Favorite Comic Artist Countdown #13 - Pat Boyette!

Pat Boyette is admittedly not an artist everyone is going to like, but I like his work very very much. I stumbled across Boyette's incredibly distinctive pages in some Warren magazines and in his Charlton work, especially his very own creation The Peacemaker. Boyette's biography is incredibly impressive, a man of multiple talents, he seemed always to be on the lookout for new opportunities. He not only made amazingly specific comics, he also made movies such as The Dungeon of Harrow,and he was a radio disc jockey too. But Boyette's style was hardly mainstream, one of its virtues, and sadly that kept him from clicking with most fans who wanted something more like what everyone else was delivering.

Boyette's ideal comic  genre was the supernatural, his style seemed innately possessed of a robust gothic atmostphere and he was the artist who kicked off the successful The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves. Even when he did science fiction as he famously did with writer Denny O'Neil on the stunning "Children of Doom" one-shot, the whole feels like some antique horror epic too. Peacemaker was apparently held in disdain by Alan Moore who remade him into The Comedian for the purposes of The Watchmen. But I've never quite gotten what the upset is about a man willing to fight for peace. It's not a contradiction as some have suggested but rather a realistic view of an imperfect and dangerous world in which peace is not just the absence of war. Boyette seemed  to get it, that reluctant warriors are to admired but not disparaged. Despite a sturdy runs on The Phantom, Flash Gordon, and Jungle Jim for Charlton as well Korg:20,000 BC. But beyond the little Derby publisher, Boyette never seemed able to find a permanent home for long, and you'd have to keep your fanboy head on a swivel to make sure you didn't miss his latest effort. He contributed much to the Indy market which seemed better capable of realizing what a robust and unique talent Pat Boyette was.

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