want to make them think. I guess the big difference is that I always try to write "about" something. The others, I guess, most of them are more concerned with the story itself so far as I can tell. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm just interested in saying more.

Q: You hinted there might be some "big reveals" in the next plot arc. Can you give us any hints about that?

A: It's still not all set in stone, truth be told, and I really can't say much anyway. I can confirm that, yes, at present we are planning to shed some additional light on at least a few characters and hopefully clear up a few unanswered questions. But you can expect more where those came from. Anyway, I'm really not at liberty to say who or what, but hopefully you'll be intrigued.

Q: You've drawn some reputation for having a short temper with fans. Do you think this is a fair assessment?

A: I don't owe anyone anything just because they happen to read something I helped write. If they're an idiot then I'm going to treat them like an idiot. I try to be fair. A lot of people ask very reasonable questions, and there've been times a reader's honestly stumped me. I kind of appreciate those moments, even though it's embarassing. But I have no patience for the entitled man-children who mistakenly think they have some personal stake in the series just because they've been blowing their welfare checks on it. We've got plenty of intelligent, thoughtful, appreciative readers. The rest can go to hell.