Rog 2000

Rog 2000 was one of John Byrne's really early characters, and one that he happily still seems to have a lot of affection for.
Rog appeared first in a fanzine called Contemporary Pictorial Literature  ( also known as CPL ), put together by Byrne and fellows future pro's like Roger Stern, Bob Layton & Duffy Vohland.
He was the zine's mascot, usually to be found adorning the top of the letters page, until eventually graduating to his own one-off strip in the mag, full of in-jokes and cameos from the production team.

After he made it into the semi big leagues with The Wheelie Bunch for Charlton, Byrne and Rog were offered the back-up slot in E-Man, for an all too short but very sweet series, also scripted by Nick Cuti.

Rog was a tough talking but kindhearted cabbie in New York, a spiritual brother to Ben Grimm, who just couldn't help falling into adventures, though you suspected that he'd really rather put his feet up with a good stogie and a copy of Hustler.
Rog was a great likeable character, who trod that fine line between parody and comedy expertly, ( in the same way that the second series of E-Man over at First, to pick one example, didn't ) and it's kind of a shame Byrne has never brought him back.

Here's his first appearance, alongside the time he had the opportunity to find out what it means to be human, and what a drag it is.

While here he is hawking sugar coated snacks to teenage America.

And finally...

Doomsday + 1

Doomsday + 1 was another one of those epics that never was, as well as, of course, being one of the first professional jobs in comics for John Byrne. Written by Joe Gill, it came from Charlton, that small company from Connecticut that numbered among it's alumni such greats as Dick Giordano, Jim Aparo, Steve Skeates AND Steve Ditko. Charlton never made much inroads into the UK, plus they were printed on appallingly bad paper, so we never took much notice of them when they did occasionally turn up.
We took notice of John Byrne tho', particularly when he started drawing X-Men, and the hunt for earlier material was very much on instantly. Doomsday + 1 was a fun little strip, with it's cast consisting of fairly dull hero, Jean Grey-esque heroine, disposable asian second heroine and ( for no readily apparent reason ) thawed-from-the-ice caveman, all travelling around the post-apocalyptic landscape, and getting into the usual sort of scrapes post-apocalypse heroes do.
Byrne's work here is VERY raw, but you can still see future echoes of the style that was soon to wow us all. Two interesting points as well. Note how much more finished Byrne's drawing of sexy babe Jill is in the third panel of page 12 than the rest of that page is. John spent a long time getting that right.
Also longtime X-Fans, check out that close up of the bearded henchman on page 18. Is that...?
Is that....That's Jason Wyngarde, isn't it?